Objective reality

[Physics131]

If enough perceptional paths among a group of individuals are somewhat aligned, one could call that a culture.

There are cultures on this world to which 'reality' is so drastically different from our "reality", that their 'reality' seems like a fantastical set of stories, yet for them it is as real as ours is to us. And for them our set of stories is just as fantastical. We can, and have in many cases, bend their perceptions to be 'better' aligned with our "reality", but that does not validate our "reality" as an objective reality. It just increased the number of individuals that have the same mass reality.

That is an interesting thought.
And it brings me to the idea that "reality" may not only differ between single individuals but also masses of individuals.
The "reality" between continents and countries may vary.
And I think the reason is not only geographical but also political and also cultural as you wrote.
That maybe means that all this aspects can "form" the reality by regulations or likewise.
But also the communication and exchange of ideas of single individuals can manifest into the reality of a culture.

I have gotten to the point that I fairly firmly believe that their 'reality' is just as valid as our "reality" and that realization opened up a can of worms in my psyche. They are crawling everywhere and I think I just need to observe and accept that there is no objective reality, only subjective reality.

If there are infinite creations of realities and if every moment is novel, then there may not be a singular Reality. It is the spoon we can see, but doesn't exist.

Maybe the worms just need to crawl wherever, and I just need to let it and them Go.

So Flux on little worms, Flux with Joy!

Yes I feel that.
This concept of objective reality can be overwhelming, at least for me it is.
I think it is important to have a grounded state where we start to think deep and come back to that state when it gets too deep.
In psychology thats called an anchor and it is a good way for me to always find the way back.
I also think that it is imporant to not be too convicend about some thoughts.
At the end what we interpret and think is based on what we see and live.

Your text brought me to some other thoughts.
But I do not want to open another can for you people.

 

[Voidmatrix]

Yes I remember that one of your responses led me to your skepticism thread.
At that time a lot was very hard to grasp but things start to make more sense after some time passes.
I did not read the whole thread yet.
But after reading some parts again I am sure that I also read some of your own replies regarding objectivity at the end of your thread.
And I also think that not only this part of your thread changed the way how I think about certain topics in a positive way.
That content is very inspirational in my opinion.

Thank you very much for this. It's very encouraging and very kind of you. I often reference that thread when I don't have the time to say what I want to say how I want to say it

That is an interesting thought.
And it brings me to the idea that "reality" may not only differ between single individuals but also masses of individuals.
The "reality" between continents and countries may vary.
And I think the reason is not only geographical but also political and also cultural as you wrote.
That maybe means that all this aspects can "form" the reality by regulations or likewise.
But also the communication and exchange of ideas of single individuals can manifest into the reality of a culture.

We can see evidence of this just by looking at language and linguistics. When it comes to translating one language into another, the more complex the concept the less likely there is to be a one-to-one correspondence between the two languages. There are words and phrases in some language that have no translation in other languages, only some approximation that can still miss the mark. That makes such words and phrases so culturally and geographically specific that one could say that some groups of people experience things intersubjectively in a way that other groups do not. It's a conceptual divide.

Another thing to consider, we may not all experience consciousness the same, and we need consciousness in order to ascertain anything about the world, including objectivity. For example, some people don't have any sort of visual memory. Some people don't have an internal dialogue.

As for objective reality, I feel a somewhat accurate way to conceptualize things in a broad yet specific way is the analogy of a sandbox; we're all in the same sandbox (objective reality) but view it through the lens of our own subjective toys (senses and faculties to experiencing and interpreting the world). What we want to say about the sandbox will always have some hint of our toys and our preference for those toys. If I have toy dump trucks I will look at the sandbox in a different way (particularly pragmatic, which is what science aims towards while striving for objectivity, so in a way objectivity gets lumped in with pragmatic, which such an aim (that of prioritizing pragmatism) is ironically a kind of bias and a removal from objectivity) than if I have action figures, or a bucket and shovel.

One love

 

[rkba]

I think it is important to have a grounded state where we start to think deep and come back to that state when it gets too deep.

I'm somewhat counting on that staying true to the Self will provide enough stability to enable explorations into the 'wild'.

I also think that it is imporant to not be too convicend about some thoughts.

If the last couple of decades are a guide for future thoughts, I'm pretty sure that a couple of years from now my thoughts have radically changed. They seem to be in a constant flux of change. And I'm aligning these changes of my perceptions with my Self's Heart as much as I'm able to do. Beauty, Love, and Happiness are important factors. I'm resurrecting the Other within me as much as I can, aiming to be able to close the fissure and reunite the two parts that makes up my Being.

But I do not want to open another can for you people.

By all means, open more cans! I love variety!

we're all in the same sandbox (objective reality) but view it through the lens of our own subjective toys (senses and faculties to experiencing and interpreting the world).

This 'sandbox' of time and space, in which our perception is playing, is as beautiful as our creative ability.

I'm currently reading "The falling sky" and their sandbox is so different, that even the sand itself is fantastical. There can be so much beauty in others' realities.

Flux in realities with Joy!

 

[NormPeterson]

Fascinating discussion. This is very close to what has been on my mind every since first trying DMT. What are these images we see in out mind? Everything we perceive comes to us filtered through our senses, stimulating networks of neurons, and then ultimately reformed in our mind as some picture that somehow works for us as an individual.

There is nothing that guarantees what I’ve got going on in my mind is the same as what someone else immersed in the same experience as me has formed in their mind. I like imagining swapping out that something in my being, that exists beneath this mental reconstruction (maybe my soul?), with someone else. I’m guessing that what I’d see then would be wildly different than what I’m used to perceiving. Certainly, with colors, nothing requires my yellow to be anything like what someone else sees as yellow. The only thing I need is be consistent in how I see yellow.

Yet, there are other things in this image in my mind that require more consistency such as the shape of a box where my hands sensing the shape needs to agree with my vision of that shape. And then comes language and art where I need what I recreate to agree with what someone else holds in there mind. I can describe a box, and someone could construct that box, and I could then touch that box and say “Yep, that is a box.” Although color gets to remain internal because I can’t communicate it in any way except by the color itself. (Hope that makes sense.)

I think there is a need within us to confirm that how we’ve constructed stuff in our minds image is indeed correct and agrees with what others have going on in their minds. Maybe this drives much of the enjoyment we get from sharing stories and art.

Are there other things like color that can’t be communicated, that we hold in our minds, unable to know if we are actually seeing the same thing as someone else? Maybe emotions?

 

[Voidmatrix]

I think there is a need within us to confirm that how we’ve constructed stuff in our minds image is indeed correct and agrees with what others have going on in their minds. Maybe this drives much of the enjoyment we get from sharing stories and art.

Are there other things like color that can’t be communicated, that we hold in our minds, unable to know if we are actually seeing the same thing as someone else? Maybe emotions?

It's funny. This thread is touching on so many disparate parts of various aspects and perspectives of epistemology that I'm seeing them as ven diagrams in my mind (foundationalism, coherentism, naive realism, infalliblism relativism, externalism). That said, it's hard to draw the line in a given context for which one of these or what permutation of them is used in the assertion of knowledge (which, for most types of information we're trying to work with as well as convey is related to objectivity).

Another reason that color is near impossible to pin down in a definite way between people is because we learn about color in a purely ostensive manner. Colors are pointed out and named, not described and explained.

One love

 

[rkba]

While reading @Voidmatrix reply, this song is playing in my background. It felt, to me, synergistically appropriate. Don't ask me why because I don't 'know' and I am trying to let the worms go.

 

[ShadedSelf]

The light color spectrum might be quite the appropiate analogy in yet another sense.
Given that all of them emanate from the same source, objectivity might be a matter of condensing all those infinite perspectives back into white light.

 

[Voidmatrix]

Could you elaborate on this? If I'm not mistaken, white light has its own wavelength much like other colors (or rather everything on the gradient).

One love

 

[ShadedSelf]

Sure, basically white light is the mixture of all colors or wavelenghts.

 

[Voidmatrix]

So are you saying that the most objective way to see color is by only seeing white?

Just trying to understand.

One love

 

[fractals4life]

This is a great illustration of the gap between physics and perception. This article shows what our eyes are really dishing out to our brain:

Individual differences and their implications for color perception

Individual differences are a conspicuous feature of color vision and arise from many sources, in both the observer and the world. These differences have important practical implications for comparing and correcting perception and performance, and important ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

See also tetrachromic people: Tetrachromacy - Wikipedia

 

[ShadedSelf]

Its a metaphor of how individual perspectives could behave in the same way light does.
You have an infinite spectrum that comes from a singular source, the source would be what we could call objectivity as it contains all possibilities.

Its not necessarily an intellectual concept and it kinda does imply that objectivity/subjectivity are both illusory.

A simpler example is empathy and/or understanding, where different prespectives coexist or even merge. We can do our best to see through the eyes of the other self.

 

[rkba]

Way-back, for my studies, we once did an olfactory experiment with ammonia to determine the lowest average concentration where our test-subjects could detect ammonia. It was wild how some people could start smelling it at the lowest concentration-level where as other people would start to smell it halfway into the total range.

If you pay close attention to cats and play with them regularly, you will start to notice that they can 'see' with their ears. It's fascinating! Similarly, a good scent-tracking dog can 'see' a trail of scent.

When still-hunting I have had deer walk up to me within a couple of yards, they look at me and see me, but don't notice me. But if you move they will notice you from hundreds of yards. Clearly their eye-sight for movement is excellent, yet they don't run into trees that are standing still, so their still-vision is adequate as well.

The World around us is showing us everything we would like to know, we just have to learn how to perceive it, learn what we are perceiving, and to connect the information that we perceive. It is mostly the curriculum of a culture that teaches the how and what, and often also does the connecting. We can in turn disconnect, re-evaluate and re-perceive past events in our life and reconnect re-evaluated perceptions and incorporate new perceptions into our Being in such a way that it better suits our Gestalt.

There I go again, I keep scooping up worms and try to put them back in the can.

As always, Happy Fluxing.

 

[Physics131]

The light color spectrum might be quite the appropiate analogy in yet another sense.
Given that all of them emanate from the same source, objectivity might be a matter of condensing all those infinite perspectives back into white light.

Very interesting.
This brought me to researching the topic black light.
While some colors are in the range of "visiblity" some are outside the range but can still be visible and interpreted.
While black light is outside of the visible range it can be seen as violet which is probably also the reason why it is also called ultraviolet light.
Based on what @Voidmatrix wrote, that we can not describe what color is but can still measure it, I ask myself, if what we see is really violet and how every individual would see the light.
And the funny thing is even when we would measure it, the result would not be purple, it would be a wave length outside of the range of purple.

Another thing I did not know (based on wiki) was that UV-light degrades vitamin A in the skin but also damages collagen fibers.
Which reminds me that vitamin D is obtained through sun light.
Which opens gates to other interesting questions like:
Is the interaction between light and vitamin a matter of transportation or reaction?

Another interesting example is infrared.

What If We Could See All Wavelengths Of Light?

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklight
https://sciencenotes.org/what-is-black-light/
https://sciencenotes.org/ultraviolet-light-or-uv-radiation/

 

[Physics131]

Way-back, for my studies, we once did an olfactory experiment with ammonia to determine the lowest average concentration where our test-subjects could detect ammonia. It was wild how some people could start smelling it at the lowest concentration-level where as other people would start to smell it halfway into the total range.

Very interesting.
It reminds me of a challange where two people were playing against each other.
The task was to smell different things while being blindfolded and then to guss it correctly.
Stuff like canned corn, beer ...
It was at the same time funny and fascinated how much actually could go right/wrong.
While it is very logical to assume that beer smells like beer even when blindfolded, the candidate interpreted it as wine.
It is interesting how senses interact with each other.
Food which looks better also tastes better.
Same with smell.

If you pay close attention to cats and play with them regularly, you will start to notice that they can 'see' with their ears. It's fascinating! Similarly, a good scent-tracking dog can 'see' a trail of scent.

When still-hunting I have had deer walk up to me within a couple of yards, they look at me and see me, but don't notice me. But if you move they will notice you from hundreds of yards. Clearly their eye-sight for movement is excellent, yet they don't run into trees that are standing still, so their still-vision is adequate as well.

Very fascinating observation!

The World around us is showing us everything we would like to know, we just have to learn how to perceive it, learn what we are perceiving, and to connect the information that we perceive. It is mostly the curriculum of a culture that teaches the how and what, and often also does the connecting. We can in turn disconnect, re-evaluate and re-perceive past events in our life and reconnect re-evaluated perceptions and incorporate new perceptions into our Being in such a way that it better suits our Gestalt.
There I go again, I keep scooping up worms and try to put them back in the can.

Very beautifully said.

 

[Physics131]

Fascinating discussion. This is very close to what has been on my mind every since first trying DMT. What are these images we see in out mind? Everything we perceive comes to us filtered through our senses, stimulating networks of neurons, and then ultimately reformed in our mind as some picture that somehow works for us as an individual.

yes exactly this.

Are there other things like color that can’t be communicated, that we hold in our minds, unable to know if we are actually seeing the same thing as someone else? Maybe emotions?

Emotions is also an interesting topic and adds maybe also on top of our visual perception and/or visual interpretation.
Are the emotions a result of what exists, what is seen or what is interpretet?
We could be standing near a waterfall and feel emotionally affected.
When considering psychodelics I have the question if the visuals are causing emotions or the trip itself.
And while we experience some emotions there must also be some backcoupling to the visuals.
Does that mean that the visuals affect the emotions and the emotions affect the visuals?
And does that imply that when controlling the emotions the trip itself could also be controlled to some degree?

Are emotions more integrated in our brain then colors are?
Because colors are perceived through the eyes and emotions do not have that layer perception?
But that does not make emotions less objective.

 

[rkba]

But that does not make emotions less objective.

In my mind emotions are the result of a reaction to the perception of the input of the senses. First you sense, then you interpret (perception), then you react (emotion). So if perception is objective then emotion is objective as well, since it is a reaction to the perception.

 

[Voidmatrix]

Perception is uniquely subjective. We can never escape our perception. One of the reasons that objectivity is a pursuit and not something we actually attain, since we need some apparatus (sensory input, interpretative functions, meaning making, etc) to strive for objectivity in the first place.

I'd wager that emotion can be objective in that it exists, but anything from there starts to move us away from objectivity of emotion.

We can also say that a felt sense is somewhat objective in that it is experienced, but what it ends up signifying will be uniquely subjective.

Emotion is a phenomenon (objective) that's predicated on subjectivity.

One love

 

[rkba]

Actually, since the senses can be skewed, or maybe enhanced, quite easily (i.e. psychedelics), I would think they could be subjective to some sort of base-perception.

Now it's becoming a mess.

Worms are crawling out of the can again....

At this very moment my wife comes outside and tells me: "be brave enough to be bad at something new".

Crawl worms, crawl!

 

[Physics131]

Very interesting!

Is "absulute" objectiveness maybe impossible in a subjective context?
Where objectiveness from the point of a subject is very near but unable to grab?
Where the subjects can only get as close as only subjectively imagineable but still stay very far away?
I subscribe to the idea that objectiveness is a pursuit as a subject.

If we would think the other way around, then subjectiveness would be a pursuit in an objective context.
Which is maybe an oxymoron because something objective would not have a being in order to be able to reason subjectively.
But that does not mean that the other way around is an oxymoron.

Maybe we would have to understand subjectiveness better in order to understand objectiveness better and the other way around.
Would we then understand objectiveness and subjectiveness better, or are this two topics branches from a single different topic?
Where the better understanding of this 2 aspects would lead to a better understanding of the parent topic?
As an example: When we would learn about building houses and building bridges, then we would understand the topic buildig in general better.
But can this example be applied to the topics objective and subjective as well or generally every topic?
Maybe not, the requirement to make this possible is, that the topics must have a parent.
This shows for me that the considerations of all aspects are important in order to gain a better understanding of a topic.
Even when it means that we would have to dive into the complete opposite direction where we actually came from.

Even statements and true facts which could be viewed as objective are still subjective.
Facts like a bulding is big or an ant is small.
I mean it is true and false at the same time.
As stohics would maybe say, it is indifferent.
Because from the view of a lot of species ants are very small.
But from the point of view of an ant a lot of different things are small/big.
Ants could even perceive a human footstep as a nature desaster not caused by a human.
Maybe ants do not even know that humans are other beings because of the unbelieveable size.
This is very hypothetical but I believe/think that some better suitable examples exist.
Believes and thoughts also correlate with this topics.

But from the point of view of a subjective majority the facts seem more objective.
Mindblowing!