You might want to look at some gestalt principles. Objects are always embedded in a context. Analogously, what is more fundamental, the word or the sentence? Dictionaries contain words, but the fundamental unit of thought is the sentence. Our object-oriented consciousness may be a modern conceit.

Is it not possible to perceive, except in an object-oriented way?

I'd grant that we can comprehend non-objective matters like the good or justice, but our perception seems to be conditioned always by objects.

We perceive objects in contexts, gestalts.
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/waymaker-psychology/chapter/gestalt-principles-of-perception/

I get that we perceive objects in contexts. My question is, after we have applied the Gestalt principles: how do we become conscious of an object? Sure, I am happy to acknowledge that we use similarity and closure in picking out an object. My question is, after the mind has applied the principles of similarity and closure, at what point does "what-is-there" become an object to you? How does something, as it were, break out of the background of visual stimuli, the context, to announce itself as a distinct object? Because similarity itself does not guarantee that something enters into awareness as a distinct object. For example, two trees are green, but I recognize that, despite the similarity in their color tone, they are not the same tree.

Is it not possible to perceive, except in an object-oriented way? — NotAristotle

I would say it is not possible for humans to perceive visually, except in an object-oriented way. A couple of points.

1. Our visual perception is neural network based, and our brain does what amounts to fast data compression so that what reaches consciousness is a gestalt of an object, with knowledge of fine details requiring conscious attention.

2. Our ancestors needed very fast recognition of lions as being lions, without spending excessive time consciously assessing what it is they were looking at.

That sounds right to me wonderer1, it just seems strange to me that we should be able to perceive objects as objects at all.

In other words, it seems like it would be difficult to explain to someone who is not familiar with an object, what an object is. If I said to someone "That is a lion." And they said back "what is a lion?" And I said, "the big creature with a mane over there." They might be like "I understand that you are trying to point something out to me, but all I see is a mane-like appearance connected to a creature-like appearance surrounded by a context of Savannah, I am unable to pick out what you are referring to as a lion." And then what can I say to them, to indicate that there is something there, namely a lion, and that the lion is distinct from the surrounding Savannah.

And you might say to me: "NotAristotle, the lion is the thing that will try to eat you." This might cause me some alarm, but if I am unfamiliar, fundamentally, with what an object is, then there is no way for me to differentiate the lion from everything else in the environment perceived. In other words, I would have to pick out the lion first, before I have good reason to avoid it.

But I can pick out lions, and other things. How do I do this?

For example, two trees are green, but I recognize that, despite the similarity in their color tone, they are not the same tree. — NotAristotle

Beyond the cognitive and psychological construal of identity, are you looking for some kind of argument for a logically fundamental category? Our minds are wired to identify things in certain ways.

I am not looking for an argument, I am just saying, we can recognize objects as such, that's kind of strange is it not?

I am not looking for an argument, I am just saying, we can recognize objects as such, that's kind of strange is it not? — NotAristotle

If we were not able to identify objects it is unlikely we would have evolved to our current form.

But I can pick out lions, and other things. How do I do this? — NotAristotle

Because you have trained neural networks. (Although it seems likely that we have some innate programming to recognize animals as being animals in general.)

See this video to get a sense of how it works.

In other words, starting with a manifold of input such as shapes, colors, etc., it is unclear how the brain ultimately recognizes something as a distinct object. — NotAristotle

Note that the brain has a matching visual path for movement and spatial orientation. So the brain dichotomises by not just seeing a recognised object, but also seeing it in terms of its context, it’s relative position and motion in surrounding space.

Then also think how hard it is to see the trees for the forest or remember all the furrows and gullies that mark the sides of a familiar mountain.

Aspects of our world pop as objects because they strongly contrast with their surroundings as being separate entities rather than just a slight variation within a large ragged patch of variation.

So the eye is trained to recognise that which is an object in terms of having crisp boundaries and high probability of moving in a coherent fashion. Like an animal or other living creature. Or in the modern world, a chair or bicycle,

But when faced with landscapes, branching shrubbery, cloudy skies, it is looking a fractal objects with random markings and indistinct boundaries.

This again is a dichotomy the brain can latch on to as organisms maintain clear boundaries and move “as one”, so that pops out against a background of “objects” that instead do the opposite as they have random patterning as their visual characteristic.

Colour itself mainly evolved to make shapes pop out in the same Gestalt abrupt way. Objects that are indeed objects in being coherent and organised will tend to have a surface that is also coherent in its reflectance because it is all made out of the same material.

Colour vision makes that a big clue. A red plum in a green tree is easy to spot - once you are a primate who has evolved a third retinal pigment tuned to make that slight wavelength difference appear blindingly obvious from the brain’s point of view.

So the object recognition path is already being delivered a sharp contrast in terms of a landscape carved up in a variety of useful ways.

The eye is caught by the cat in the corner - a familiar coiled black presence of unpredictable movement against the contrast of the very bland and predictable furnishings - until we take a second look and see it is really something else, like a tossed aside blue sweater in a heap. The brain does a rough sorting of the visual field to find not only putative objects, but objects worth proper attending and making some further effort in recognising.

Mostly the world pops out in ways we don’t even have to pause and think about. We experience it as a flow of the ignorable. And that then grounds our sense of their being objects we need to properly recognise and take note of.

So the brain is set up with recognition capacities even more complex than you realise. This is the Gestalt figure-ground principle.

The brain is recognising what to recognise by also recognising what is to be ignored. Being “an object” puts something high on the list to being “properly seen”. As does being in “independent motion”. The two going together really grabs our attention.

Yes, visual recognition in the brain is a highly complicated process. We also have visual recognition in machines. I would think there are studies in neuroscience you can specialize in to perform a textual translation of the process, as you are attempting to do here. Can you even put into text how a finger nail grows? That is even a much simpler biological process than what is occurring during "cells recognizing objects." One thing we learn to do, in the disciplines is to study the simple and then move onto the complex. Do you recognize, A, B, C, D....how about the visual recognition neurological mechanisms in a frog?

This might cause me some alarm, but if I am unfamiliar, fundamentally, with what an object is, then there is no way for me to differentiate the lion from everything else in the environment perceived. In other words, I would have to pick out the lion first, before I have good reason to avoid it.

But I can pick out lions, and other things. How do I do this? — NotAristotle

And the answer to your question is, you would not have grown into adulthood, or into childhood without object-perception. Unless you are blind, no nerve endings to feel objects, and no other sensory features, and no perception of time (memory) -- in which case you would not have survived infancy -- then you really do not have a choice but be conditioned to know these things. This is your realism at its best.

No, the world does not appear to us as a painting simply because we perceive boundaries and points and edges. You can't escape your perception, so you have no choice but to view the world through these lenses.

Philosophy has been getting mixed up about this for a long time. It starts with error (in recognizing or identifying) and then tries to gain certainty (wanting to see an object “distinctly” as you say). The current manifestation to ensure our control is knowledge of the brain (cause then it will be science! and not us, subject to making mistakes). Your question is both easy and hard. How do we see an object as an object?

“See that object over there.
The grass?
No, I said, the object, dummy.
You mean the cat?
Oh, that’s a cat?”
Or
“You mean the cat?
No, I see the cat. The weird object with the lights above it.
Oh, yeah. Huh.”

We have criteria for what counts as an object, and can judge between cases. We have expectations in “pointing something out” and for seeing it, even for seeing it distinctly (from say, from the objects around it). It is a bit of a mystery because we (unreflectively) don’t usually parse out our lives that much (seems like an inherent ability), but it is not a “how does our brain do that” mystery. You grew up with objects: asking for them, pointing to them, naming them, etc. We aren’t confused about objects, we’re unsure about our future with them, because sometimes the magic doesn’t happen.

Antony, I like the dialogues you wrote, cool. Also, I appreciate you engaging with the issue I stated.

I have two questions to ponder:

(1) where do we get the criteria for what counts as an object?

(2) I think the issue is a "how does our brain do that" mystery. Light enters the brain through the retina, it is parsed as images (lines, shapes, colors, and so on). At what point does that assemblage of lines shapes, colors, etc. become an object? If it's the brain that does that, how does it do so?

Pattern recognition. Thats a huge part of what the brain does and it’s so dedicated to finding patterns that it will even see patterns that aren’t there, optical illusions etc
This feature of the brain is how we differentiate objects from the rest of it, or any perceived thing really.

Pattern recognition. Thats a huge part of what the brain does and it’s so dedicated to finding patterns that it will even see patterns that aren’t there, optical illusions etc. — DingoJones

:up:

(1) where do we get the criteria for what counts as an object? — NotAristotle

It’s a function of how objects have mattered to us over the course of human life; the different ways we are interested in them compared to, say, theories, or colors, or apologies. When we deal with objects, what do we count as a correct or appropriate judgment or approach or point in their identity, use, differentiation, mistakes, clarity, etc., such as: recognizing it as distinct, being made aware of a part (that you see and I didn’t), presuming a complete picture although we only see a part, etc.

And we come by these criteria in getting raised in our culture through training, watching, mistakes, etc., (unconsciously as it were, not using them overtly), and as philosophers (explicating them) because we can all propose criteria and agree with others’ claims. Wittgenstein and ordinary language theory get these criteria, or “grammar” as he terms it, by looking at what we normally say when, in this example, when we are dealing with objects. What happens is philosophy wants to abandon these ordinary criteria and impose a requirement for certainty first, which creates a fantasy picture of something mental from a desire to have something we can find out for sure.

(2) I think the issue is a "how does our brain do that" mystery. Light enters the brain through the retina, it is parsed as images (lines, shapes, colors, and so on). At what point does that assemblage of lines shapes, colors, etc. become an object? If it's the brain that does that, how does it do so? — NotAristotle

Sure, the brain is doing stuff (vision, attention, focus, etc.) but it does not determine why we are interested in objects, the ways in which they matter to us; our turning our attention to one, our pointing one out from another, identifying one, etc. One way to put this is that physical science can’t do the work of philosophy, can’t solve our concerns and confusions with our human condition. We want it to take us (our failings) out of the picture, but the process of working with objects is a human activity.

One way to put this is that physical science can’t do the work of philosophy, can’t solve our concerns and confusions with our human condition. We want it to take us (our failings) out of the picture, but the process of working with objects is a human activity. — Antony Nickles

"Human"?

Dogs don't bury bones? Beavers don't build dams? Owls don't catch field mice?

In other words, I would have to pick out the lion first, before I have good reason to avoid it. — NotAristotle

So you pick out the lion without having a good reason and then you pass your lucky genes to your offspring. Or you don't pick out the lion and your genes go to waste. Fast-forward millions of years and virtually everyone in the gene pool automatically picks out lions.

"Human"?

Dogs don't bury bones? Beavers don't build dams? Owls don't catch field mice? — Srap Tasmaner

Of course. I only meant to say activities, as: different and more than brain processes; ones we are responsible for, judge the adequacy of. We could say other animals share or can share some with us, even regarding objects, but, of course, we have our own relations to objects; say, our (human alone) relation to our understanding of our relation to objects.

activities, as: different and more than brain processes — Antony Nickles

our (human alone) relation to our understanding of our relation to objects — Antony Nickles

Agreed.

But to @NotAristotle's question, it does appear that objects are by and large constructed within the brain, without our awareness, and that this is true even of infants only some months old as well of many other animals. Not just by the brain as some sort of passive observer of course, but also through interaction with the environment.

That still leaves a lot of room for human ways of relating to objects that are distinct from dog ways or hummingbird ways and so on.

(1) where do we get the criteria for what counts as an object? — NotAristotle

Based on recent findings, some researchers (such as Elizabeth Spelke and Renee Baillargeon) have proposed that an understanding of object permanence is not learned at all, but rather comprises part of the innate cognitive capacities of our species. — wiki article on Developmental Psychology

(2) I think the issue is a "how does our brain do that" mystery. Light enters the brain through the retina, it is parsed as images (lines, shapes, colors, and so on). At what point does that assemblage of lines shapes, colors, etc. become an object? If it's the brain that does that, how does it do so? — NotAristotle

You'd have to read up on developmental psychology more than I have, but that's the place to look. The little bit of research I've read about has to do with infants, so for sure we're not talking about reasoning our way to objects -- there's almost certainly a specialized module for handling this stuff wired in, and connecting directly to a module handling some basic physics, which infants considerably less than a year old already understand.

Empirical findings are helpful. Thanks for the research advice.

it does appear that objects are by and large constructed within the brain, without our awareness, — Srap Tasmaner

What we want with this picture is to understand seeing and identification of objects without our participation in the process. The chance of error previously led philosophy to create the idea of “appearances” (compared to something more “real” or certain). The current fascination with brain processes comes from the same desire. The fact of the brain’s development of object permanence, etc. does nothing to help us understand “seeing” “recognizing” “differentiating” “mistaking” “changing aspects” etc., all of which are activities, not hidden brain processes. Our usual “unawareness” of these acts are because we are so trained in them we handle everything effortlessly, until everything falls apart or we turn to reflect on them in doing philosophy. For example: I point out an object you had no awareness of and you “construct” it into your world in learning to identify and differentiate it, learn where to find it, etc. In an actual sense, your unawareness of it as a separate distinct object means it does not exist (for you), as you have no reasons for it to matter, no criteria of our reasons to be interested in it. Basically, the brain’s activity during all this is not critical to, nor does it illuminate, the philosophical issues involved.

I would agree that an 'object' is a mental construct. I believe that mereological universalism is too vulnerable to a host of problems (Theseus/persistency/sorites/identity etc.) to be held reasonably. What we pick out are regularities in the underlying physical substrate by way of their sufficient differences from other regularities.

it does appear that objects are by and large constructed within the brain, without our awareness, — Srap Tasmaner

What we want with this picture is to understand seeing and identification of objects without our participation in the process. The chance of error previously led philosophy to create the idea of “appearances” (compared to something more “real” or certain). The current fascination with brain processes comes from the same desire. — Antony Nickles

I think you're on the wrong track here.

(1) Science is not the land of certainty. People talk this way sometimes, sure, even scientists, but when it comes down to it, science is a dogma-free zone. So if you're looking for certainty, it's religion you want, not science.

(2) No description of what the brain does concludes, "And this is how your brain allows you to know for certain that ..." It's similar to (1). Those perceptual processes we're unaware of, they do not provide some faithful reproduction of our environment, but useful working predictions. There are well-known ways -- various optical illusions, in particular -- in which if you think that's what you're getting, what you actually get will be awfully confusing.

(3) There have been persistent puzzles in Western philosophy that I believe largely stem from not having the concept of unconscious mental processes. Hume seemed to intuit some of this, in seeing that reason alone cannot account for our understanding of objects, causality, and so on, and yet finding that he experiences a world of objects and causal events. Objects, for instance, are given for us, because we do not in fact have conscious access to the "raw data" our senses take in -- by the time there's something we can be aware of, it's already been constructed as an object.

Our usual “unawareness” of these acts are because we are so trained in them we handle everything effortlessly — Antony Nickles

Depends a little on what you mean by "trained", but no this is just not what the research in developmental psychology looks like. The physics of objects begins showing up at less than six months old, practically as early as we can devise tests for it. If by training you had in mind some kind of social convention, that's just not it.

And it looks like we are not aware of how some of the basic building blocks of the world are put together for us because we cannot be. The connections aren't there. It may present a bit like a habitual activity that you can perform "on automatic", without thinking, but there are things that you were never thinking, not consciously.

For example: I point out an object you had no awareness of and you “construct” it into your world in learning to identify and differentiate it, learn where to find it, etc. In an actual sense, your unawareness of it as a separate distinct object means it does not exist (for you), as you have no reasons for it to matter, no criteria of our reasons to be interested in it. Basically, the brain’s activity during all this is not critical to, nor does it illuminate, the philosophical issues involved. — Antony Nickles

I don't see what philosophy has to gain by walling itself off from science.

What you give here is a description, and there are always alternative descriptions of phenomena possible, relying on differing frameworks, some more illuminating than others. Philosophy can sometimes do this really well, and there's value in that.

Science is something else altogether, not just description but explanation. They're not in competition.

science is a dogma-free zone — Srap Tasmaner

When I say certainty I only mean predictable, repeatable, knowable, etc., which are the criteria for the conclusions of the scientific method. EDIT: most importantly here is that it does not matter which (competent) person does the experiment to reach the same conclusion.

There are well-known ways -- various optical illusions, in particular -- in which if you think that's what you're getting, what you actually get will be awfully confusing. — Srap Tasmaner

That the brain can make errors does not account for all the errors that can be made (and its errors can be understood in advance). And the exact point is that if we are talking about brain processes, we’re not talking about mistakes and excuses and responsibility because of the desire to make our interplay with objects pure instead of muddled with those considerations and our relation to others.

And what is “given” is our lives over the span of human history, all the practices and expectations and implications and shared judgments and interests and failings. Reason and knowledge are not our only relation to the world but that doesn’t mean the relation is hidden from us, only that at times it is a matter of living through it; a matter of, say, me identifying to you which object or part of an object is of interest to me, which is making you “aware” of it (or failing to).

If by training you had in mind some kind of social convention, that's just not it. — Srap Tasmaner

Not sure you’ve specified what it isn’t, but focusing on our biological relationship to objects is fine (it’s not wrong), but only, it’s trying to answer a question that philosophy has misconstrued out of fear and desire (how do we know the back side of the object exists?, etc.)

Hume wanted causality and “real” objects, but his desire overlooked the unexamined ordinary ways we handle our world, and the mistakes we make in it, which created his fantasy of things that could be known, only somehow we’re just out of our reach (see Plato and “virtue”).

And it looks like we are not aware of how some of the basic building blocks of the world are put together for us because we cannot be. The connections aren't there. It may present a bit like a habitual activity that you can perform "on automatic", without thinking, but there are things that you were never thinking, not consciously. — Srap Tasmaner

Yet science can find these magical processes, though the cart is before the horse, as somehow we know what we should be explaining, but have only just not yet explained it.

(1) Science is not the land of certainty. People talk this way sometimes, sure, even scientists, but when it comes down to it, science is a dogma-free zone. So if you're looking for certainty, it's religion you want, not science. — Srap Tasmaner

Science can never be a dogma-free zone. It can be a practice that is self-aware with regard to its reliance on guiding presuppositions concerning not only the contents of its theoretical paradigms but the nature of its methods, the relation between observation and transformation, fact and value, and other assumed grounding structures of science. But most scientists haven’t arrived at that point yet. The fact that science tends to embrace falsificationism these days would seem to indicate the abandonment of the quest for certainty, but to the extent that scientists embrace the language of mathematics as the quintessence of precision, and separate observation from production, a different and more profound notion of certainty is still at work.

I think Antony is on the right track. I would just supplement his discursive interactionism with a phenomenological analysis of perceptual construction. Husserl’s account of the constitution of a spatial object gets to the OP’s question of how we arrive at the recognition of objects, and I think it does a better job of this than empirical accounts positing subpersonal, strictly unconscious mechanisms. For instance, there is no experience of an object without kineshthetic sensation of our voluntary movement in relation to the thing seen. Intrinsic to what the object means as object is our knowing how its appearance will change when we move our head in a certain way, or our eyes , or when we touch it. The object is what it is for us in relation to the way we know we can change its appearance relative to our interactions with it. Am I consciously aware of this relation between my potential movements and my recognition of an object? No, but this doesn’t mean that such knowledge is simply unconscious. Rather, it is implicit in my perceiving an object qua object.

When I say certainty I only mean predictable, repeatable, knowable, etc., which are the criteria for the conclusions of the scientific method. EDIT: most importantly here is that it does not matter which (competent) person does the experiment to reach the same conclusion. — Antony Nickles

But those are all good things, and the best way to fight off dogmatic certainty. Over here in the science-friendly world we say "Better a question that can't be answered than an answer that can't be questioned." (Feynman, though maybe not originally, I dunno.)

Science can never be a dogma-free zone. It can be a practice that is self-aware with regard to its reliance on guiding presuppositions — Joshs

I think that's abusing the word "dogma". Of course there are working assumptions, all of those things you mentioned, but in the long run any of them can change. In the right circumstances, even what constitutes an experiment can be up for grabs. Science is how we fight entrenched certainties and dogmas.

And the exact point is that if we are talking about brain processes, we’re not talking about mistakes and excuses and responsibility because of the desire to make our interplay with objects pure instead of muddled with those considerations and our relation to others. — Antony Nickles

There is plenty of room for all that, while still understanding where we're starting from, where we are all starting from insofar as all of our brains handle distinguishing objects, some basic physics, color constancy of objects and loads of other things in roughly the same way so long there's no damage or inhibited development. Rather than denying our responsibility for what we do with these capabilities, it provides the ground we stand on when we have those discussions.

focusing on our biological relationship to objects is fine (it’s not wrong), but only, it’s trying to answer a question that philosophy has misconstrued out of fear and desire — Antony Nickles

There may be something to that, but our very unconscious construction of objects is also and unavoidably driven by fear and desire, fear of what might harm us, desire for what sustains us. Just the nature of being an organism. My version, instead of telling people they need (philosophical) therapy, just shows them why they were so puzzled, shows the fly the way out of the fly-bottle. Hume would have been deeply gratified, as he would have had he lived to read On the Origin of Species, some of which he also intuited. (Darwin had the benefit of reading Hume, and did.)

Rather than denying our responsibility for what we do with these capabilities, it provides the ground we stand on when we have those discussions. — Srap Tasmaner

Abandoning our regular criteria for distinguishing an object in favor of a scientific explanation is the desire to have something we can know and which removes ourselves from the issue, rather than it being an ordinary act (distinguishing) that we do for ourselves or others, or fail to do, or make mistakes in doing. And when I distinguish an object to someone, and they ask how I am distinguishing that object (in what way am I distinguishing it, by what features or attributes), no one ever explains a process of the brain. It is not the ground of any discussion, a scientific explanation is the end of (reasonable) discussion (other than scientific correction).

My version… just shows them why they were so puzzled… — Srap Tasmaner

And this is the hope for science (for some)—that it will solve philosophy—but philosophy is puzzled because it doesn’t recognize the part that our fantasies play in requiring certainty as an answer. Simply believing that, yes, we can have an answer! is not the way out of the bottle, it is fuel to the fire.