Objectivity

What do you mean “what does that mean”? If their proof is subject to some argument or line of reason, then it’s subjective. Objective claims are not subject to anything.

Well if the claim is an artifact of evolution, then it’s subject to evolution and subjective. Objective claims will be supported by god or some authority.

Objective claims can’t be demonstrated because then the claim would be subject to the demonstration.

Um, I guess.

If you posit some logic and say “here is a logic and here is why I think we should use it” then the logic is subject to the reason for using it; if the reasoning changes, then so will the applicability of the logic.

But if you assert some logic as fundamentally true without any associated reasoning for how you arrived at that conclusion, then the logic isn’t subject to anything; it just is.

You see the difference?

If someone says abortion is wrong, then you ask why, and they say “it just is” and “you know in your heart that it just is”, then it’s an objective claim because it doesn’t depend of anything that could change the fact that abortion is wrong.

On the other hand if someone says abortion is wrong because, idk, it’s a person with rights, then the assertion hinges on the personhood and having rights, and is subjective for that reason, even though “having rights” may itself be an objective assertion that’s ultimately unjustifiable.

Yes, the subject and object are both objects and both the same object.

There is no objective understanding. If it could be understood, it would be subjective.

Which group?

I really have to press this issue because you’re all over the site carrying on about a determined universe while all the evidence indicates that it’s not so. The universe isn’t determined or even determinable; it’s probabilistic.

I don’t know, but you can’t behold objectivity lest it be subject to the means you use to behold it.

So to have an illusion then requires objective truth?

There is no right thing to do, but there are right things to do in relation to certain goals.

The wall is a waste of time, but it’s not a waste of time from an objective standpoint because there is nothing that isn’t a waste of time in that case.

Still though, people attack arguments and defend arguments. You’re now attacking my assertion that discussion is analogous to war and I’m now defending it.
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Man, you are shifting the debate around all the time these days. Does this mean we are enemies? which was the word that set this off the most. Do you mean that people should not question arguments of people on their own team? Are there only two teams? Do you actually think you are defeating enemies in a way that will actually help people?

1. Why consider your chess opponent an enemy? In chess there are clearly two teams, that’s it. In life it is more complicated. If you are part of a team of players, does this mean you never want it pointed out when you may be choosing a wrong line of attack or defense?

How republican sounding!

You’re crusading against anyone who doesn’t align perfectly with you as far as I can tell.

How impervious a position. If you are going to defend your arguments with oxymorons, why bother defending them? Why treat my criticisms as a betrayal - one could for example, treat them as a way to make your arguments stronger - when you could simply ignore them?

That is exactly what I said. I am talking to you not them. Whatever idiocy they are saying has nothing to do with what you are sayhing and if it makes sense or not. Your defense of your argument is that whatever they are doing is wrong or wronger.

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More of the same, moving away from perception to reason. More claims to a better objectivity, which does not mean that your position does not have subjective elements.

As if that was mutually exclusive and somehow explained away my point.

This is a waste of my time. These last posts are a sign of reason? Nah.

enjoy your binary game, your us vs. them. This kind of approach has worked so well in the past, it will surely work again. At least you can find very strong agreement from conservatives, who love to see the world in us/them simple binary terms. And who also resort to quasi-mystical oxymorons when cornered not making sense.

People often think they teach content, but they teach form much more than they realize.

I think you said something about summer break. Maybe we’ll bump into each other again after. I think you need one.

Assertions don’t require refutation.

When people play a game, are they enemies?

Idk. My buddies came over the other day praising Trump and calling AOC names, even suggesting she’s gonna euthanize us, but I didn’t say anything in the interest of preserving the allegiance. One guy said all those woodstock people, the stoners, are the professors of today. I said, “Those people on the old films from woodstock are the professors today?!?” He said yep. I have a lot of trouble imagining Noam Chomsky tripping on shrooms while jamming to Hendrix, but I kept quiet. I don’t know how much longer I can put up with guys who otherwise couldn’t stand a liar, running about being a cockholster for the biggest liar humanity has ever known.

Idk. There are republicans who wear the republican label and then there are republicans who wear the democrat label.

Idk. All I know is I’m doing what I do.

I wonder how many people view this site and how many of them are in the US. Probably not many. But if I can touch the right person who can go wide with it…

In chess, my opponent usually doesn’t look for a place to hide then tiptoe out while my back is turned to beat his chest.

No I always want feedback, but I don’t want to go to war with my allies. There is no sense bickering over climate change, gun rights, or Mueller reports being red herrings when there are more important things to get accomplished.

Is it? I suppose supporting gun rights is republican sounding too? You have to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.

Pretty much this whole post has been illustrative of my setting differences aside for a common cause.

What oxymoron? Maybe it does matter in the end if I’m reincarnated, then maybe I want to come back to a world that I influenced in a way that I will enjoy, but even then once the universe is over, I can’t see a way for any of this to have been recorded, so none of it matters except in the here and now.

How am I being objective? I don’t see it.

Idk what you’re on about, but as long as I’m reciting what I see, then what I’m saying is subject to what I see. What others are doing is not reciting what they see, but what they cannot see; and that is objectivity.

My position is entirely subjective.

Idk what your point is except to be contrary to whatever I say.

Well then pat yourself on the back for being too smart to talk to the likes of me.

You’re the one who needs a break. Every time something doesn’t go your way on here you pitch a fit and leave the conversation hanging.

This is the reason why you two are not getting anywhere. This is not what is considered objectivity by objectivists or even by most people who are talking about objectivity. In fact, I would say that it’s exactly the other way around.

Objectivity is describing what one ‘sees’. And recognizing that it is not dependent on your particular mind. Anyone who is placed in your position would ‘see’ the same things. Another mind would ‘see’ just as your mind ‘sees’. Therefore, the experience is “mind independent”.

Subjectivity describes what one ‘feels’. It can’t be traced just to external objects because mind plays such a large role in producing the feeling. It’s unique to a particular mind. Another person placed in your position could feel something else. Therefore, the experience is “mind dependent”.

What one sees and feels become thoughts and the thoughts are expressed as objective and subjective statements.

No he does that all the time. I tell him that I appreciate having him around and I walk on eggshells, but still it blows up at the end then he leaves. The topic doesn’t matter.

Yes I know.

But how could anyone recognize that? You see? You cannot see what other people would see, but you think because you see it, that other people will see it also and proclaim it objective for that reason while all along what is seen is subject to the neurological wiring necessary to see it. So by proclaiming it objective, you’re describing what you have not seen because you have not verified that everyone else in the universe, regardless of neurology, would see it the same way.

I thought I posted that Feynman video in this thread where he gave a good example of how people think differently by using visual vs speech centers of the brain to count. So what one person understands may not convert into someone else’s framework. The mathematician was flabbergasted that Feynman could read and count and Feynman was surprised that the mathematician could talk and count.

That is what I’m calling “popular subjectivity”.

“Nothing ever becomes real till experienced – even a proverb is no proverb until your life has illustrated it” ― John Keats

I agree. “mind dependent” = “subject to the mind”

I’m not sure it’s even about feelings. For instance:

“God exists. I haven’t seen God and I can’t prove God exists, so I didn’t arrive at the conclusion that God exists by reason, but nonetheless, God exists.” ← Is that statement stemming from feelings?

It’s more than that. Take this exchange as an example:

You think that any time that someone is reasoning then he is being subjective. Therefore you think “subject to reason” as being an adequate and sufficient response to KT’s point.

KT thinks that objectivity does not exclude reasoning. Therefore he thinks “subject to reason” as an inadequate response.

Then you don’t see why he is frustrated and annoyed.

The same thing happened in the “heads in the sand” analogy. You two looked at it from entirely different perspectives and could not understand what the other was talking about. (He thinks looking around and “seeing” is objective and you think looking around and “seeing” is subjective.)

You don’t have the same “wiring” as almost every other human on this planet? That’s odd. How can you understand anything about anyone? How can you communicate? How can you function in the world? How can you use common objects and tools?

It doesn’t even stop at humans. Animals and plants find the same objects in their way. A mice experience walls. Bugs experience tables. Plants turn towards the sun.

They are reacting to an external reality.

Indeed.

“Feelings” was the word I chose because gives a indication of the personal nature of the process. (A process inaccessible to other people, as opposed to reasoning which could be repeated by others. )

So in the case of your example, yes, it’s a feeling that God exists.

It’s even more than this, though I think what you are laying out is excellent meta-communication. I think I understand his position. But since he uses metaphors that include the idea of one party directly seeing whatever ‘it’ is and other people having their head in the sand -iow not directly seeing the thing - objectivity is implicit. Of course since it involves human perception, subjectivity is involved for boht parties, but the metaphor implies that one person, the one without his head in the sand, is in more direct contact with the objects, and hence more. I have tried to show elsewhere perhaps that I see subjective elements in all perception. For him it is binary. If there are subjective facets, then it is subjective period. For me the two are not mutually exclusive. But further his own way of framing the difference between him and the people he hates, is to claim greater objectivity, greater access to objects.

I get annoyed that he happily and openly contradicts himself, when it suits his purposes, while at the same time taking higher higher rationality ground.

No, I do get his perspective. Since it is a human perceiving, it is subjective. and this is true. But since he himself distinguishes between his seeing - not head in sand, able to look - whereas republicans have their head in the sand - not able to see - he is making a distinction based on perception that is connected to objects of perception, which is more objective. Everything in his system is either/or. Except when he tries to explain the differences. Suddenly he is implicitly making the claim to being more objective, more in touch with the objects.

You don’t have the same “wiring” as almost every other human on this planet? That’s odd. How can you understand anything about anyone? How can you communicate? How can you function in the world? How can you use common objects and tools?

Right and he makes the claim that it is all subjective, and yet they are stupid and evil and making real horrible changes to the world we share.

He wants to have his cake and eat it also.

But he doesn’t seem to mind going round and round with iambiguous. He has infinite patience with him, but I only get a thimble’s worth. Not that I’m jealous, I’m just saying there must be something else setting him off… something specific to me.

Remember the Feynman example? Two people count with different parts of their brains. They are both human, yet see the world dramatically different.

And I read somewhere that Einstein had some speech problem when he was a child that caused his brain to form differently that gave him an advantage in abstract thought, so he used a part of the brain that most people would use one way, he used it for a different task.

Well, the plants that survive turn towards the sun. The plants that happen to grow the wrong way just happen to not survive long enough to be noticed. A bug that doesn’t experience tables may not survive. Mice that can’t differentiate walls from floors will not survive.

I get what you’re saying, but external reality is not objective reality. Any reality experienced will be subject to the means there is to experience what there is. Dark matter, if it exists, can only experience gravity; light doesn’t exist to it. That which has no affect, does not exist. But you’ll say that light indeed does exist whether or not dark matter experiences it. Yes but only to us because we contain charge and light exists subject to that charge, which is something dark matter doesn’t have. If there were no charge, then there could be no light, so the existence of light is subject to the existence of charge and light is not objective. If light were objective, it would exist regardless if charge exists, but light is caused by charge, so it couldn’t exist in absence of charge.

Existence can only be thought of in terms of something and there is no way to conceptualize abstract existence, so any existence can only be regarded as subjective.

Yes I understand what you mean by “feelings” as opposed to “reason”.

So objective claims stem from feelings (as opposed to reason)?

Subjectivity is required for both parties so why are you trying to rope me into conceding that I’m making objective claims? And then you say I’m contradicting myself.

The one with the head in the sand is being willfully ignorant. “I don’t want to see because I need to be right, and if I see, then I might be wrong, which isn’t an option.”

The universe is a duality. Yin/yang. I can’t help that.

I can’t see how I’m contradicting myself and you’re treading close to making fun of a potential handicap I have. If I’m making an error, kindly point it out instead of attacking my integrity that I’d be willfully ignorant to save being wrong. Perhaps I’m having a lot of difficulty understanding your chosen conveyance.

Subjects being more or less in touch with objects isn’t a test for objectivity since objectivity has no subject. Like the claim god exists has no subject to observe that god exists nor provide logic that leads to that conclusion, but the existence of god is simply asserted to be true and axiomized objectively.

My point is that you share the same belief, so why are you attacking me instead of being allies and accusing me of being objective when you yourself just finished saying that both parties are being subjective?

The only thing I can figure from months of exchanges with you is that you don’t like me because I’m me and you’ll always seek to be contrary to me for whatever reason, even if it subverts your own goals and you’ll defend your own enemies just to have a go at me. I don’t understand the impetus for that.

I don’t know why he is wasting so much time on Iambig. I don’t think KT’s responses to Iambig can be characterized as patience. He seems annoyed and frustrated a lot of the time now.

KT has gone off on me as well. It is what it is.

In other words, they are both objectively counting. It’s not like one says 1+1=2 and the other says 1+1=3. Cause that’s what “seeing the world differently” implies should happen. If you black box the brain, then both counters are basically the same.

Right. They objectively respond to objective reality and that helps them survive.

In your example, the statement “God exists” is not an objective claim because it is not based on any external reality. It came purely from that person’s mind without reference to anything else.

In other words, given the gap between that which any particular one of us construe to be the objective truth and all that must be [can be] known about existence itself, there appear to be things and relationships that reflect about as far as we seem able to go now in regards to objectivity itself.

The laws of nature. Mathematics. The physical world around us. The presumably “either/or” world.

That’s how it appears to be until an actual existing God chooses to make His presense [and powers] known.

Then there are quandaries that revolve around whether absolute objectivity encompasses a wholly determined universe. Or encompasses a complete understanding of why there is something instead of nothing at all. Those really and truly mindboggling questions.

This is simply not the case. For example:
facebook.com/AtheistsAgainstAbortion/
thenation.com/article/a-chr … dd-peters/

From my frame of mind, individual value judgments here are rooted more in dasein. In the trajectory of experiences one has had that predisposed him or her to one rather than another set of values.

And, as I see it, the reason particular individuals [like me] do not embrace an objective answer is because no one has yet been able to provide one. Which [however] does not mean that one does not exist.

There is no pure yin and there is no pure yang. Each contains some of the other.

In other words, there is no split into two. There is no either/or.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6NxWID2r6E[/youtube]

Well, he’s aware of it so perhaps it will turn out ok.

Except that one can read and count while the other can talk and count, so the outcome is different.

I’m not sure what “objectively respond” means. You mean all plants respond the same way? Well no, some plants do the wrong thing and don’t survive. Some plants may prefer shade. Trees send branches in seeming random directions like they have no awareness of where the sun is, and the ones that find the light survive while the ones growing in the shade die off. My job as an arborist is to prune off the branches that are hopeless.

And “objective reality”, I don’t know what that means either except to say that the sun exists independent of anything else. You want it to mean that all plants see the objective reality of the sun, but I label that a popular subjective reality that most plants seem equipped to see the sun as part of their reality. Going back to Mad Man’s point, I can tell what you mean and you can tell what I mean even though we define terms differently. I just don’t think you’ve realized that abstract existence isn’t possible… or at least isn’t anything we can conceptualize.

If nothing else, this is a prime example of how people think differently lol

So I’m saying it’s an objective claim because god exists regardless of any context, is subject to nothing, is not a product of deduction or vision or any sense, so god is the observerless object.

You are saying it’s subjective because the claim emanated from a person’s head without being a product of deduction or vision that could be shared or verified by others.

Ok, so what is the fundamental difference in how we’re seeing it? Now it’s become a cognitive exercise lol

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Positive contains some negative? Yes contains some no? On contains some off? True contains some false? North contains some south?

I agree they are connected, but I don’t see how they contain the elements of the other.

Yin was actually the dark, north side of the mountain while yang was the bright, south side.

I know that’s what you are saying.

Notice how people are responding.

Are they agreeing? Does it make sense to them? What are their objections? Does anyone think that objective claims are without a context?

Yes. That is how it works. There are no absolutes. There are no hard divisions. Language and thought are only approximations of reality. Nothing we say is entirely true or false.

That’s not the usual thinking in the West. Here, it’s this-that and nothing in between.

Remember when Ecmandu pointed out that the North Pole is south of Polaris. That’s Yin/Yang.

More Yin/Yang :

Your enemy is your friend. He is helping you to get better, stronger.

I have no idea but appealing to popularity is meaningless. May as well ask a tree what it thinks.

So then I guess nothing contains something. Ecmandu ought to have fun with that one lol

And the north pole is not south of polaris.

Eh, sometimes that may be true, but if my enemy kills me, then clearly he’s not making me stronger.

Nietzsche was braindead the day he said that which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. That which doesn’t kill someone leaves them half-dead.