Parshvik Chintan
Esteemed member
that there is no objectivity, and all semblance of such would merely be mutual subjectivity?
-
Members of the previous forum can retrieve their temporary password here, (login and check your PM).
would it be fair to say...
- Thread starter Parshvik Chintan
- Start date
Doesn't the term 'mutual subjectivity' sort of define objectivity? Through mutual subjective experiences we can infer that there is an ontological state of existence which we can all observe objectively, concluding that there are basic rules and truths to that reality, which are independent from the human mind.
My two cents;
Claiming there is no objectivity is itself a contradiction, because it means there are no objective truths and that in turn must be something objectively true; thus you have reached a contradiction before you could even tie your own shoes.
Apart from that what Korey said.
Claiming there is no objectivity is itself a contradiction, because it means there are no objective truths and that in turn must be something objectively true; thus you have reached a contradiction before you could even tie your own shoes.
Apart from that what Korey said.
Citta said:
I might be entering quicksands here, but wouldn't claiming there is no objectivity imply that every single truth is subjective, including the prior statement? Assuming so certainly kills any consensual conclusions, or limits their reach and validity, but I cannot see contradiction in that.
In any case, any discussion of objectivity versus subjectivity seems to bring a paradox ipso facto. Since discussion involves words, and words are semantic units with a meaning defined by consensus, you are required to apply a degree of objectivity in order to discuss the topic... which in a way kills the question.
This might be one of the topics that cannot really be discussed without entering contradiction.
I'm with Citta here. It's sort of like this thought experiment:
"The following statement is true. The previous statement is false."
I'm reminded suddenly of a lecture Terence gave one time (The World and It's Double), in which he was recollecting a trip he had had recently which had to do with 'the great universal secret'. He said that through some miracle of recollection he was able to extract the secret from hyperspace and shout it out loud once he was down. The statement was: "A song is a song." The audience laughs and Terence brilliantly adds something to the effect of: "Profound stuff. Well maybe it is profound, some of the most profound statements have this air about them because what it essentially means is that silence would have been an acceptable substitute for what you were trying to convey."
I sort of view this conversation like that. To say there is no objectivity at all is obviously false just in the fact that you are trying to create an objective rule about objectivity.
"The following statement is true. The previous statement is false."
I'm reminded suddenly of a lecture Terence gave one time (The World and It's Double), in which he was recollecting a trip he had had recently which had to do with 'the great universal secret'. He said that through some miracle of recollection he was able to extract the secret from hyperspace and shout it out loud once he was down. The statement was: "A song is a song." The audience laughs and Terence brilliantly adds something to the effect of: "Profound stuff. Well maybe it is profound, some of the most profound statements have this air about them because what it essentially means is that silence would have been an acceptable substitute for what you were trying to convey."
I sort of view this conversation like that. To say there is no objectivity at all is obviously false just in the fact that you are trying to create an objective rule about objectivity.
As concluded through your own subjective lens...Tek said:
How can subjectivity exist without objectivity, light without dark, good without bad, particles without anti particles, etc etc?
Vodsel said:
Well, yes, but you still can't get around the fact that inherent in that statement is something that must be objectively true, because saying there are only subjective truths (including the first statement) means there are no objective ones, and this is something that necessarily must be objectively true. No matter how you turn and twist it you reach the contradiction. Claiming no objectivity doesn't make any sense by virtue of the fact that you are trying to establish an objective fact.
Logic as filtered through a subjective lens...Citta said:
SnozzleBerry said:
Could we please stop with this subjective woo-woo, it's getting us nowhere. There are no subjective interpretations of the rules of logic. Different answers to logical reasoning occur because of flaws in the reasoning, not because logic is subjective and depends on who is doing the "calculation". It would be a lot more appropriate to ask ourselves and discuss whether or not logic can always reach truth-statements, rather than argue indefinitely that logic is filtered through a subjective lens. What kind of lens, anyway? The lens of an individual mind, or that of humanity as a whole?
I'm not talking about logical flaws or fallacies or what have you. I'm stating that logic itself is a system that merely operates from within the framework of a subjective being...the observer. Without an observer, there can be no commentary on what is (who would comment?), yet no observer is able to step outside of their subjective self and offer any commentary as to an objective point of view.Citta said:
We've gone 'round and 'round on this in many threads, and I think it's safe to say that we are going to have to agree to disagree with regards to this belief as there is no proof for either position.
*cue gibran2 on primacy of matter/primacy of consciousness
SnozzleBerry said:
Ah, you're walking down that road again
So even though indefinitely many observers can all, in any meaningful use of the word "objective", objectively agree about the rules of logic and what is correct reasoning, or that of mathematics, or that an apple will fall to the ground if dropped etc etc, these do still not constitute objective facts because they are "filtered through the minds of countless observers"? To me this is just meaningless, captious and absurd semantics, but to each his own I guess =)
I agree to agreeing to disagreeing 8)
PS: What I DO agree with however, is that we cannot be sure that our experiences and our models in science describe accurately whatever true reality is out there (or in there?) - but they are good "guesses" nevertheless.
I must say...I find it amusing, the degree to which you (and others) trivialize this with such certainty.
You dismiss that all of those people are filtering information through their conscious awareness as irrelevant. That somehow, because 7 billion people filter 'reality' through their perception and find that they agree on much of what they see/experience/etc., you can remove those 7 billion people, but claim that all of the perceptions on which they agree exist as "objective phenomena" (while dismissing any contradictions as erroneous in one sense or another) despite the fact that you lack an iota of proof.
You are conflating consensus and objective, imo. Consensus is not objective. To use one of your own examples...
You believe that the DMT experience is neuronal cacophony...that it is synapses firing all willy-nilly and overwhelming the brain with information, which the brain in-turn attempts to process. If two people have a shared experience on DMT, you would claim (I believe, I don't wish to put words in your mouth, please tell me if I'm wrong) that even though their consensus experience led them conclude that the DMT experience took them to a 'real' or 'objective' place, in reality this is not the case.
Now extrapolate that DMT trip to the endogenous neurotransmitters in your head (the daily 'trip of life' if you will
) and the 2 people to 7 billion. What's the difference? In either case, how can you make any comment on what is objective? Consensus...sure, subjective...yea, but objective? It strikes me as little more than a leap of faith.
Edit: Perhaps given your PS we have some agreement (I missed it initially in my excitement to reply )? Well...that and the agreeing on agreeing to the disagreeing :thumb_up:
You dismiss that all of those people are filtering information through their conscious awareness as irrelevant. That somehow, because 7 billion people filter 'reality' through their perception and find that they agree on much of what they see/experience/etc., you can remove those 7 billion people, but claim that all of the perceptions on which they agree exist as "objective phenomena" (while dismissing any contradictions as erroneous in one sense or another) despite the fact that you lack an iota of proof.
You are conflating consensus and objective, imo. Consensus is not objective. To use one of your own examples...
You believe that the DMT experience is neuronal cacophony...that it is synapses firing all willy-nilly and overwhelming the brain with information, which the brain in-turn attempts to process. If two people have a shared experience on DMT, you would claim (I believe, I don't wish to put words in your mouth, please tell me if I'm wrong) that even though their consensus experience led them conclude that the DMT experience took them to a 'real' or 'objective' place, in reality this is not the case.
Now extrapolate that DMT trip to the endogenous neurotransmitters in your head (the daily 'trip of life' if you will
) and the 2 people to 7 billion. What's the difference? In either case, how can you make any comment on what is objective? Consensus...sure, subjective...yea, but objective? It strikes me as little more than a leap of faith.Edit: Perhaps given your PS we have some agreement (I missed it initially in my excitement to reply
)? Well...that and the agreeing on agreeing to the disagreeing :thumb_up:
The word subjectivity only exists in its relation to the word objectivity, and vice versa. Is that not obvious? What sense is there to say that only one of them exists?
I completely agree with Snozz here, it's not at all irrelevant. Every single human experience is subjective, therefore every law of physics, logic, mathematics, etc. is just mutual subjectivity.. as in a consensus. IMO That's the most relevant thing about this whole subject and it shouldn't be dismissed. Just because there's billions of us doesn't make it any closer to being objective.
But that is not to say "there is no objectivity". Like endlessness says, objectivity exists in relation to subjectivity. But for us humans, it exists ONLY as that: a concept. We can never grab objectivity, we can never use it practically, we can never look through it, and we can never talk about it as something other than a concept.
In a way, we as human ARE the concept of subjectivity, so obviously we can never grasp the other side of that duality. Just like black knows just how to be black, it has no idea how to be white, but together they make the system. There could never exist only one of them because then it wouldn't have any contrast to exist in.
But that is not to say "there is no objectivity". Like endlessness says, objectivity exists in relation to subjectivity. But for us humans, it exists ONLY as that: a concept. We can never grab objectivity, we can never use it practically, we can never look through it, and we can never talk about it as something other than a concept.
In a way, we as human ARE the concept of subjectivity, so obviously we can never grasp the other side of that duality. Just like black knows just how to be black, it has no idea how to be white, but together they make the system. There could never exist only one of them because then it wouldn't have any contrast to exist in.
SnozzleBerry:
Allright allright, I am going to step down two inches, stuff an ice-cream into my face, cool off and talk from there.
From a very strict point of view, I realize that we cannot be certain about anything a hundred percent. This is also a philosophically completely valid position. I believe I have also expressed this several times before, but in discussions I am very colored by pragmatism and utility (because of me being a scientist), so I can rub you off the wrong way. But I don't wish to come off as arrogant or dogmatic, so I say it again here. Anyway, let me brainstorm on this subject a bit in my reply to you. This will be long, but consider it a trip into my thoughts and reasoning
In our discussions you seem to ask how we can know anything objective about the world when everything is observed through human consciousness and sensory experiences. One can also add on this the fact that we have no guarantee that we experience the world in the same way - and at least not in the same way as say, a dog. So how can we know anything objective about the universe at all?
The point - the intention - with doing science, logic and mathematics is that we can bypass this qualia and in principle describe our world independently of how humans subjectively experience it. To take some examples, we don't have to take into account the qualitative differences in the subjective experience of light to describe the electromagnetic spectrum; or the qualitative differences in the subjective experience of watching the stars to describe the fusion that goes on inside them; or the qualitative differences in the subjective experience of music to describe mechanical waves propagating through some medium. These are facts about the world that are not dependent on the individual human mind, but that exists free and independently from it - they are necessarily objective facts in, to my, any meaningful use of this word. They are not just correct within the restrictions of the human experiences of them, and therefore not only correct within a human application. Even though these methods can be said to be a human invention (or perhaps discovery) this does not in any way mean that what we discover and conclude through these methods also are human inventions, or at all restricts themselves to our species-specific subjective experience. In fact one can say quite the opposite; that these methods frees us from the limitations set on us by our subjective experiences - be that sensory limitations, false intuitions, cognitive biases and so on and so forth.
No one with their head not up their ass would claim that we know everything about the universe, but this doesn't mean that we can't say anything at all about anything, or that we can't talk about the likelihood of something being right or wrong. It is obviously a mistake, because it would be equal to saying that since we have just discovered a tiny fraction of what lies beneath the surface of the huge ocean, we can't say whether or not there is a skyscraper right outside my house. This applies to DMT as well, and with confidence we can, at the current stage of scientific development, say that no empirical or theoretical basis exists for assuming anything other than that we inhabit a universe made entirely of matter and energy. This is not a dogmatic position even though we don't know anything, because the essential point is that within our existing knowledge we do not have a credible reason to requiring anything else to explain what we experience and observe - yes, even when it comes to consciousness (even though the door to something else is open a tiny, tiny crack). All science is, however, provisional by its very nature, so if sufficient evidence that meets all the rigorous scientific tests were to come by and demonstrate the existence of a world beyond matter and energy, we would have to change our minds.
Now, what we read on the paper is certainly explanatory models to explain and predict observations, but what these models represents can still be argued to be independent of the subjective experiences of human beings, i.e objective facts about this universe. As an example, Newtons 2. law (though inaccurate at velocities approaching that of light) is not a subjective consideration; it is not open to guesses either between humans or other species. Actually this law follows directly from conservation of momentum, that again follows directly from rotation and translation symmetry (some physicists call this point-of-view-invariance), which means that the laws of physics are independent of who observes from where (Noethers theorem). They are objective. Of course the formulation of the law is human-made, but what it describes is still independent from subjective minds. Our experience of the natural laws can very well change, but the laws themselves do not.
It is also the fact that even though we can't disprove existential claims, it doesn't mean that the claims can't be unlikely. We can't, say, disprove the existence of gnomes in my shed or Santa Claus, but I bet you are not very hesitant to say that the existence of either is very unlikely. The same applies to DMT-entities, as we frequently discuss. There are no good reasons to assume they exist, and many to assume they probably don't outside your own drug-induced experience. We can't disprove that consciousness is not material of origin, but considerable evidence within our best scientific models and investigations suggest fairly strong that the phenomena of mind and consciousness arise from natural mechanisms in a purely material brain. Brain scans today can for instance locate the portions of the brain where different types of thoughts arise, including emotions and religious thoughts and experiences. When that particular part of the brain is destroyed by surgery or injury, those thoughts and emotions disappear.
On the subject of religious thoughts, emotions and experiences - or spiritual ones at that, it is now for instance well known that temporal-lobe-epilepsy results in visions that resemble such experience. Prominent neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran has this to say in his book "Phantoms in the brain" about his observations:
"But most remarkable of all are those patients who have deeply moving spiritual experiences, including a feeling of divine presence and the sense that they are in direct communication with God. Everything around them is imbued with cosmic significance. They may say, 'I finally understood what it's all about. This is the moment I have been waiting for all my life. Suddenly it all makes sense.' Or, 'Finally I have insight into the true nature of the cosmos'".
Resembles DMT, doesn't it? He comments further:
"I find it ironic that this sense of enlightenment, this absolute conclusion that Truth is revealed at last, should derive from limbic structures concerned with emotions rather than from the thinking, rational parts of the brain that take so much pride in their ability to discern truth and falsehood".
Yes indeed, it would be really ironic if the great spiritual sages of history who have attracted billions of followers may all have suffered from temporal-lobe-epilepsy or some other neurological abnormality. Not only is these experiences physical in the brain and can be stimulated, destroyed and created by physical intervention - they may all be brain dysfunction as well.
I just find it extremely unsatisfactory and completely practical irrelevant to try to dodge all of this I have been writing so far by some metaphysical argument, as is often done here. You can create metaphysical arguments to dodge everything, but in the end - so what? The brain can still hallucinate, people can still get sick, people can get psychosis, gnomes in the shed are still not there to be found, the earth is still not flat and center of the universe, there is still no evidence to support anything beyond matter and energy and so on and so forth. In fact, these metaphysical considerations so often entertained to escape evidence and science don't really produce anything of practical significance alone at all, no new knowledge, no fundamental new insight except from the already should-be-obvious-fact that we don't know everything. Science justifies its process by its practical success, not by some logical deduction by some dubious metaphysical consideration. It has earned our trust by its repeated and proven success, whereas religion, metaphysics, in some extent a lot of spirituality have repeatedly failed us in drawing sound conclusions.
But I don't know in the end Snozz, neither do any of us. We could be all wrong, our models of physics could not be representing some reality out there by a rough shot at all, but what is likely? What is of practical significance in this experience? What can we assume and conclude without reasonable doubt? Where is the evidence going, and wouldn't it be reasonable and open-minded to follow it? Perhaps it is as you say - consensus is not objectivity, but to me it comes a hell of a lot closer than personal convictions, experiences, armchair philosophy, endless metaphysical circle wanks and drug-induced states of consciousness. Taking observations seriously, explaining them with models and predicting new ones is the best we have come up with through thousands of years of civilization and human experience - and look just how effective it has been.
Bah, enough rambling. But yeah, we do agree to a large extent in these questions, I guess you just take it one (or a few) steps further into a territory that really isn't my place of study being a scientist. This is also troubling to discuss because it involves terms and words that we may use in slightly different manners and context. Perhaps for other discussions we should make clear how we define and use terms like "objective", "material", "subjective", "consciousness" and so on to make it flow more smoothly.
Allright allright, I am going to step down two inches, stuff an ice-cream into my face, cool off and talk from there.
From a very strict point of view, I realize that we cannot be certain about anything a hundred percent. This is also a philosophically completely valid position. I believe I have also expressed this several times before, but in discussions I am very colored by pragmatism and utility (because of me being a scientist), so I can rub you off the wrong way. But I don't wish to come off as arrogant or dogmatic, so I say it again here. Anyway, let me brainstorm on this subject a bit in my reply to you. This will be long, but consider it a trip into my thoughts and reasoning
In our discussions you seem to ask how we can know anything objective about the world when everything is observed through human consciousness and sensory experiences. One can also add on this the fact that we have no guarantee that we experience the world in the same way - and at least not in the same way as say, a dog. So how can we know anything objective about the universe at all?
The point - the intention - with doing science, logic and mathematics is that we can bypass this qualia and in principle describe our world independently of how humans subjectively experience it. To take some examples, we don't have to take into account the qualitative differences in the subjective experience of light to describe the electromagnetic spectrum; or the qualitative differences in the subjective experience of watching the stars to describe the fusion that goes on inside them; or the qualitative differences in the subjective experience of music to describe mechanical waves propagating through some medium. These are facts about the world that are not dependent on the individual human mind, but that exists free and independently from it - they are necessarily objective facts in, to my, any meaningful use of this word. They are not just correct within the restrictions of the human experiences of them, and therefore not only correct within a human application. Even though these methods can be said to be a human invention (or perhaps discovery) this does not in any way mean that what we discover and conclude through these methods also are human inventions, or at all restricts themselves to our species-specific subjective experience. In fact one can say quite the opposite; that these methods frees us from the limitations set on us by our subjective experiences - be that sensory limitations, false intuitions, cognitive biases and so on and so forth.
No one with their head not up their ass would claim that we know everything about the universe, but this doesn't mean that we can't say anything at all about anything, or that we can't talk about the likelihood of something being right or wrong. It is obviously a mistake, because it would be equal to saying that since we have just discovered a tiny fraction of what lies beneath the surface of the huge ocean, we can't say whether or not there is a skyscraper right outside my house. This applies to DMT as well, and with confidence we can, at the current stage of scientific development, say that no empirical or theoretical basis exists for assuming anything other than that we inhabit a universe made entirely of matter and energy. This is not a dogmatic position even though we don't know anything, because the essential point is that within our existing knowledge we do not have a credible reason to requiring anything else to explain what we experience and observe - yes, even when it comes to consciousness (even though the door to something else is open a tiny, tiny crack). All science is, however, provisional by its very nature, so if sufficient evidence that meets all the rigorous scientific tests were to come by and demonstrate the existence of a world beyond matter and energy, we would have to change our minds.
Now, what we read on the paper is certainly explanatory models to explain and predict observations, but what these models represents can still be argued to be independent of the subjective experiences of human beings, i.e objective facts about this universe. As an example, Newtons 2. law (though inaccurate at velocities approaching that of light) is not a subjective consideration; it is not open to guesses either between humans or other species. Actually this law follows directly from conservation of momentum, that again follows directly from rotation and translation symmetry (some physicists call this point-of-view-invariance), which means that the laws of physics are independent of who observes from where (Noethers theorem). They are objective. Of course the formulation of the law is human-made, but what it describes is still independent from subjective minds. Our experience of the natural laws can very well change, but the laws themselves do not.
It is also the fact that even though we can't disprove existential claims, it doesn't mean that the claims can't be unlikely. We can't, say, disprove the existence of gnomes in my shed or Santa Claus, but I bet you are not very hesitant to say that the existence of either is very unlikely. The same applies to DMT-entities, as we frequently discuss. There are no good reasons to assume they exist, and many to assume they probably don't outside your own drug-induced experience. We can't disprove that consciousness is not material of origin, but considerable evidence within our best scientific models and investigations suggest fairly strong that the phenomena of mind and consciousness arise from natural mechanisms in a purely material brain. Brain scans today can for instance locate the portions of the brain where different types of thoughts arise, including emotions and religious thoughts and experiences. When that particular part of the brain is destroyed by surgery or injury, those thoughts and emotions disappear.
On the subject of religious thoughts, emotions and experiences - or spiritual ones at that, it is now for instance well known that temporal-lobe-epilepsy results in visions that resemble such experience. Prominent neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran has this to say in his book "Phantoms in the brain" about his observations:
"But most remarkable of all are those patients who have deeply moving spiritual experiences, including a feeling of divine presence and the sense that they are in direct communication with God. Everything around them is imbued with cosmic significance. They may say, 'I finally understood what it's all about. This is the moment I have been waiting for all my life. Suddenly it all makes sense.' Or, 'Finally I have insight into the true nature of the cosmos'".
Resembles DMT, doesn't it? He comments further:
"I find it ironic that this sense of enlightenment, this absolute conclusion that Truth is revealed at last, should derive from limbic structures concerned with emotions rather than from the thinking, rational parts of the brain that take so much pride in their ability to discern truth and falsehood".
Yes indeed, it would be really ironic if the great spiritual sages of history who have attracted billions of followers may all have suffered from temporal-lobe-epilepsy or some other neurological abnormality. Not only is these experiences physical in the brain and can be stimulated, destroyed and created by physical intervention - they may all be brain dysfunction as well.
I just find it extremely unsatisfactory and completely practical irrelevant to try to dodge all of this I have been writing so far by some metaphysical argument, as is often done here. You can create metaphysical arguments to dodge everything, but in the end - so what? The brain can still hallucinate, people can still get sick, people can get psychosis, gnomes in the shed are still not there to be found, the earth is still not flat and center of the universe, there is still no evidence to support anything beyond matter and energy and so on and so forth. In fact, these metaphysical considerations so often entertained to escape evidence and science don't really produce anything of practical significance alone at all, no new knowledge, no fundamental new insight except from the already should-be-obvious-fact that we don't know everything. Science justifies its process by its practical success, not by some logical deduction by some dubious metaphysical consideration. It has earned our trust by its repeated and proven success, whereas religion, metaphysics, in some extent a lot of spirituality have repeatedly failed us in drawing sound conclusions.
But I don't know in the end Snozz, neither do any of us. We could be all wrong, our models of physics could not be representing some reality out there by a rough shot at all, but what is likely? What is of practical significance in this experience? What can we assume and conclude without reasonable doubt? Where is the evidence going, and wouldn't it be reasonable and open-minded to follow it? Perhaps it is as you say - consensus is not objectivity, but to me it comes a hell of a lot closer than personal convictions, experiences, armchair philosophy, endless metaphysical circle wanks and drug-induced states of consciousness. Taking observations seriously, explaining them with models and predicting new ones is the best we have come up with through thousands of years of civilization and human experience - and look just how effective it has been.
Bah, enough rambling. But yeah, we do agree to a large extent in these questions, I guess you just take it one (or a few) steps further into a territory that really isn't my place of study being a scientist. This is also troubling to discuss because it involves terms and words that we may use in slightly different manners and context. Perhaps for other discussions we should make clear how we define and use terms like "objective", "material", "subjective", "consciousness" and so on to make it flow more smoothly.
Hiyo Quicksilver
just some guy
The assumption that the scientific paradigm is inherently cold and pragmatic is most of why the scientific paradigm seems so cold and pragmatic.
So while this sure is a clever little word game, I'm wondering where the philosophical meat and taters are... Maybe folks just aren't so philosophically inclined, but it seems to me that the philosophy forum here is a bit vapid. Isn't it safe to say that the DMT Nexus could be cracking open some serious beauty and wisdom?
I'm really not hating on you guys, just expressing my frustrated disappointment as somebody who lurks this section and (most everywhere else) enjoys reading material of this nature.
But hell... I guess making a catalog of imaginary friends as revealed by vivid hallucination is more relevant to life as a human being on Earth than, say, what these imaginary friends mean to people, and what the circumstance of their meetings reveals about the nature of the experience.
So while this sure is a clever little word game, I'm wondering where the philosophical meat and taters are... Maybe folks just aren't so philosophically inclined, but it seems to me that the philosophy forum here is a bit vapid. Isn't it safe to say that the DMT Nexus could be cracking open some serious beauty and wisdom?
I'm really not hating on you guys, just expressing my frustrated disappointment as somebody who lurks this section and (most everywhere else) enjoys reading material of this nature.
But hell... I guess making a catalog of imaginary friends as revealed by vivid hallucination is more relevant to life as a human being on Earth than, say, what these imaginary friends mean to people, and what the circumstance of their meetings reveals about the nature of the experience.
Similar threads
