I don’t like where this thread has gone, but I am not surprised.
I’m sorry, but I’m not here to discuss kindergarten level shit with people. If you still deny things like the existence of objective reality, and think that reality is somehow dependent on you observing it and stuff like that, then I really have nothing to say to you. You will either grow out of such positions by yourself, or you won’t at all. The ones who possess sufficient intelligence, rationality, and honesty, will do so by themselves, without the need for somebody else to have pages long discussions with them to try and talk them out of nonsense.
However, since I am in the mood, and I do think some basic things need to be said, I’ll discuss some of the less nonsensical nonsense. To the posts/parts of the posts I won’t reply and haven’t replied yet, it is either because I disagree with it too much to consider it worth addressing (mainly Prismatic), or I mostly agree with it and the disagreements would be more a matter of working out trivial details or clearing up the different ways we use language and minor misunderstandings (Crimson Crow, Magnus Anderson). Or I simply am not interested or haven’t even read them yet. Pick whatever option suits you.
Prismatic
I am unsure what you mean by “emergent” and “pre-existing”. Since reality is constant flux (change), you could say objects are constantly disappearing and emerging. However, on a more fundamental level the emerging of objects is simply atoms changing forms by rearranging themselves, and once they’ve done so to a sufficient degree that a human will recognize it as a different object, we will assign to it a different name, or add to it its name, if it is an object that interests us. For example, an apple, after undergoing the process of rotting, will have changed its internal structure differently enough to be called differently and recognized as different than before - so now it will be called a rotten apple. You could say that rotten apple emerged. But the rotten apple emerged as a consequence of its past interactions, on what pre-existed the rotten apple, which was an ordinary apple and an environment in which an apple rots.
Objects exist independently of subjects, yes. The external world isn’t driven by subjects. Species constantly go extinct and the external world continues existing. The external world isn’t dependent on being observed by humans or any other species or any particlar living organism for its existence. The ideas of objects are dependent for existence on human minds, but what the ideas refer to, objects themselves, are not, unless they are artifices - objects created and maintained by humans, but then again, they are not ONLY dependent on human perception, but also on human action to maintain those artifices. Moreover, neither objects nor ideas emerge spontaneously. There is a pattern to their emergence.
Subjectivism is a very useful tool in controlling the masses. If you manage to convince others that there is no external world independent of humans, and that reality is dependent on human minds, you can also effectively indoctrinate them into being dependent on what YOU say is the truth about objects, and since there is no external, independent standard that we all share (REALITY) according to this position, others are helpless as they have nothing to appeal to defend themselves with except their own subjectivity. However, usually those in power will try to enforce their own particular kind of subjectivity as superior, making themselves the “authority” on the matter where what they say is “officially approved fact” while what you say is “just your opinion, man”, regardless of what is actually true. They have successfully convinced you you cannot access the objective world yourself, using your own mind and senses, but that you need the validation of others, most likely some authority, telling you what is or isn’t true. Truth stops being based on the objectve, external world, and starts being based on the subjective thoughts about the objective world of people or groups of people, such as scientists. These statements MAY be actual truths and based on accurate observations of the objective world (if they followed the scientific method without error), or they can be lies told to be truths, either because of a mistake in reasoning, or intentional and for the sake of accomplishing social/political goals or avoiding condemnation.
For an objectivist and a realist, the objective world is the standard by which they judge whether what people say about the objective world is correct or not. For an objectivist/realist, if somebody says: “There is a unicorn in the corner of this room and the current authorities agree it is so”, but an objectivist/realist doesn’t see it, he will decide there is no unicorn and the authority is wrong.
For a subjectivist, what somebody else says about the objective world is the standard by which they judge what is correct or not about the objective world. If somebody says the same thing to a subjectivist, and the subjectivist doesn’t perceive a unicorn, he will nevertheless decide that there is a unicorn simply because the authority (be it media, government, science…) said so and therefore it must be so.
Usually the political elites decide the areas where people are allowed to think freely, and the limitations of free thought, according to their own agendas.
The idea that objects emerge spontaneously is also part of this manipulation because it denies one of the crucial aspects of objective reality - PATTERNS. There is no randomness, only patterns. When the outcome of something requires a calculation of factors too complex for humans to process, we say that the outcome is random, so randomness doesn’t mean “no patterns”, it means “I couldn’t find a pattern there”. I often use the example of a coin toss or a dice roll to explain this. The dice doesn’t behave according to magic, it is just as subject to laws of physics as anything else, wouldn’t you agree? The thing is that humans simply haven’t evolved the ability to calculate all possible factors (gravity, friction of the surface, air resistance) we need to know to predict the trajectory of the dice and thus its outcome. This makes it random. However, in principle it is possible that scientists design a machine which would calculate all those factors before the throw, so the machine would know exactly at which height to throw it, using what amount of force, etc. for it to land on a particular number.
Denying the existence of patterns and claiming it’s all about spontaneity is also useful if you want to make people oblivious to reality for some reason and incapable to predict things by shrouding everything in mysticism, possibly to exploit that ignorance for your own ends.
And when speaking of “assuming” the existence of objects, it is only reasonable to be uncertain and assume if you aren’t directly perceiving the objects and have an actual reason to doubt their existence. If a lion is biting off your hand, it is stupid to say you just “assume” it, we save the word “assume” for situations when you are less certain about things. For example, if a lion escaped the zoo and you live close to the zoo, you may “assume” that the lion is somewhere nearby because you aren’t actually seeing it. This may or may not be a reasonable assumption based on how far away you live and other factors, but I think we can agree that for practical reasons it is a good assumption to make to avoid potential harm. Using the word which implies a weak level of certainty such as “assume” to speak about things which are evident to a person due to simple perception and thus merit a high level of certainty, is just another one of sneaky ways of making people detached from reality by fucking up their fundamental epistemological principles and making them more prone to being convinced in bullshit.
Sure, what is evident and in your face is just an assumption, and what the official philosophical authorities tell you, namely “what is evident and in your face is an assumption” itself is somehow not a mere assumption but, for some yet to be explained reason, carries a higher level of certainty than what your senses tell you, which are mere assumptions (low level of certainty). Our senses, which evolved to help us survive and connect us to the world, are lying to us, while those who can benefit from lying to us, and thus have a motive to do so, must be telling us truth. Hmmm.
The thing is, what is an assumption and what is more than an assumption, is determined by an objective world. We say something is an assumption when we use healthy senses to recognize patterns in the objective world. If I say “there is a car X not more than 20 meters away from me”, and I know I own car X and have it in a garage within that distance, and I’ve just checked on it 5 seconds ago, then it is not a mere assumption, it is a statement of truth. If I’m saying that after coming back home and not seeing the car for hours, the statement is less certain borders on being an assumption, as the car might have been stolen, but the probability of that happening is low. If somebody else in my family told me there is a 50-50% chance they’ll use the car, I’d say in that case the statement has crossed into the assumption territory, aka, into the probability range of what we usually think of when we say “assumptions”. If I am making a claim that some random car Y is within 100 meters from me in the middle of a parking lot, that is an assumption if I don’t see the car. However, not all assumptions carry equal weight. If Y is a car that is common that assumption carries more weight than if Y was a super rare sports car. And the more I know the more accurate assumptions I can make. If I know the neighborhood the parking lot is in is poor, then the probability of Y being a super rare sports car drops drastically. If there is a sports super car owner convention and I know they’re using that parking lot, then the probability increases. The more factors I am aware of the more accurately I can predict whether an assumption is likely to be true or false.
The word assumption itself thus implies realism and objectivism, because without that, it is impossible to determine what is an assumption, and what isn’t, and how valid an assumption is.
This is really some basic level shit though, and I’m not much willing to argue about most of it.
Magnus Anderson,
No, again, whether something exists or not is NOT dependent on being observed. Rather, humans can only observe things which exist. So everything we observe exists (if we are indeed observing it instead of being mad and imagining that we are observing things), but not everything that exists is necessarily observed. Some things may exist but we may not observe them because they are not in the physical proximity of our senses, or our senses simply aren’t focused upon them. Ideas exist within reality, but only within a particular segment of reality - minds. Outside of minds, ideas don’t exist. And things don’t exist “in forms of ideas”, that is very poor wording. Instead, ideas OF some things exist, but the form of an idea of a thing, and the form of a thing itself, are different.