Objectivity

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.

That is problematic in so many ways.

The people around are dumb? They don’t have an understanding of life or the human experience? They don’t have anything to teach you?

That’s one way to look at it.

I see that the teacup is full.

I didn’t go that far, but truth isn’t a popularity contest.

Remember this?

Many readers of vos Savant’s column refused to believe switching is beneficial despite her explanation. After the problem appeared in Parade, approximately 10,000 readers, including nearly 1,000 with PhDs, wrote to the magazine, most of them claiming vos Savant was wrong (Tierney 1991). Even when given explanations, simulations, and formal mathematical proofs, many people still do not accept that switching is the best strategy (vos Savant 1991a). Paul Erdős, one of the most prolific mathematicians in history, remained unconvinced until he was shown a computer simulation demonstrating the predicted result (Vazsonyi 1999). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem

10,000 people vs one genius.

I thought it was half empty.

I think the three of us have gone off on each other. To various degrees of implicit and explicit. And yes, it is what it is.

How will you recognize the truth when you see it?

I wonder if anyone here had the realization that objectivity doesn’t contradict subjectivity.

Experience is subjective, and that is objectively a fact.

The words really look fancy in contradistinction, Ill admit.

Yes, this argument has been raised by several people as we’ve been chasing it down through three current threads on the board.

The reason I don’t make this exact argument is because it triggers the truth table:

It’s objective that things are objective
It’s subjective that things are objective
It’s objective that things are subjective
It’s subjective that things are subjective

Now, this in and of itself always makes the argument that objectivity exists.

However, if you use the ONLY operator it gets more complex.

There’s no objectivist (except hypothetically: god), who claims that everything (ONLY) they believe is objective. Just some of it.

This back and forth is always about where one draws the line between “in my head” and “out in the world”. In a world sans God all claims by us are said to be subjective.

Thus there is no real distinction to be made between “Jane had an abortion” and “abortion is immortal”. Unless God or some “authority” on objectivity confirms either one, it’s all just something we believe in our head.

That way nothing can ever really be demonstrated to be true or false because we can never escape our own subjectivity.

Or one might argue that all of our claims are moot because we are just characters in a sim world. Or in a dream world. Or are just cyborgs created by the machines in a matrix.

Then, to the doubters, it is said, “prove that we’re not!”

And unless and until we can fill in the blanks between our claims and a complete understanding of existence itself, we are able to actually demonstrate…nothing?

I think therefore I am? So you say.

Thus…

Okay, but make this applicable to a particular context in which actual human behaviors can be used to illustrate your point. And if you presume a No God world absent any “authority” on objectivity how could anything at all be demonstrated?

As for this example…

…it’s over my head. In the first instance the subjects themselves seem to be making the claim to be the authorities on objectivity. It’s derived from their heart of hearts. In the second instance, who but God or an absolute authority on “personhood” can demonstrate the inherent/natural rights of the unborn?

Meanwhile in the either/or world it doesn’t take God to demonstrate that Jane did in fact have an abortion…and that Joe did in fact insist it is immoral. Unless of course Jane and Joe here do occupy a sim world/dream world reality…and are merely characters for creatures beyond our capacity to even grasp.

Or unless we live in an entirely determined universe where everything [including this exchange] is “beyond our control” as autononous creatures.

Thus…

Again, this is the part I fail to understand. You seem to make even that which we construe to be part of the “either/or world” – the evolution of life on earth, human biology, human sexuality, human pregnancies, human abortions – just more “subjective claims” because there is no God or Authority around to confirm them.

And, sure, what can I say. But what on earth does that really have to do with what we see all around us day in and day out? Sooner or later when it comes to “objective reality” we are all forced to draw the line somewhere. It just depends on how far out on the metaphysical limb you go.

As though here you are God or an equivalent Authority on what is objectively true about the nature of existence itself. You assert what I construe to be a clearly subjective frame of mind here [as a mere mortal] as though merely asserting it makes it true objectively.

But that just takes us to the part where the goals themselves are construed to be the right or the wrong thing to do.

Thus the argument in which the wall is deemed to be the right thing to pursue because the goal of keeping those south of the border out of America is deemed to be the right thing to do because the goal [for some] of making Americal great again revolves around making America whiter again.

Or maybe the goal of particular American businessmen is to bring those folks [black, brown or whatever] into the country because they are a great source of cheap labor.

Again, here there are actual facts that we seem able to establish as true for all of us objectively. Even if we don’t have a God or an Authority around to confirm it.

Indeed, that, in my view, is “logically” where thinking like yours goes: since nothing can be demonstrated to be true objectively sans God or an Authority, everything can be dumped into your own particular understanding of subjectivity.

Unless I am simply misunderstanding your point. And – objectively? – that does happen a lot here.

When we say objective we mean either inter subjective consensus or proof / disproof or both of these
We do not and cannot mean it in any mind independent entirely omniscient sense like the mind of God
Because God is non falsifiable and so his existence cannot be demonstrated not even if he actually exists
Therefore when we say objectivity we can only mean relative objectivity rather than absolute objectivity

I don’t buy that.

Existence is otherness.

If there is no otherness to and for god, then god cannot distinguish ours or gods own existence.

We can even make proof statements about god because of the objectivity we all have access to: existence is otherness …

Now, because we can prove this, we can prove that otherness also applies to god, just like any being, thus, we can prove that god cannot be omnipresent (lack of otherness/ lack of existence)

Proof statements about God may be logically true but they are not empirically true
And otherness may be existence but that doesnt mean that it must manifest as God

Nah.

In the Hebrew bible, gods name is “I am that I am”

I’m not by any stretch of the imagination going to tell you that if you and the tree are one, that you’re full of it. I believe stuff like that.

HOWEVER!

To state that you are all existence, with no difference inside or out, that you are “I am that I am”, I’m just going to call bullshit.

In one way we are all one existence because we are all part of the same Universe
But we are equally also individual / independent parts of that very same Universe