“Without anyone to appreciate art, there would be no aesthetic values.” This little sentence opens a whole world of consideration. In other words, the seer is the seen. Without a viewer there would be nothing that could be viewed.

The artist herself separates herself from her art into the artist-art duality. The idea was once inside of her, in her head, if you will, and then the idea became exteriorized onto canvas to create the duality — she is here and the art is there.

I have written about this strange concept of the objective and subjective after having meditated upon it. Going deep enough into what is so-called subjective I end up finding something that could be called objective, and the reverse is also apparent. Thus, the so-called inner world is not really inner at all, it is not inside anything. So it seems that our words are not describing any truth at all, but rather relativity to thought (not relativity to actuality). For example, if you were to move deeper and deeper into your own body you would eventually come to cells then molecules then atoms and then space. The space is no longer apparent as “in” you, as it is indistinguishable from space anywhere else. What then, is subjective or objective? The words are used for the purpose of describing our world and feelings, but they do not actually represent reality.

We add yet another complexity to this idea if we consider consciousness as the energy or life force (not completely accurate words) that moves and creates and destroys all that exists. We end up with the “tree in the forest” koan relative to what you wrote about the stars and planets. The “we” becomes important only because we say it is, driven by a construct of the egoic self. If all is consciousness then one who sees the stars is only seeing oneself — not as a human being, but as consciousness seeing its own self. Thus, the subject and object are one and the same; it is only split into two, or fragmented, by the belief that we are separate from what we are looking at. But the seer is actually the seen. Without human beings, there would still be the same consciousness to be aware of the stars and planets.

We may want to consider that science is no less subjective than art if for no other reason than the seer-seen relationship.

You wrote: " Implicitly, to understand something is to have an advantage over it. Yet it’s safe to presume that the universe at large is wholly indifferent to this primitive gambit of securing temporary, illusory advantages through displays of dominance." This is a great point. Knowledge itself is a limitation, because whatever you know is exclusive of everything you do not know.