Schematically Figure 2 is a very simple diagram of how we normally look at the world. It is so simple it is almost embarrassing. What are we looking at when we look at something? Where is the subject and where is the object? In this case the Subject in Figure 1 is the young lady. The Objects are the lake and buildings across the way. The Subject has normal sensory responses to this surrounding world of objects. Thus the Subject sees the world of objects that are before her. The Subject can also touch the Objects to determine if they are solid, hot or cold, rough or smooth etc. If the Subject is so inclined, she can try to hear, taste, and smell the Objects as well. She knows where she is and she knows where the lake and buildings are located. Nothing complicated.
However closely we look, both the Subject and Objects operate in the world according to the rules of nature. If the lady pushes against the boat it will drift into the lake. If she push against it too hard she may fall into the lake. If she blows up the buildings she will have nothing more than the sum total of the broken rubble. If the Subject were in the building it is the same: We pick up the pieces of the Subject and there seems to be nothing other than the sum total of her broken parts. There is no evidence of a ghost either laying there or having departed.
If the Subject walks around behind the buildings to that place which she can not see from the front, then all she sees are the backs of the buildings. There are no gods, angels, stars, or battleships sitting there. If the Subject turns around by the side of the lake she sees the grass and Objects behind her. Her dead grandmother is not standing there, there are no portals to heaven, no gnomes or gremlins. There are only the objects that the Subject would expect to see there. Upon closer examination the Objects may make sounds, smell funny, feel rough or smooth, or taste like yesterdays salami. We can also be reasonably certain that the salami was made by someone working for the sausage shop rather than by an angel from heaven.
If our Subject sits by a lake on an M class planet orbiting a star in some distant galaxy she will look and behave pretty much like she does on Earth. Her boat should do the same since, as far as we can tell, the laws of physics that govern our world will govern that distant world as well. Even there Thales water flows in great abundance. There should also be the same scarcity of things transcendent as we find on Earth.
We seem, then, to live in a world full of material objects and subjects (who, upon the closest examination, are also material objects). Wherever we look and however we look, there are no subjects in the sense of transcendent subjectivity's, minds, souls, spirits, angels, demons and gods. As we have known all along, we can only find, and we can only sense the water. Subjects and Objects - it is so basic, simple, and obvious that it is almost embarrassing to discuss or question it.
