|
deCypher



Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
|
Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
#9304111 - 11/24/08 01:15 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
What interrelationships?
Can one attempt to map out the mechanics of one's dream world by polling the dream actors?
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
 
|
zannennagara
Found in Space



Registered: 09/25/08
Posts: 433
|
Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Noteworthy]
#9304206 - 11/24/08 01:34 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Noteworthy said: these are not different definitions of objective.
1. is this an actual material object we are tlaking about or is someone referring to an observed material object? Well people can only ever end up talking knowlegably about observed material objects (because these are the only objects that would have 'actual' qualities). 2. what is 'actual' existance or reality? Believe it or not but 'actual' is basically synonymous with 'objective'. 3a. no critic is fully objective, all critics have their biases. we all know this!!! 3b. you cant define objective by observations.. or else you would 'objectively' conclude that the walls are breathing...
therefor the only definition I was using was deifnition 2.
The other definitions are fallacious, they are figurative, approximate.
They are fallacious because you are comparing them to another definition of your own - and that's fine, I just consider it less functionally useful.
Quote:
but how do you tell what is 'actual'?
all we can do is appeal to our observations.
which are subjective.
I think you will be up against the world if you try to claim humans experience the universe without individual bias. these individual biases are what make something subjective and not objective.
Yes, I agree that we cannot experience the universe without individual bias; I agree that our experiences are subjective. Yet our biased experiences do have certain things in common with each other, and those similarities I would call objective truth.
Quote:
why would humans use a concept that they can never actually prove true?
well I think that is a really dumb question to ask, mate. Since when was there ever a reasonable excuse for any of human's weird tendancies?
anyway the point is not that it can be proven true but that it can be USED as IF true, because everyone agrees.
this is how we functionally define objectivity, even if we conceptually define it as 'the actual state of the world'.
My point was that I don't think philosophers or word-makers intended to use objectivity as an unknowable ideal but as something by which to demonstrate the connection between different perspectives, something graspable by the humans envisioning it. It seems to me that to say truth is only subjective is to throw any real shared experience or interconnection out the window.
But we're in the same world, so if objectivity is a word that represents more of an ideal for you that's fine.
-------------------- No debe haber separación, no puede haber definición.
|
zannennagara
Found in Space



Registered: 09/25/08
Posts: 433
|
Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
#9304234 - 11/24/08 01:40 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
deCypher said: What interrelationships?
Can one attempt to map out the mechanics of one's dream world by polling the dream actors?
Interrelationships in the sense that we can communicate, we can observe patterns and come up with ways of describing them that seem to hold up in different cases, we do have undeniable connections to our environment and each other.
I'm not sure that I follow your second question, though. The specific dream may not be objectively true in the sense that nobody else can experience its specific events from your perspective, but perhaps the way your brain operates in dreaming or the way your psyche is represented through characters can be common to other dreams and dreamers, and those relationships would be more objective.
-------------------- No debe haber separación, no puede haber definición.
|
deCypher



Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
|
Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
#9304692 - 11/24/08 03:03 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
I'm going to go completely post-modernist on this one and claim that patterns are solely the product of a subjective mind; what one person sees as order is another man's chaos.
You assume that the environment exists, for one thing, and that the corroboration of other observers (verifiability) somehow lends validity to the suggestion of an objective reality.
A dream is a good counterexample as during the duration of it one is convinced of its reality, and yet the observation of patterns (such as you and another dream actor "independently" verifying the existence of a purple unicorn) does nothing to confirm true objectivity.
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
 
|
zannennagara
Found in Space



Registered: 09/25/08
Posts: 433
|
Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
#9305312 - 11/24/08 04:47 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
A dream is real, and within a non-lucid one that reality is the objective one - it's upon waking that we see the separation, and understand that the description of its objectivity/truth should be modified to fit more nicely with the objectivity of the waking reality we experience.
We may be in a dream in what we feel to be waking life, but what's the purpose of rejecting the objective truths we've learned if we say that we will never see what's beyond and "more" objective? Objectivity is not a quantification, it's a connection throughout as broad of a world as we can experience.
Assumption that the environment exists is merely a simple way to describe what I experience in that I can comment on it with others, whatever the environment "actually" is. It's fun to speculate on what it might be, but the possibility of incomplete perspective doesn't mean we should discount all of our existing observations as useless.
If a pattern can be agreed upon, then those in agreement can consider it objective, but if there are disagreements with documented reality it should be taken into account and the pattern adjusted.
-------------------- No debe haber separación, no puede haber definición.
|
OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 45,414
Loc: Under the C
|
Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
#9305317 - 11/24/08 04:48 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
If this post doesn't scare me off drugs, then nothing will.
--------------------
|
deCypher



Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
|
Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
#9305388 - 11/24/08 05:00 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
I sense this is a blurring of the definition of objective, but you make good points regardless.
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
 
|
Noteworthy
Sophyphile


Registered: 10/05/08
Posts: 5,599
Last seen: 11 years, 10 days
|
Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
#9308200 - 11/24/08 10:56 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
zannennagara said:
They are fallacious because you are comparing them to another definition of your own - and that's fine, I just consider it less functionally useful.
Quote:
but how do you tell what is 'actual'?
all we can do is appeal to our observations.
which are subjective.
I think you will be up against the world if you try to claim humans experience the universe without individual bias. these individual biases are what make something subjective and not objective.
Yes, I agree that we cannot experience the universe without individual bias; I agree that our experiences are subjective. Yet our biased experiences do have certain things in common with each other, and those similarities I would call objective truth.
You are basically making my point by saying that "our biased experiences do have certain things in common with each other, and those similarities I would call objective truth". I defined objectivity as something consistent across all perspectives. Well in practice, we can only get information from certain perspectives (each subjective experience is another perspective), and in practice, there is nothing which is agreed apon by every subjective experience. But there are things that are agreed apon by most or nearly all, and we call this objective , because it is the closest we will ever get to the ideal state of 'a similarity amongst all perspectives'. however, this is, strictly speaking, not an objective stance.
I dont think we have different definitions of objective and i dont even think there can be different definitions of objective amongst adults in this world because the word is one of the most fundamental in our philosophical language. The question is now WHAT objectivity is but what it means to us and how it effects us and what we can ever know about it and why we even think it exists in teh first place.
The issue at hand is that Objectivity has a purported METAPHYSICAL existance, despite being EPISTEMOLOGICALLY inaccessible.
--------------------

|
zannennagara
Found in Space



Registered: 09/25/08
Posts: 433
|
Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Noteworthy]
#9308557 - 11/25/08 12:40 AM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
You are basically making my point by saying that "our biased experiences do have certain things in common with each other, and those similarities I would call objective truth". I defined objectivity as something consistent across all perspectives. Well in practice, we can only get information from certain perspectives (each subjective experience is another perspective), and in practice, there is nothing which is agreed apon by every subjective experience. But there are things that are agreed apon by most or nearly all, and we call this objective , because it is the closest we will ever get to the ideal state of 'a similarity amongst all perspectives'. however, this is, strictly speaking, not an objective stance.
It is an objective truth that you posted the above, regardless of any different perspective. Anyone who is capable of seeing it will see the same symbols. A subjective perspective could agree or disagree with your points, question your intentions or your choice in posting it or your definitions, but there's "Noteworthy" and there's your text. If one is blind or tripping so hard that symbols are fluidly nonsensical, one won't be able to see it, but the lack of ability to discern any visible symbols whatsoever means that the input is irrelevant to what visible symbols have been posted. To me objectivity in this case seems epistemologically accessible.
My dilemma here is with the idea that there could possibly be a truth that is not contingent on perspective.
...Which means we are in agreement! I'm just labeling as objective those things that are as true as possible across perspectives, while you are labeling that as an extension of subjectivity, which it is indeed. You are labeling as objective the asymptote of subjectivity.
Very well! Understood.
-------------------- No debe haber separación, no puede haber definición.
|
Noteworthy
Sophyphile


Registered: 10/05/08
Posts: 5,599
Last seen: 11 years, 10 days
|
Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
#9309340 - 11/25/08 08:10 AM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
dude.. you can only read 'noteworthy' if you know the english language... in fact only if you are GOOD at the english language. otherwise you might read it as 'not EW ort hy'
there is no 'truth' as to what it actually IS
--------------------

|
deCypher



Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
|
Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
#9309941 - 11/25/08 10:35 AM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
zannennagara said: It is an objective truth that you posted the above, regardless of any different perspective.
I disagree. Does calling something an objective truth make it one?
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
 
|
Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
|
Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
#9309950 - 11/25/08 10:37 AM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Only in the Mystery forum.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
|
zannennagara
Found in Space



Registered: 09/25/08
Posts: 433
|
Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Noteworthy]
#9310275 - 11/25/08 11:37 AM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Noteworthy said: dude.. you can only read 'noteworthy' if you know the english language... in fact only if you are GOOD at the english language. otherwise you might read it as 'not EW ort hy'
there is no 'truth' as to what it actually IS
First, the symbols look the same regardless of what they mean to you (the letters will not be spaced apart and randomly capitalized, though you might pronounce them that way). Second, this is the same point we can't get past. Again.
My contention has been that objectivity as a practical human concept cannot exist without a human observer - I am agreeing with you, every objective truth is a subjective one. But I'm going for a practical version of objectivity, in which something that is in common with multiple subjects transcends an individual subjectivity and takes on a degree of objectivity.
If objectivity to you means every subject must have everything in common, that's fine; I accept that, as long as you aren't throwing shared truths out the window just because they do depend on people experiencing them.
-------------------- No debe haber separación, no puede haber definición.
|
zannennagara
Found in Space



Registered: 09/25/08
Posts: 433
|
Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
#9310290 - 11/25/08 11:40 AM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
deCypher said: I disagree. Does calling something an objective truth make it one?
No; someone else reading "the above" and agreeing with the statement makes it one, not for all observers necessarily - which, see above, is the crux our disagreement on where to draw the line on objectivity.
-------------------- No debe haber separación, no puede haber definición.
|
deCypher



Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
|
Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
#9310508 - 11/25/08 12:33 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
How do you know other observers see the same things you do?
The whole concept of shared truth relies on this, but if one cannot be certain that another observer sees the same truth that we do (impossible to verify), let alone be certain of another observer's existence, it seems a bit moot.
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
 
|
deimya
tofu and monocle


Registered: 08/26/04
Posts: 825
Loc: ausländer.ch
|
Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
#9311874 - 11/25/08 04:15 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
deCypher said: How do you know other observers see the same things you do?
The whole concept of shared truth relies on this, but if one cannot be certain that another observer sees the same truth that we do (impossible to verify), let alone be certain of another observer's existence, it seems a bit moot.
It is irrelevant what other actually sees. What is relevant is the ensuing persistence of behaviours and public discourses coming out of it that comes back to you. This is what shared truth relies on.
Put on goggles that invert left and right (or up and down). Sure you'll be nauseous for a day or two, worst the disruption eventually goes well beyond seeing the world inverted and actually everything becomes quite chaotic, but it comes back as before after a while, the distinction between left and right and everything else is restored and reorganised with respect to, and because of, the persistent interaction with the behaviours and public discourse of others. It doesn't matter what observers actually sees, the private part that is, only the ensuing shared "resonance" with others.
On a side note, such experiments with inverting goggles seems to point towards enactivism, although some argue it actually, upon closer inspection, refutes it. Funny funny psychological philosophy.
Edited by deimya (11/25/08 04:22 PM)
|
zannennagara
Found in Space



Registered: 09/25/08
Posts: 433
|
Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
#9312194 - 11/25/08 05:03 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
deCypher said: How do you know other observers see the same things you do?
The whole concept of shared truth relies on this, but if one cannot be certain that another observer sees the same truth that we do (impossible to verify), let alone be certain of another observer's existence, it seems a bit moot.
There is more evidence that they see the same or very similar things than that they don't see the same things. Everything others say and do about it implies having seen something very similar, in which case one should err on the side of knowing rather than not knowing. You can say "I think, with as great of a degree of certainty as I seem to be currently able" instead of "know" but I think that's why we came up with "know."
Neither "knowing" nor "not knowing" can be used as absolute extremes, only relative degrees. Any knowledge contains a certain lack of knowledge, any lack of knowledge contains a certain degree of knowledge. Same with subjectivity and objectivity - if objectivity is an impossible ideal, so must be subjectivity, and then we can use neither word because neither is real, and none of our language is real, and nothing is real, which is the same as everything being real, and we're back where we started, assessing it all in relation to its parts.
-------------------- No debe haber separación, no puede haber definición.
|
deCypher



Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
|
Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
#9312520 - 11/25/08 06:06 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
zannennagara said: Neither "knowing" nor "not knowing" can be used as absolute extremes, only relative degrees. Any knowledge contains a certain lack of knowledge, any lack of knowledge contains a certain degree of knowledge. Same with subjectivity and objectivity - if objectivity is an impossible ideal, so must be subjectivity, and then we can use neither word because neither is real, and none of our language is real, and nothing is real, which is the same as everything being real, and we're back where we started, assessing it all in relation to its parts.
The difficulty rests with language, IMO. If I point at something and ask another person if it's a cow, and they say yes, I have learned nothing. Their meaning for "cow" could be completely different from mine, and it is impossible to pass this linguistic barrier of knowledge.
I fail to see how objectivity being an impossible ideal implies that subjectivity is likewise. Subjectivity is all we have; I have certain terms that I can apply to various sensory phenomena that I perceive, and I can notice apparent consistencies and regularities in the stream of information invading my perception. All of this is subjectivity; how is this an impossible ideal to attain when we've already attained it?
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
 
|
OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 45,414
Loc: Under the C
|
Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
#9312559 - 11/25/08 06:16 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
You might find it interesting that most societies have words for blue green, and red. When tested to see if one culture's blue was the same as another cultures' blue, what do you think the answer is?
--------------------
|
deCypher



Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
|
|
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinguishing_blue_from_green_in_language
Quite a few cultures apparently do not have separate terms for blue and green.
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
 
|
|