So, you are a subjectivist... What is the difference?

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
Grunth
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Re: So, you are a subjectivist... What is the difference?

Post by Grunth »

Aristocles wrote:
Grunth wrote: (Nested quote removed.)


I don't even believe in my own subjectivity so I was never going to take anything personally.
It appears rather objective that one would "never take anything personally." Do you agree?
No. It is just a learned response. We begin with, and sometimes remain with, the automatic reaction to circumstance which is handy for physical survival, but in the case where only our feelings could get hurt there is a method to practice. One could say the information pertaining to the method spontaneously arrived as a consequence of certain relationships. After all we don't necessarily seek particular relationships within which information is shared. We just find ourselves in them due to any number of coincidences and circumstance. Everything seems to be about timing. For example, there have been many great musicians but the ones that made it big and became well known was more to do with accidental timing rather than anything else.

-- Updated April 4th, 2016, 1:20 am to add the following --
Steve3007 wrote: If they do, then we conclude that the deductive logic that we have decided links our abstract labels together expresses something about the objective world.

Does that make any sense?
Or just an agreed upon subjectivity.
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Spiral Out
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Re: So, you are a subjectivist... What is the difference?

Post by Spiral Out »

Steve3007 wrote:The Fahrenheit scale is defined such that the statement could not possibly be shown to be false (I think).
Only within the construct of mathematics itself. Mathematics is a translative system of representation that we use to turn objective phenomena into subjective understanding. Mathematics is only a tool. It is not a 1:1 representation of reality. It is a translation. Much like the LHC is a tool used to translate objective phenomena into a translated representation the Human mind can comprehend.
Steve3007 wrote:But they don't exist completely independently of this "objective world" thing that most of us assume, for our convenience, to exist. They are labels for things in that world. It seems that we can add labels to things in the world, then go away and apply some deductive logic to those labels, without further observations, then go back to the world and see if the labels still apply consistently as they did before. If they do, then we conclude that the deductive logic that we have decided links our abstract labels together expresses something about the objective world.
Subjective agreement at any level, even if it's of the vast majority, does not necessarily translate to objective reality. I assert that objective reality is unknowable as such and that the abstract constructs we use may or may not be a relatively accurate representation of objective phenomena. There is simply no way to confirm such an assumption as the claim that mathematics is correct.
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Steve3007
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Re: So, you are a subjectivist... What is the difference?

Post by Steve3007 »

Spiral Out:
I assert that objective reality is unknowable as such and that the abstract constructs we use may or may not be a relatively accurate representation of objective phenomena.
You say that objective reality is unknowable, but you don't actually say that it doesn't exist. Does this mean you believe that even if our subjective perceptions and our abstract concepts give us no knowledge of an objective world, that objective world still exists?
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Spiral Out
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Re: So, you are a subjectivist... What is the difference?

Post by Spiral Out »

Yes, I think an objective reality does exist, but hopelessly hidden from us behind the impenetrable veil of subjectivity. I think there is an objective substrate that our subjective perception is founded upon.

We (must) use that subjective perception in the creation of abstract constructs (mathematics, for example) in order to translate and represent the objective phenomena that we experience through our limited senses. It is the limits of our senses that causes us to be unable to comprehend (objectively) what we are experiencing (subjectively).

Think about it. We use all these abstract constructs, systems, equipment and machinery to translate this phenomena into a representation we can comprehend, mostly through visual or audio symbols or signals.
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Steve3007
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Re: So, you are a subjectivist... What is the difference?

Post by Steve3007 »

Yes, we certainly do use equipment and machinery (like the LHC example you gave, and less exotic examples) to extend the range of our senses. We assume that the patterns of visible light that we can see coming out the LHC's computer screens are caused by some other phenomena that we can't sense directly. High speed particles whizzing through a large tube and hitting each other. A clearer example: an infra-red camera system. We assume that the visible light coming out of the camera's monitor is caused by non-visible light (infra-red), which we can't sense directly, entering its sensor. Of course, we're not actually sensing the visible light directly either. We're sensing electrical signals in our optic nerve and assuming that they're caused by light hitting our retina. (And we could perhaps go on to argue that we don't sense those electrical signals directly either). The links between perceptions and the things we think of as their causes are all indirect. Some are just more indirect than others.

But I don't really see what you mean when you say that we are unable to comprehend (objectively) what we are experiencing (subjectively) but are able to comprehend "visual and audio symbols and signals" that represent them. What does it mean to comprehend something?
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Sy Borg
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Re: So, you are a subjectivist... What is the difference?

Post by Sy Borg »

Spiral, I agree completely. Most of reality cannot be experienced directly because it's either too small, too big or too dangerous. Even with our instruments our perception of our "objective" reality comprises almost entirely of abstracted short cuts. Objectivity in the human world is simply the sum of multiple subjectivities which only accord due to compatible sensory and cognitive apparatus.

Steve, as an exercise in comprehension, try to imagine the Earth beneath your feet. All of the 12,000kms of varying materials. You probably have a little picture in your head of cutaway drawings of the Earth's layers, or perhaps imagining scenes depicting artists' impressions of tectonic activity or hot magma from documentaries about the Sun to "comprehend" the core. In truth, we are entirely unable to comprehend our home cities, let alone the entire world on which we live.

Our impressions of reality are highly compressed in the same sense that digital images and audio are compressed. It's impossible to understand the individual circumstances of all things at all times, so we operate by compressed abstraction.
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated—Gandhi.
Steve3007
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Re: So, you are a subjectivist... What is the difference?

Post by Steve3007 »

It sounds to me like you might be talking about Reductionism. i.e. the way we manage complexity by creating simplifying models which concentrate on representing only the things we're interested in for present purposes.
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Aristocles
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Re: So, you are a subjectivist... What is the difference?

Post by Aristocles »

Steve3007 wrote: But I don't really see what you mean when you say that we are unable to comprehend (objectively) what we are experiencing (subjectively) but are able to comprehend "visual and audio symbols and signals" that represent them. What does it mean to comprehend something?
I understand this may appear absurd (and it may be, but not too different from what we may already believe, or as mentioned, become fixated upon), but let me try to emphasize another way:

As far as water freezing at 32 degrees F, it appears we simply cannot understand or measure 32 degrees, in the absolute sense for which I thought the example was mentioned. 32.00 (0000... to infinity) does not appear feasible, right? And water, pure hydrogen bound to pure oxygen, all molecules exactly the same, not even a photon of light or speck of dust present. Can we know absolute water? When water actually freezes, how would we recognize that exact moment? Standard pressure, time, visual acuity, etc.. Absolute?

Maybe even more abstract and harder to digest is experiencing just "1" in the equation 1 + 1 = 2. Equality too, incredibly abstract, but when we mention "meaning" that appears exponentially abstract. I do think the chaos and energy ideas have a place in this equation, as I see Greta mention elsewhere...

The comprehension and other instances of consciousness appear to have these seeming gaps too. I think we can only approach some semblance of objectivity through a semblance of subjectivity, with comprehension being somewhere in the middle (realizing that may be about as helpful as a deus ex machina)

(I would caution to assume too much beyond what I am trying to express, without further clarification. I have noticed Steve mention a utilitarian view in instances related to this topic. I would like to get there eventually, as here too I think our views are more similar than different.)
Steve3007
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Re: So, you are a subjectivist... What is the difference?

Post by Steve3007 »

As far as water freezing at 32 degrees F, it appears we simply cannot understand or measure 32 degrees, in the absolute sense for which I thought the example was mentioned. 32.00 (0000... to infinity) does not appear feasible, right? And water, pure hydrogen bound to pure oxygen, all molecules exactly the same, not even a photon of light or speck of dust present. Can we know absolute water? When water actually freezes, how would we recognize that exact moment? Standard pressure, time, visual acuity, etc.. Absolute?
The fact that 32 degrees F is defined as the temperature at which water freezes means that all of these physical considerations about the accuracy of measurements and the imprecision, at a molecular level, of the point when the water is deemed to have frozen are irrelevant. It is not a statement about the physical world. It is a definition of terminology.
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Aristocles
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Re: So, you are a subjectivist... What is the difference?

Post by Aristocles »

Steve3007 wrote:
As far as water freezing at 32 degrees F, it appears we simply cannot understand or measure 32 degrees, in the absolute sense for which I thought the example was mentioned. 32.00 (0000... to infinity) does not appear feasible, right? And water, pure hydrogen bound to pure oxygen, all molecules exactly the same, not even a photon of light or speck of dust present. Can we know absolute water? When water actually freezes, how would we recognize that exact moment? Standard pressure, time, visual acuity, etc.. Absolute?
The fact that 32 degrees F is defined as the temperature at which water freezes means that all of these physical considerations about the accuracy of measurements and the imprecision, at a molecular level, of the point when the water is deemed to have frozen are irrelevant. It is not a statement about the physical world. It is a definition of terminology.
I am saying it is less the "fact" from outside of us than it may appear, less objective. You mention accuracy, as science has built in "error" as standard procedure. I misunderstood, as I thought the water freezing was an attempted statement regarding the "physical" world, so I thought it was most relevant. Of a related note, I am trying to argue the physical and non-physical are as distinguishable as the subjective/objective situation of this topic.
Steve3007
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Re: So, you are a subjectivist... What is the difference?

Post by Steve3007 »

OK. No probs. I probably also misunderstood why this example was being used.
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Burning ghost
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Re: So, you are a subjectivist... What is the difference?

Post by Burning ghost »

To be honest I had never heard of "subjectivists".

We all have subjective positions and from them together we help define an objective world.

Without a subjective view there is no objective view. They are, primarily the same view. Our view of fhe world is caused by our causality. We see X happen whilst several other things happened and set up a causal framework. Over time we learn to distinguish which things caused X and which were just coincidental. This is a natural process and the active use of it leada to scientific method. We can never take the subjective view out of the objective view.

As we live in a very thun slice of time we have no idea what we see as causal is causal. It may just be coincidence. We can say that due to our view of time (not being a view that spans millions of years) that ir appears there are causal features and that our use of this information allows us to interact with our environment very successfully (for better or worse!).

If we were creatures of extremely long life and we heard about the humans view of causality we may laugh at them for thinking the speed of light was constant and that their rules, in general, were incredibly inaccurate because their data set was limited to a few centuries.

I say this because we rely on the empirical. We can accumulate enough data to be as good as certain about something. This certainty though only applies to the here and now and we then overexgend its use to create an absolute (a scientific constant) in order to model our universe. It doesn't take much investigation to see this process at work during the development of human history.

I am not saying all our objective data is useless. I am saying that if the human race exists in another 100 million years we may actually see a change in something we took to be a constant. This wouldn't render our previous knowledge as useless though because it was needed in order to model and find this out in the first place.

Already mentioned it somewhere on these forums already. Feymann said if nature fits into one perfect formula then it does. If it doesn't it doesn't. So what?

-- Updated April 4th, 2016, 12:20 am to add the following --

Sorry jusy seen "physical and non-physical" ... What do youmean by that?
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Aristocles
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Re: So, you are a subjectivist... What is the difference?

Post by Aristocles »

I am apprehensive of the relatively smooth seeming consensus thus far.... I am waiting for other's to add more before I come at this from a seeming reverse perspective.
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Burning ghost
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Re: So, you are a subjectivist... What is the difference?

Post by Burning ghost »

I will answer my own question then.

Physical means empirical. Non-physical is just negation of this and has no meaning. The use of non-physical is of negative use. Objective and subjective are similar. The difference being object/subject which are in essence the same, meaning they are known in combination not in temporal sequence. I am not a subjwct that comes to know of an object, I am a subject because I am exposed to an object. No exposure is no subject or object.
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Sy Borg
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Re: So, you are a subjectivist... What is the difference?

Post by Sy Borg »

Steve3007 wrote:It sounds to me like you might be talking about Reductionism. i.e. the way we manage complexity by creating simplifying models which concentrate on representing only the things we're interested in for present purposes.
Far more than that. Have you tried to truly comprehend the world on which you are sitting? You just can't. You can make many educated guesses but you cannot understand it. Consider all the communities and dynamics of underground life forms directly beneath you - plus their interaction the geology and underground hydrological cycles. Dig further down and the pressure and heat is so far beyond anything we've experienced we might as well be talking about the Sun (whose surface is cooler than the Earth's core).

The planet is far beyond our comprehension. You can understand what it's like to eat - in that you would have a good, although no doubt highly incomplete, understanding - but anything that is not directly experienced can only be understood in simplified abstracted form. The only way around it is for many minds to be fully integrated with AI, providing a much broader and deeper multi-pronged experience and understanding. Even then, it would still only reduce, rather than eliminate, limitations.
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated—Gandhi.
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