Abstract Objects become complicated in the age of media and art. The Mona Lisa is a phrase describing a painting. But what is the Mona Lisa? Is it the original painting itself or is it the image of the Mona Lisa or is it both? The answer lies within the individual’s confidence in their belief of what the Mona Lisa is.
A movie for example is an Object but what is it exactly? Is a movie the physical 35mm film that makes it up? Is it the digital copy provided to modern cinemas today? Is it the binary 1’s and 0’s on that digital copy? Is it purely just the combination of pixels that make up the movie for each frame and the series of frames? Or is it the story and characters contained in the movie itself? Media gives rise to a large discussion about Abstract Objects because there are many ways to view and define such content.
The answer, as naively simple as it is, is that all of those answers are correct because the definition is defined by the individual. However Popular Definition dictates how common discourse is conducted. When people refer to a movie of the Wizard of Oz they are referring to the visual experience, the story, characters, images, dialogue, and music. They aren’t thinking about the individual sub pixel brightness levels for each pixel on each frame. Both are valid definitions as to what the Wizard of Oz is, however one is a Popular Definition and the other is not.
This extends to other media, such as music. A specific song for example, Billie Jean by Michael Jackson, is it just the lyrics? the lyrics and instruments? the singer? or is the song something that can still be referred to as Billie Jean but has a remixed instrumental and different singer? There are remixes and remasters of music all the time, and music is an Object just like any human mental creation.
Human perception changes the meaning of physical objects. Billie Jean for example is not comprehendible to someone who doesn’t speak English, so to that individual the song is still the same sound that everyone hears but it doesn’t include the additional meaning from language.
The analysis of Human Perception (How humans perceive, see, process, and think of things) with regards to Objects becomes of paramount importance for Abstract Objects.
Other Abstract Objects include characters. Luke Skywalker is not a real Object, there is no human being named Luke Skywalker who was born on a distant planet and has a light saber and mystical powers such as the force. However in the minds of millions of people the character of Luke Skywalker is real. Luke Skywalker is an Object, but he is an Abstract Object because he only exists within the minds of people. Any other animal doesn’t know what Luke Skywalker is and Darth Vader and so on. And without any life none of those characters would exist at all.
The complications become even greater when we include digital media. A video game character, what is that character? Is it the physical binary 1’s and 0’s that just make up the character? Or is it our human perception and belief in that character? Super Mario is just an ordinary person with a mustache and red hat, but people don’t view that character as just a random person with no meaning, they view it as Super Mario, they recognize and acknowledge him, and thus the character of Mario is an Abstract Object, it is just as real as any physical matter because Thought is just as real as physical matter. In a sense, Super Mario is both real and not real, and it is this dichotomy of Abstract Objects that make it very hard for people to conceptualize.
Things become more complicated when we have video game characters that can interact in different ways. In a sense those characters are real and fake. They exist in the game and in one’s mind, but outside of that they do not exist. They are still Objects even if they are just lines of code, but without life there is no longer Thought, and without Thought these Objects become non-existent.