The Message or the Messenger?

Everyone knows the sound of a violin is not the actual violin itself, right? I'm not so sure...

"North is that way"
"That car is red"
"This object is cold"

All of these statements are examples of us projecting an input into our senses as being a property of the object out there.  In essence, we humans seem to confuse the message with the messenger all the time.

The north pole of the compass in my hand points a certain direction, so I call that direction north, but really it is a magnetic south pole 'up' there somewhere that is attracting my magnet. So is North 'up there' in the direction your compass points?

Most objects (ones that are not glowing) are not a "color" - they re-emit certain colors being thrown at them and absorb others.  The ones that are re-emitted are what we see.  Look at a red car under a green light or in the nighttime and it will not be red.  So is it red?

An object feels cold because you are transferring heat to it.  If you had a lower temperature, it would feel hot to you!  So is it the object by itself that is cold?

If we do this all the time, what about when we see someone doing something bad?  Is that a bad person?

A person engaged in an act of kindness must be a kind person, right?

Someone acting in a warm way towards me must actually like me, right?

I should connect those happy feelings from advertisements to the product on the screen, right?

Wait a sec, I think I hear a violin...