Objectivity

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
41

I would add some more:
memory is to some extent effective
There is a reality external to our perceptions of it - though some parts of science have been questioning it. IOW the whole model of perception subject → perceives → objects has been a ruling assumption in science. That is a kind of realism.

Science also moves forward using models, all the time. Generally models are not the direct results of research, but ways of describing, often metaphorically, how a lot of empirically arrived at facts hang together. These models are assumptions, and their limitations get shown when there are paradigm shifts. They hvae been effective in guiding research. IOW they are often effective assumptions.

42

You wouldn’t know. But if you are dead and you didn’t “see” the brick that killed you then that must mean the brick exists even when the subject knows nothing about it. It (the object) exists independently of the subject’s thoughts.

What are these phrases “intersubjective objectivity” and “intersubjectivity of objectivity”?? How are they different from plain inter-subjectivity or objectivity?

43

That second sentence contains ontology or I think it would be better put: it contains metaphysics. And using the term ‘scientific method’ as part of what science is interested in creates a bit of a tautology. The scientific method also contains assumptions. Not saying that’s a bad thing, just that it is.

44

Umm… prismatic, I’m not religious because I can prove god doesn’t exist and I can prove platonic forms have to exist (eternal forms) thus no regress.

Hate to break it to you: all religious people are wrong

Now, I’ll grant you this: as you think, so shall you become, assuming it doesn’t violate the law of contradiction.

45

attempt at a refutation of the ecmandu/platonic forms:

there are two tables in this room. each table is different in shape, structure, and color… but they’re both still tables. why? is it because each table is a particular instance of a universal form ‘table’ that i have an idea of, and which exists in another realm? let’s say ‘yes’. now, i want to go to this eternal realm of platonic forms and see the Table that all instances of tables in this realm are a imperfect copy of. what is the table going to be like? will it look more like the table over there, or the other table? perhaps it doesn’t look like either tables. well, it has to look like some table, somewhere, here in this world… or else how would i identify it as a table rather than, say, an onion?

now if it looks like some table here in this realm (identical in shape, structure and color), wouldn’t i be able to say that if i found the table it was identical to, i would have found the perfect platonic form Table, here in this realm? well i should be able to say that, but according to the theory of forms, i could not.

what is happening here is a paradoxical inversion of the forms; i cannot have the idea of Table unless the perfect table which the idea is of, resembles some table in this realm. it would have to, or else i wouldn’t be able to know it was a table. and yet if it does resemble a table in this realm, it follows that at least one table in this realm is the universal form Table… which is a table that is not supposed to be in this realm.

any platonic ideal form of a universal must, by virtue of it being possible to identify it as such, be identical to some abstract, particular instance of it.

but it gets even more problematic. what defines a table as a table? what it is, or how it’s used? if i stack papers on a chair, would the chair be providing the same function as a table? it seems so. now if i were to object and say ‘no, you can use the chair like a table, but that doesn’t make a chair a table’, one might ask me ‘well then which of these tables is the real table? that one over there has only three legs, while this one over here has two shelves and five legs. if you say they are both tables, and yet they are not the same, the only thing making them identical would be how they are used… in which case the chair would then qualify as a table because it is used the same way.’

ah. we are mistaking the substantive for the ‘word’ table… we are imagining that there is a ‘thing’ that is a table rather than simply defining a table as something used in this way.

suppose i poured orange juice into a shoe and began drinking it (i washed the shoe first, so relax). is the shoe now a cup? if you say no, i follow with the same objection; show me the real cup, then. is it that one over there that is blue with a handle… or the yellow one without a handle? if you say they are both cups, you’re admitting that what a cup is does not determine whether or not it’s a cup, since these cups are different. it must be how these objects are used that defines them as ‘cups’.

while i’m in the platonic realm standing beside the perfect Table, at which plato is seated and scribbling something profound on some wrinkled parchment, i show him a polaroid of a table in my realm that looks exactly like the Table he’s seated at, and say ‘explain that, buddy’.

he replies ‘oh… that’s not the same table, it just looks like this Table.’

i then say ‘so what makes this table you’re seated at the Table? just the fact that it’s here in this realm, rather than the other realm?’

he pauses and looks at me suspiciously… this due to the post traumatic stress disorder he’s developed after arguing with all the sophists. then he says ‘yes, what makes this Table the universal form of all tables is the fact that it’s here rather than there.’

‘so then the Forms have nothing to do with what they are, but rather where they are?’

(at this point he starts to panic, and wishes he could bring socrates in to save him.)

‘i know what you’re thinking, Plato, and don’t bother. i eat philosophers for breakfast so socrates can’t save you. now then, in your original theory you stated that particulars were imperfect copies of universals which exist here in this realm… now you’re saying that the form of the universals is not what distinguishes them from the particulars… but rather the location of the forms, instead.’

plato shifts in his chair uneasily and starts in again…

‘but this Table is the perfect table, and whatever table happens to resemble it does not on that account become equal to it.’

‘look dude, i just showed you a picture of a table in my living room that LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE THIS ONE; made of the same wood, having the same weight, structure, shape, density, color. now, what on earth… er, i mean, what in the platonic realm could you possibly mean by ‘equal’ if not the physical characteristics of the thing in question?’

suddenly ecmandusattva materializes out of thin air wearing a blue coat at which plato stares in astonishment. he says ‘damn, that’s a pretty solid coat man. is it water proof gortex or just water resistant?’

‘it’s water proof, yeah… and it matches my blue eyes… did you notice? here’s the link to the post a picture thread at ILP. you can bookmark it if you want.’

plato opens his platonic chrome browser… the perfect Browser that is free of all the bugs the particular chrome browsers in this realm suffer from, and goes to ILP.’

ecmandusattva begins…

‘the solution to the problem promethean75 poses is the hyperdimensional mirrors.’

plato starts and nearly drops his laptop.

‘how do you have knowledge of the hyperdimensional mirrors?!’

‘i’m 47 gazillion years old and have been travelling universes forever. it’s the kind of thing you eventually discover when you’re like me.’

now i cut in…

‘gentlemen, i don’t see how hyperdimensional mirrors solve the simple problem i’ve presented to mr. plato concerning is theory of Forms. bring in as many mirrors as you want… still doesn’t change anything about my argument. and listen, plato, you still haven’t answered to your homeboy aristotle’s argument against your theory, either. why? you scared, nigga?’

plato furrows his brow and inquires.

‘what is a ‘nigga’?’

‘a ‘nigga’ is a particular imperfect copy of the universal Nigga that exists here in your realm. hey, you said it, not me.’

‘well i’ve never seen a Nigga so i can’t say such a Form exists.’

ecmandusattva cuts in.

‘the platonic Nigga can be found using the hyperdimensional mirrors.’

‘no man… you’d end up at the same problem with the Nigga. if i found a nigga in my realm that was identical to the platonic Nigga in this realm, the distinction between particular niggas and universal Niggas would vanish. the only way around this dilemma is to redefine the nigga to mean how the nigga is used, not what the nigga is. and if that’s the case, i can call a white boy a nigga if i dress him in an oversized adidas jump suit, give him an illegitimate job selling drugs, and teach him to say ‘ax’ instead of ‘ask’. i think i’ve sufficiently made my point, gentlemen. the platonic theory of Forms is nonsense, as the existence of vanilla ice clearly demonstrates.’

ecmandusattva makes a last ditch effort to regain the upper hand.

‘no, you misunderstand. we’re all collectively hallucinating niggas against our consent.’

‘well it ain’t against my consent, dude. i actually like vanilla ice. check this out; alright stop, collaborate and listen… ice is back with a brand new invention… something… grabs ahold of me tightly, flow like a harpoon daily and nightly…’

plato suddenly jumps out of his chair and drops the next verse.

‘will it ever stop, yo, i don’t know… turn off the lights, and i’ll glow…’

spit that shit, Plato!

plato, now doing the mc hammer across the floor in his toga, continues.

‘to the extreme i rock a mic like a vandal… light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle…’

by now ecmandusattva, appalled at the developing situation, has lost his enthusiasm. he puts his earphones back in, switches on his CD player which holds a depressing air supply greatest hits CD, dematerializes, and travels back to ILP without escalating his approach (so to avoid one or more of the five heartbreaks).

after promethean75 and plato have finished the song, they sit back down at the platonic Table laughing, and pick up the former conversation.

‘i think i understand what you mean, promethean75. i hadn’t thought about my theory so critically, before. you’re right; there can’t be a clear distinction between particulars and universals like i thought.’

'right. it’s only when you confuse yourself with metaphysical thinking that you arrive at problems of identity. what i’ve shown is that ‘things’ in the world are defined by how they are used, not what they are. the very idea of the universal either admits of having to be identical to a particular, or to being defined by its function rather than its identity. in either case, you find that there are no universals.

with that, promethean75 takes off his shoes, pours wine into each one, and offers to make a toast to their new found philosophical wisdom.

46

Who is talking about massive trees? Paradigm much?

I have oodles of trees in pots that I dug up. I probably have 50-60 in styrofoam cups. Funny how “tree” to you = roots extending to japan but “tree” to me = a sprout in a cup. See? You’re making my argument for me.

Yes I see.

Impressive!

Oh. Well perhaps those in charge of decorum will take note.

We can remain hopeful :smiley:

47

So I’m
Sure you remember me stating the eternal forms are not perfect, but rather, a template. I’m sure you also remember this:

If any information ever gets destroyed, the first thing someone might think is that nobody would know.

BUT! There’s actually a proof that it doesn’t…

If it ever is destroyed, it couldn’t exist in any present state in the first place, as the present is a subset of its existence.

Then trixie responded as trixie responds: to which I replied “because there are intelligent beings, information has no choice to unexist.”

So: eternal forms exist

Eternal forms as a template, allow you functionally to use a shoe as a cup. There’s no contradiction there.

Why is it so difficult to make a joke: you’re drinking out of a shoe-cup right now! Templates allow for these types of distinctions

48

hmmm, that’s an interesting way to put it. i see what your getting at, i think.

let me look more closely at this:

okay, not to detract from what was said in the first quote - i don’t think the two quotes are working together like you think - let me suggest that we’re using the concept ‘experience’ in an inappropriate way. if we were to simplify your argument and just say that all that exists is ‘information’, we’d not need to qualify that proof with the fact that information can be experienced. most eliminative materialists call the notion of ‘qualia’ nonsensical; that ‘experience’ does not add an additional substance to existence and does not change the nature of the substance that does exist (in the form of information). so really the relationship we’re talking about between things that ‘have affectance’ (james) is one of physical interaction, not ‘experience’. that is to say, we add nothing to the interaction between things when we call such interaction ‘experience’… as ‘experience’ isn’t in space/time like the information and its various activities. so to say that something doesn’t exist until/unless it is experienced is to say that it has no physical reality until/unless the property of ‘qualia’ is added to the nature of its activity as information. of course, the physical interaction between humans and particles and anything else that exists can be explained in terms of movement (radiation), but we need not call a particular causal interaction between entities an ‘experience’.

another disputation to that argument is that we are anthropomophizing (pathetic fallacy) the concept of ‘experience’ by using it to describe behaviors of things that dont share our language, and therefore can’t confirm they can experience. it’s then only through a rather shaky analogy that we change the usual meaning of the word ‘experience’ and say that an electron is ‘experiencing’ its relationship to a nucleus in the same way joe experiences a conversation with bob. but again, if we reduce the meaning of ‘experience’ down to simply ‘physically interacting’, then all the information in the universe exists regardless of whether or not the qualia of it can be produced in experience.

so by ‘objective’ we can only mean the state of things with the exemption of experience as a qualifier. using the concept of ‘experience’ in the way you use it first divides this information into two ontologically distinct substances - one of the physical and the other is the immaterial ‘qualia’ (the perception) that is produced when a particular kind of interaction we call ‘experience’ exists between entities… and then it substantiates the existence of one with the other.

but the first quote i can get down with. if we hypothesize everything that exists as set x, there is nothing set x can be relative to, nothing it can be affected by, nothing that’s outside of it. it wouldn’t be interacting with anything. but to say it can’t exist unless it is interacting with or affecting something, doesn’t seem to follow. we simply have a kind of parmenidian block of substance that can’t not exist. our definition of ‘objective’ in this case would only mean; the necessity to exist without any qualification. it’s the properties of this existing block that gives rise to inquires about ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ kinds of knowledge about it… but it doesn’t rely on its properties being ‘known’ to continue having to exist.

49

All those are subjective concepts regardless of semantics.

you
grow
tree
root
apple
warm
your
dirt
fire
sustained
eating

All those concepts have to be defined subjectively.

I’ve cloned twigs before. Probably could do it with leaves.

Well I eat dirt, air, and sunlight in the form of an apple. It depends what you mean by “eat”. Or what you mean by “root”: the apple is not part of the root? And I’ve seen a guy eat a bicycle before.

Eventually you’ll find one where I can’t worm my way out and then I’ll simply say that wasn’t what I was on about in the first place. Subjectivity isn’t necessarily mere opinions, but how one thing relates to another thing. A charged particle is subject to electromagnetic fields. Neither the particle nor the field exists objectively, but only in relation to each other and subject to the means they have for relating.

The positive charge doesn’t exist on its own; it’s not objective. The positive charge exists only in relation to a negative charge. Then you’ll say the relationship is objective. Is it? Can we have electromagnetic interactions without the particles? What is energy without matter and what is matter without energy? There is no conceivable absolute.

Next you might claim what you meant was that there are physical laws that cannot be broken, but there you’d be wrong too. There are no laws, but just observed regularities. Michio Kaku gives his phd students the problem of calculating the probability that they will suddenly vanish and wind-up on the planet Mars. It’s very much possible for a cold object to make a hot object hotter. It’s possible that you could fall through the floor one day. It’s possible that gravity could suddenly stop working. Anything is possible and there is nothing saying it’s not. The “law” terminology in science is a holdover from religion.

50

No laws eh?

How about this:

You are a subset of existence. If YOU ever get completely destroyed before you were born, you wouldn’t be here right now. This is proof that you weren’t unexisted from the past. If anyone travelled to the future to undo your entire existence, YOU would not be here right now. YOU know for a fact that YOU are never unexisted.

That’s a law.

You’re also simply stating that otherness needs to exist in order for existence to exist, which is true, and is a disproof of god, that’s another law.

Non existence is the absence of all existents, the reason we exist is because absolute nothingness is defined as: isn’t — this is the opposite of isn’t, thus why existence exists instead of not existing. Another law.

I can go on…

51

If all that exists is information, then what is the information about? If the information is about how to do X, then X must not be in the set “all that exists”, but you stipulated all that exists is information, so X must be in the set “all that exists.” What good is information without something on which to apply that information? What use is a gardening book without a garden? If there were no gardens, then the information would not be information. Energy needs matter to exert itself on, and matter needs energy to assert itself. Vibrating electrons cause electromagnetic radiation, but the electrons are themselves also energy.

There is no way to make logical statements about all things.

If everything that exists is god, then how does god experience himself as god if there were not something that’s not god?

If all things were moving in a certain direction, then how could you know unless there be one thing that is not moving? But there can’t be anything not moving because it was stipulated that all things are moving.

Right. The only refuge is to posit a “spirit” bestowed from outside the universe that qualifies experience as something more than an artifact of physical interaction.

The word “experience” contains connotations that only serve to confuse. Atoms experience their world, molecules experience their world, proteins experience their world, cells experience their world, organisms experience their world and all of them do it in accordance with the means they have to experience what there is. Dark matter, for instance, has no capability to interact with light since it contains no charge. Dark matter only exists in terms of gravity, but if it were void of that, could it be said to exist? Could there be a thing that doesn’t interact with anything? And that’s how James discovered his affectance ontology.

It follows if the axiom is true: that which has no affect does not exist. Is the axiom false? Can things exist outside of any context?

That seems correct.

Something exists, but it cannot step outside itself to know what it is. God/the universe cannot be an object of his own knowledge. An eye can’t see itself; a knife can’t cut itself; teeth can’t chew themselves.

52

Yes, it’s a law :wink:

If I were to ever be destroyed before I was born then I would have never existed and none of these posts would have existed. Not only would I not be here right now, but I would have never been here.

I don’t understand what you’re saying. How does one travel to the future to arrive at the past in order to destroy me?

Not necessarily. If we traveled to the past, we would have no consciousness of it; it would be simply playing your life out in reverse and then stopping only to play it out forward and it would seem like normal everyday life. You’re thinking of traveling into the past as if it were the future for you, but that’s not the past.

And yet T has no other, yet exists.

If law #1 says there can be no self without other,
And if law #2 says there can be no other (nonexistence to be the context of existence)
Then the laws conflict.

There is something in the middle of nothing because we can’t have something without nothing. But nothing also isn’t a thing by definition.

Go ahead.

53

In case people haven’t figured out yet on ILP, I’m horrible with the quote function.

So anyhow.

If someone travelled to your exact past and killed one of your parents, you wouldn’t be here. This, as a law, is proof that you never were or never will be unexisted… 0% probability.

Now, since YOU are a subset of existence, if YOU are ever destroyed as a continuity of consciousness, and your continuity of consciousness is a superset of your existence, YOU couldn’t be here now. Meaning, you can never be unexisted by any means in the future as well.

So… that’s a law.

God doesn’t exist. God is defined as omnipresent, you need to be omnipresent in order to be omnipotent and omniscient. If god is omnipresent, it is impossible to generate the concept of “outside of me”, this would make god point left when the sun was setting to the right and say, “look at the pretty sunset”, because god wouldn’t know that left was outside of right.

Non existence : isn’t … it’s not a thing with which to we can state existence is different than it. Existence is defined by other existents, not non existence.

Let’s straighten these out first

54

I don’t mind.

Watts said he was the evil gleam in his father’s eye, so if you had killed his parents, he would have grown out of the universe in some other way.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNd6rH2GGz8[/youtube]

Me as a consciousness is a character expressed as a pattern by the universe itself. The experiencer precedes the consciousness. Consciousness is just memory, but experience doesn’t require memory to experience. Memories are lost, but experience goes on.

I don’t know what the law insists be true; there is only what is. You say if we go into the past and do x y and z, then this conclusion must happen, but that’s just what happens to happen and there is no law in the background orchestrating it; it’s just subject to what is. The universe is probabilistic and fundamentally causeless.

The universe is omnipresent and has nothing outside of it, how is that different?

I disagree because if there were nothing but something, then something would be ubiquitous and have no contrast, so it wouldn’t exist. Something requires nothing in which to exist.

55

Instinct is memory … there is no experiencer, even if it’s a tree, that doesn’t at least have instinct built into it. I don’t believe (because of this) in your hypothesis of the non conscious experiencer.

The law works through a few propositions using the law of contradiction to show that it is a governing principle to all existents, regardless of opposing positions. There’s even a further law that opposing positions to immutable laws are used as conspicuous consumption for attention … so even these types are explained through natural law.

The universe is fractured, it is not omnipresent, one of the ways I’ve described this, is to imagine an infinity processing itself, not as a sentient being, but more like old computers. What happens when it’s omnipresent in infinity? An error! BUT! The beauty of this error is that it forces motion to occur, and thus existence to exist, as it always has. Omnipresence is still a function, self aware or not, and that function errors.

Something else is not the same as nothing.

56

True but it’s not conscious memory.

Well if you put lines between life and nonlife then you have a tough problem to solve.

None of that is law. Things can be in two places at once, go through walls, go back in time… all sorts of absurd things happen. And what about causeless events?

Infinity doesn’t exist but where infinity occurs, it’s evidence that the universe is looking at itself.

No-thing is lack of things, but is also context for something.

57

I’m going to let my former posts stand on their own, as this wasn’t really a reply to them.

58

If you reflect harder on the above, you will note the above ‘points’ are only valid as long as there are humans [DNA wise].

Therefore whatever the ‘objective reality’ that YOU claimed with other humans on the like, the fundamental basis of this ‘objective reality’ is still subjective, i.e. intersubjective.
There is no way humans can arrive at the above cognition [conclusion] without being humans individually and collectively grounded on its evolution.

Note Wittgenstein’s;
'Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent’
To know what is going on after the human species is exterminated or extinct is an impossibility, thus “whereof one cannot speak thereof” or thenoff, “one MUST be silent.”
If one were to speak about it then it has to be qualified to the speaker[s] subjectively and intersubjectively.

Thus absolute objective reality is an impossibility.
The only objective reality is a subjective or inter-subjective one.

No! we are not pushing reality-as-it-is into Bekerley’s Subjective Idealism which require a God’s mind to sustain it.

Our focus is on the subject engaged in reality i.e. within Empirical Realism, btw, not philosophical realism.

59

Precisely! it is because the real nature of things, i.e. its absolute objectivity is ontological that Science [which is not Philosophy] has to make as assumption of it so that it can proceed to explore empirically whatever is on hand.

It is because objective reality is ontological that Science need to make an assumption of it.

Science has to assume there is something out there external to the subject that can be studied.
Philosophy for eons had raise issues, perhaps there is “nothing” [philosophically not empirically] at all out there.

Note Russell’s

So the point is we humans cannot be so certain as if we are omniscient. Thus whatever is the most objective conclusion we can come up with, it has to be grounded subjectively and intersubjectively.

60

Kant had proven Plato’s forms were merely ungrounded illusions. Note,

Obviously Plato was highly intelligent but at the most refined level of philosophy, his mistake on the Universals and Forms, in principle, is the same as the following;
it is equivalent to a schizo claiming the gnomes in his garden are real because those gnomes has a conversation with him, i.e. ungrounded without support but merely in his mind.

Theistic religions are based on a necessary illusion but not non-theistic religions like Buddhism which are more realistic and not grounded on an ultimate illusion.

I believe ALL religions has their optimal pros and cons relative to time, but ALL religions [organized] must be weaned off when their shelf life [cons exceeded pros] has expired [soon will be] with priority on theistic religions.