Does a phenomenal experience require conscious awareness, or simply unconscious sensation?

Question

If a tree is experienced lying on the forest floor, did it come into existence when experienced, or did something cause it to lie there?

This question is all about the division between phenomenal, noumenal and objective (or asubjective). The experience of seeing the tree lying on the forest floor is certainly phenomenal, but did it become a phenomena when someone experiences it unconsciously (sensations), consciously (feelings), existing (existential noumena) or caused (temporally noumenal if not experienced phenomenally)?

The primary focus of the question is on the formation/manifestation of a phenomena and nothing else. But if you want to expand on that to include the distinction between it and the causal chain or it's relationship to noumena, feel free.

Answer 1

The phenomenon/noumenon is an ontological distinction, not an epistemic distinction. What I mean is that whether an object is phenomenon or noumenon is determined by what kind of things it is, and not by human knowledge. That is, a phenomenon is a phenomenon in virtue of what it is, and not in virtue of anyone being aware of it.

The reason it may seem like an epistemic distinction is because the ontological distinction is based on perception, but not on perception of individuals. Rather an object is phenomenal if it is a member of a kind such that members of that kind are possible objects of experience.

And "kind" is taken in a very broad ontological sense here. In this sense, people, trees, galaxies, neutron stars, and neutrinos are all of the same kind, namely material objects. The core of a neutron star in a distant galaxy is phenomenal and a neutron is phenomenal, even though neither will ever be seen or experienced by a person, because both are material objects.

It is impossible to describe the appearance, location, or mechanical properties of a noumenon because those things would make it a phenomenon. The most that you can say about a noumenon is that it is the cause of some phenomenon or that it has certain non-material properties. For example, God is a noumenon. One can describe certain characteristics of God but not his size or shape. Also, you can't observe the characteristics of a noumenal object; you need some other source of knowledge such as religious inspiration.

Instead of phenomena, I think the terms you are trying to get at are terms like sensation, sense data, or sensa. A distinction is often drawn between, for example, a tree as a physical object and a tree as an object of sensation. As an object of sensation, the tree has only the properties that are available to the senses, properties such as color, shape, texture. As a physical object the tree has other properties such as mass and composition. Depending on who you read, there may nor may not be overlap between the two sets of properties.

The tree as an object of perception, or sensa, only exists when it is being perceived. The tree as a physical object exists so long as it has causal, physical properties. Sensa are subjective while physical objects are objective. Some idealists try to reduce a physical object to a set of possible sensa. That is, you can't identify a physical object with a single act of sensing the object, but maybe you can identify it with all of the possible experiences of the object.

However, even though the pair phenomena/noumena has some similarities to the pair sensa/physical object, they aren't parallel distinctions. In particular, physical objects are phenomena, not noumena.

Answer 2

Short Answer

There is NO canonical answer to this question, because this question essentially prompts a series of questions that are the basis of philosophy. Anyone who gives you an answer is pushing their personal philosophical agenda. What constitutes 'knowledge' and 'existence' are essentially two of the most central questions in philosophy, and there are too many positions to answer your question definitively without qualifying with a worldview. A philosopher who believes in a loving, magical being called Yahew will have a different response than eliminative materialist athiest.

Long Answer

How We Know Things Exist

From WP:

A phenomenon (Greek: φαινόμενον, romanized: phainómenon, lit. 'thing appearing to view'; plural phenomena)1 is an observable fact or event.2 The term came into its modern philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which cannot be directly observed.

So, in the strictest sense, a phenomenon is simply a "thing" we "observe". For you, if seeing is believing, then a thing exists when you see it. The moment subconscious processing is brought to the question, then seeing is no longer believing. Intuitions can deceive us. So, it is an empirical fact that not everything we observe is true. Everyone has experiences that sometimes a "thing" that is "observed" isn't either the "thing" or isn't actually "observed". This is a byproduct of naive realism:

In philosophy of perception and philosophy of mind, naïve realism (also known as direct realism, perceptual realism, or common sense realism) is the idea that the senses provide us with direct awareness of objects as they really are.1 When referred to as direct realism, naïve realism is often contrasted with indirect realism.2

So, let's review:

Frick: Fine walk in the woods today, Frack.
Frack: Lo! It's a fallen tree.
Frick: Indeed. I think we can agree the tree exists.
Frack: And such knowledge is power, I say.

Here, we have two naive realists. They agree on two things. 1. That trees exist and 2. they know trees exist. This is the common-sense way to handle philosophical problems. Here, there is not really a distinction between knowledge and existence, and so ontology and epistemology are essentially one in the same. We know because we can tell what exists, and we can tell what exists because we know. But there are a class of experiences regarding epistemic sources that challenge this that includes broadly:

• illusions of perception
• confabulations of memory
• hallucinations of consciousness
• fallacies of logic
• deceptions of testimony

The Interrelation of Ontology and Epistemology

Why are these important? Because the primary difference between the experience and knowledge of things is roughly the application of the justification of true belief which is derived from language use; in this way, the ontological and the epistemic aren't really separable, except by pedants of categorization who wield necessity and sufficiency without any understanding of the pervasiveness of fallibilism. So, let's state explicitly: The existence of an object (ontology) except in the primitive forms of naive realism is never divorced from our knowledge of it (epistemology). For example, Frick and Frack consulted each other to assure each other what was seen. The moment two people disagree, all hell (read 'philosophy') breaks loose. Let's try again with Argle and Bargle.

Argle: My, a fine desert walk we are having. I see some water over beyond the dune. Let's partake!
Bargle: My dear Bargle, that is a mirage, I know that dune better than my own mother, and no oasis can be found near it.
Argle: There are a thousand dunes, and you simply are mistaken. Are you trying to keep me from my fair share again? I do dread your lies.
Bargle: I'm appalled, not at the accusation, but that your memory about my truthfulness is filled with such fiction! You confabulate, good Argle. And there is definitely no water over there.
Argle: Ah, but I clearly see it, and I believe I hear the wind whistling through the waves. Clearly my eyes can't lie, unlike you. Your conclusion is wrong on account of your bad character. I ad hominem you, sir!

So, now we are in a position to address (and not really answer) your question.

If a tree is experienced lying on the forest floor, did it come into existence when experienced, or did something cause it to lie there?

There is NO canonical answer to this question, because this question essentially prompts a series of questions that are the basis of philosophy. Anyone giving you a certain answer is pushing their personal philosophy. To wit:

• What do you mean by 'exist' and 'come into existence' and according to whom? Meta-ontology is the long-running conversation about various forms of existence such as Carnapian, Meinogian, Quinean, etc.
• Presuming causation is not a construct of the mind (modern science eschews causation for strong correlation, for instance), how do you know something causes something else? Meta-epistemology is the conversation had about different epistemological theories. Do you accept Gettier's problems as a problem, or do you brush them aside with a JTB+ theory? Are you a fallibilist who accepts the probabilistic nature of knowledge, or even a radical skeptic who denies knowledge exists altogether?

Three Conflicting Responses

We are now able to give you a few simple responses to illuminate Kant, phenomenon/noumenon and Das Ding an sich, and the roots of phenomenology.

Response 1: An Idealist who Advocates Supernaturalism

The forest is a gift from Yahew, and it is the will of Yahew that allows us to experience the tree. The Goodspells of the Bibble say that we once lived in an eternal field of delight Hether where rotting trees don't exist, and if we behave according to the Ten Imperatives, we will be allowed to escape this material illusion, and our Soles will against tread in Hether. How do our Soles interact with Hether? Well, there's the Pinetreal gland in the mind, and since the only thing we can be certain of is that we think, that is Cognitiono Ergon Summation, then we can be certain not only that the tree has always existed in the mind of Yahew, but that like our Soles, the tree is Eternal in Hether.

Response 2: A Physicalist who Advocates Scientific-Realism

Things exists independently of observation, and while natural kinds might not be perfect, it damned near is. The tree existed before it was seen, and measurable physical forces subject to rational argumentation and empirical evidence make it a certain proposition. Likely causes of the fall included weakening of the root system by the death of the tree, incision of the root system by insects, and a recent storm system with gale-force winds. And all of the philsophical mumbo-jumbo of metaphysics is meaningless. Ernst Mach said so, and he presents a compelling argument, after all.

Response 3: A Constructivist Neo-Kantian Advocating Embodied Cognition

There is the reality that our mind constructs, and the reality that is publicly accessible constructed by our senses. 'Existence' is a flexible linguistic device that people use to share experience. Does a tree exist? As a category in our minds, sure, which is not to say that matter is not real, but rather that how we conceptualize our perceptions is bound by the Kantian forms, notions such that all conscious thought is inherently spatiotemporal because the whole body itself constructs conscious thought and language in a way consistent with a physicalist position. A physicalist is someone who is simply adamant that due to the statistical success and utility of the physicalist model of the existence, it is only way to think, when in reality, the radical post-modernists certainly have a sophisticated, if not impractical set of claims about existence. Idealists and physicalists, naturalists and supernaturalists, they're just fulfilling their emotional drives whenever they take an absolutist stance. Different bodies and brains have different temperaments which process information in different ways. Arguments over existence are somewhat big-little-endian.

Summary

Your questions are great questions, because they are the questions that set off a thinker down the path from naive realism into critical thought. A phenomenon is something you consciously believe might exist, and noumenon is how the thing you claim might exist differs from your observation. Whether or not you're a highly reductive physicalist, believe in the supernatural, or accept a constructivist epistemology or a Meinogian ontology all determine the answer to your questions.