Subjective or Objective: Which?

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
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gad-fly
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Subjective or Objective: Which?

Post by gad-fly »

Subjective usually begins with "I think . . .", whereas Objective would begin with "What others may think . . ." Which is superior? If asked, the answer to the question should depend on the surrounding circumstances. The answer may also be: None of the above.

The benefit of being subjective lies in the clarity of source, since I must understand and appreciate what and why I am thinking in this manner. The thought may arise from gut feeling, without justification, or it may arise after debate on my head about pros and cons arraigned against one another.

The benefit of being objective lies in there being many others arraigned against single me. Am I a megalomaniac to think I can be wiser than so many? I should be humble enough to submit to the majority. Who do I think I am?

The benefit of being objective lies in quantity. However, a person cannot see more clearly in himself than he can see in others. How he can be assured that a complete debate has been undertaken as to convince him to change his mind? Even if that outside debate has been undertaken, why should he being unconvinced change his mind, to submit to what may be called the dictatorship of the majority? Confuscius once said: If I am right, I shall go against millions. The moral of the story: Confuscius spent most of his life roaming in poverty, misery, and frustration. You should know which to pick.
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Re: Subjective or Objective: Which?

Post by Marvin_Edwards »

The difference between subjective and objective is demonstrated in the reaction that all of us have to videos of black men being killed by policemen. Objectivity is knowledge of reality, and knowledge is powerful. You want to convince someone? Provide objective evidence.
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wandorfullywandering
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Re: Subjective or Objective: Which?

Post by wandorfullywandering »

Thought - A certain facet of awareness between the brain and the mind.
Steve3007
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Re: Subjective or Objective: Which?

Post by Steve3007 »

gad-fly wrote:Subjective usually begins with "I think . . .", whereas Objective would begin with "What others may think . . ."
I say subjective begins with "It is my perception that..." or something roughly equivalent, and objective begins with "I perceive this, and I propose it to be something that any other sentient being, in my position, would also perceive...".

Maybe that amounts to the same as what you intended with the above?
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Re: Subjective or Objective: Which?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Subjective is thinking, not just "I think." What everyone else thinks is subjective, too, because subjective is thinking, period. Or more broadly, it's mental phenomena period.

Objective is the world 'outside' of thinking, or more broadly, the world outside of mental phenomena.

Hence, "Beethoven was a great composer" is subjective, because it's something that a lot of people think (or more precisely, how they feel about Beethoven's music--they like it, it moves them, it achieves things they feel are worth achieving, etc.), and that's all it is.

But if Joe Blow discovers a supernova and only Joe Blow knows about it at first, the supernova is objective, even though only Joe Blow is aware of it. That's because the supernova isn't a mental phenomenon. It's a phenomenon in the world outside of mental phenomena.

The objective realm is the world of facts (that is, states of affairs)--how things happen to be independent of how anyone thinks or feels about them. Objective things would obtain even if every single person were to disappear all of a sudden.

The subjective realm is the world of our feelings, our thoughts, etc. Subjective things would disappear if every single person were to disappear.
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Re: Subjective or Objective: Which?

Post by gad-fly »

Subjective in dictionary: belonging to, proceeding from, or relating to the mind of the thinking subject, and not the nature of the object being considered. Hence Objective: belonging to . . . the nature of the object being considered, but not the mind of the thinking subject.

Subjective and Objective are like two sides of the same coin, with neither able to claim better. The face of the coin that you can see depends on your angle of approach. Think subjectively, and you look at it alone; think objectively, and you are trying to guess what others may see.

The difference is that there is only single you but many others, like one side against many sides. Are many sides better than one side? Not necessarily, because sides are not born equal. One side can be better than the sum of many. Added to that, your single side is clear, but those many sides can be blur and misty. Subjective or Objective: take your pick with a clear conscience.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Subjective or Objective: Which?

Post by Terrapin Station »

gad-fly wrote: June 7th, 2020, 3:10 pm Subjective in dictionary: belonging to, proceeding from, or relating to the mind of the thinking subject, and not the nature of the object being considered. Hence Objective: belonging to . . . the nature of the object being considered, but not the mind of the thinking subject.

Subjective and Objective are like two sides of the same coin, with neither able to claim better. The face of the coin that you can see depends on your angle of approach. Think subjectively, and you look at it alone; think objectively, and you are trying to guess what others may see.

The difference is that there is only single you but many others, like one side against many sides. Are many sides better than one side? Not necessarily, because sides are not born equal. One side can be better than the sum of many. Added to that, your single side is clear, but those many sides can be blur and misty. Subjective or Objective: take your pick with a clear conscience.
The dictionary definition doesn't suggest that "objective" refers to other people. Other people are still thinking subjects, and what they think belongs to, proceeds from or relates to the minds of those thinking subjects.
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Sculptor1
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Re: Subjective or Objective: Which?

Post by Sculptor1 »

gad-fly wrote: June 6th, 2020, 3:27 pm Subjective usually begins with "I think . . .", whereas Objective would begin with "What others may think . . ." Which is superior? If asked, the answer to the question should depend on the surrounding circumstances. The answer may also be: None of the above.
It's the wrong question. You are living with the same assumption that causes havoc in Forums of this sort. Every school kid has been brought up with the idea that objective is associated with truth, rightness, correctness, etc; whilst subjective is personal, bias, even emotional (as if that were an evil to be avoided).
We see this creeping nonsense ad naseam to ruin several debates due to this false association.
It's not about "superior or inferior" its about just using the words to describe the situation accurately and clearly and at the right moment.
Subjective reflections can be more valuable that objective ones - it just depends on the situation.
And objective idea, can still be wrong
The benefit of being subjective lies in the clarity of source, since I must understand and appreciate what and why I am thinking in this manner. The thought may arise from gut feeling, without justification, or it may arise after debate on my head about pros and cons arraigned against one another.

The benefit of being objective lies in there being many others arraigned against single me. Am I a megalomaniac to think I can be wiser than so many? I should be humble enough to submit to the majority. Who do I think I am?

The benefit of being objective lies in quantity. However, a person cannot see more clearly in himself than he can see in others. How he can be assured that a complete debate has been undertaken as to convince him to change his mind? Even if that outside debate has been undertaken, why should he being unconvinced change his mind, to submit to what may be called the dictatorship of the majority? Confuscius once said: If I am right, I shall go against millions. The moral of the story: Confuscius spent most of his life roaming in poverty, misery, and frustration. You should know which to pick.
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Re: Subjective or Objective: Which?

Post by gad-fly »

Sculptor1 wrote: June 7th, 2020, 4:37 pm Every school kid has been brought up with the idea that objective is associated with truth, rightness, correctness, etc; whilst subjective is personal, bias, even emotional (as if that were an evil to be avoided).
Some luckier school kids have been taught to think critically. Some have been told to toe the party line, to equate personal with selfish and seditious.

Confucius said, "If self-reviewed and found right, there, but for millions, go I."
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Re: Subjective or Objective: Which?

Post by gad-fly »

Terrapin Station wrote: June 7th, 2020, 4:29 pm
gad-fly wrote: June 7th, 2020, 3:10 pm Subjective in dictionary: belonging to, proceeding from, or relating to the mind of the thinking subject, and not the nature of the object being considered. Hence Objective: belonging to . . . the nature of the object being considered, but not the mind of the thinking subject.
The dictionary definition doesn't suggest that "objective" refers to other people. Other people are still thinking subjects, and what they think belongs to, proceeds from or relates to the minds of those thinking subjects.
"The mind of the thinking subject" is the mind of the thinker on the thinking subject. If not his, whose? The thinker cannot have another's mind.

Literally in Chinese, Subjective is "from the angle of the host", and Objective is "from the angle of guests." Me and them. As a host, you cannot lay back and leave all decision to the guests.You call the shot, but the party cannot be held without guests. Hence a balance must be struck between subjective and objective.
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Papus79
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Re: Subjective or Objective: Which?

Post by Papus79 »

I can't relate to this phrasing of subjective vs. objective.

I think of the sorts of things that Steven 'Rationality Rules' would say about externality, none of which we can 'truly' verify but - it's the most stable thing we have. If we're sitting around a table, looking at a mug, and we can all agree that at a 360 degree pan that its a given color, that the handle is oriented so many degrees away from us and that we can all agree roughly on how many feet and inches it is away from us, which person at the table that mug is closest to, this sort of alignment of fact is what we commonly would think of as objective reality.

Subjective reality then would be any of the following:

1) My emotions, subjective to me, which no one else can feel aside from maybe seeing it translate - accurately or inaccurately through my eyes, facial expressions, or body language, and similarly my only impoverished contact with someone else's subjectivity is bridged in the same manner - ie. by what outward markers I can see.

2) Dreams, intuitions, and anything that arises subconsciously. This is sometimes about what happens when I go to sleep, some of the most interesting instances are when I'm waking up in the morning or wake up briefly at night, but it's a bit of flirtation and banter in my minds-eye, sometimes auditory centers, where other parts of my brain are still having their corporate minutes and giving me a bit of a wink. Similarly one can have intuitions and whether those intuitions are shared by other people is really independent and has more to do with the environment and whether you both have a similar knowledge base to draw from and similar attention set clued in to similar things.

With respect to that things like art, music, and poetry, are our some of our more abstract attempts to take what's in us and bring it out into the objective world and it seems like, at best, we can share certain principals and rules - art, poetry, and music are more like prisms in that sense - and to the degree that someone else might feel what we felt or meant to convey with the art has more to do with their alignment to us than much of anything else.

All of that said I can agree at least that our internal reference libraries can be filled with objective knowledge but that workspace is subjective to us, ie. no one can see inside my mind or exactly how I think. They might be able to relate to a degree but that's it.


So what I think that amounts to - objective reality is what we can agree on relatively easily (unless it comes to human affairs and politics where there's a LOT of motivated reasoning and variance of experience with different institutions) and from there - the subjective itself is something where we can share experiences, see how many we have in common, it can be fun to try to map those sorts of spaces, we can also occasionally - if we're feeling particularly bold - share our 'black swans' where and if we believe we've experienced one thing, another, or several, where we find current explanations or confines of consciousness wanting, but that's about it.


The one thing I'm really wary of in the OP and I'd have to disagree on somewhat strongly - I'm not a proponent of licking your finger, sticking it in the air, and using your sense of how many people believe what to decide what you believe. You can, if you find yourself in a rather small minority with dubious company, try to research majority opinions and try to get to the bottom of why you disagree with them and from there try to start with the most vanilla, universal critiques you have which don't require anything radical - that's where you can figure out whether your beliefs might in part be on to something that other people haven't thought of or, at worst are half-right in some way that other people are missing, and if that's the case keep digging because for the odd chance that you might be on to something it's worth adding what you have to add to the public commons in such a way that people can try it on and see where it fits. Otherwise - you're taking a piece of truth and burying it over intimidation, social concerns, or whether or not the lack of conformity somehow interferes with your ability to get 'laid' or get your genes into the next generation, and unfortunately that kind of short-range thinking has been a bit of a plague on our species.
Humbly watching Youtube in Universe 25. - Me
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Sculptor1
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Re: Subjective or Objective: Which?

Post by Sculptor1 »

gad-fly wrote: June 7th, 2020, 9:08 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: June 7th, 2020, 4:37 pm Every school kid has been brought up with the idea that objective is associated with truth, rightness, correctness, etc; whilst subjective is personal, bias, even emotional (as if that were an evil to be avoided).
Some luckier school kids have been taught to think critically. Some have been told to toe the party line, to equate personal with selfish and seditious.

Confucius said, "If self-reviewed and found right, there, but for millions, go I."
Lucky and rare. Indeed rare as many children find it easier to toe the line, and those without the opportunity to think critically have to resort to sedition.
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chewybrian
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Re: Subjective or Objective: Which?

Post by chewybrian »

gad-fly wrote: June 6th, 2020, 3:27 pm Confuscius once said: If I am right, I shall go against millions. The moral of the story: Confuscius spent most of his life roaming in poverty, misery, and frustration. You should know which to pick.
It seems like he is in good company. Socrates, Jesus, Diogenes, Epictetus... Many a wise man spent his life in search of tranquility and wisdom in place of wealth, power and other external things. Who is to say that these external things are more valuable or important than self-respect, knowledge, inner peace, and the chance to pass these on to others? Do we prefer the memory of Alexander the Great or Napoleon to these men?

You should know which to pick, indeed. Yet, millions go for the shiny objects and live in fear, greed, envy, anxiety, mistrust, hate... If money is the greatest good, when do you have enough to be content? Just yesterday I spent some time with a very wealthy man who is quite a miserable miser. He voluntarily bet hundreds on horses and bitched and moaned when he lost, and blamed the world, others, and events every time he did not increase his net worth, which is already beyond any reasonable measure of comfort or actual need. The rest of us mere mortals enjoyed the experience for what it is, laughing off the losses and taking the wins in stride, too.

Are you telling us we should sell out and work to become like this miserable miser, and trade inner peace for outer displays of pride? Perhaps MLK, Jesus or Socrates could have spared themselves and lived a few years longer by selling out? Would you say that they should have done so?
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid with regard to external things. Don't wish to be thought to know anything; and even if you appear to be somebody important to others, distrust yourself. For, it is difficult to both keep your faculty of choice in a state conformable to nature, and at the same time acquire external things. But while you are careful about the one, you must of necessity neglect the other." Epictetus, "The Enchiridion"
"If determinism holds, then past events have conspired to cause me to hold this view--it is out of my control. Either I am right about free will, or it is not my fault that I am wrong."
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Re: Subjective or Objective: Which?

Post by gad-fly »

chewybrian wrote: June 8th, 2020, 7:16 am
gad-fly wrote: June 6th, 2020, 3:27 pm Confuscius once said: If I am right, I shall go against millions. The moral of the story: Confuscius spent most of his life roaming in poverty, misery, and frustration. You should know which to pick.
It seems like he is in good company. Socrates, Jesus, Diogenes, Epictetus... Many a wise man spent his life in search of tranquility and wisdom in place of wealth, power and other external things. Who is to say that these external things are more valuable or important than self-respect, knowledge, inner peace, and the chance to pass these on to others? Do we prefer the memory of Alexander the Great or Napoleon to these men?
A better translation from Confucian Dialogue: "Found right after self-review, there, but for millions, go I." I quote to show that one should not be afraid to be Subjective, and even to stand against the crowd. Indeed, being subjective should be the first stand before any deemed moderation.
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Re: Subjective or Objective: Which?

Post by Steve3007 »

Making a subjective proposition is not synonymous with "standing against the crowd". Making an objective proposition is not synonymous with "standing with the crowd".

If I propose something to be objectively true, if most other people disagree with me (or simply don't make the same proposition) that doesn't stop my proposition from being an objective one. If I make a subjective statement about my personal taste or state of mind, other people sharing the same taste or state of mind doesn't stop my statement from being subjective.
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