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zannennagara
Found in Space



Registered: 09/25/08
Posts: 433
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Noteworthy]
#9314033 - 11/25/08 10:03 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
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Noteworthy said: If I see the sky as blue, this is subjective. If go and ask ten people what colour the sky is, they will probably all say blue. each person has a similar subjective experience, so we figure, we cant all just be making this up. We suppose that the sky is objectively blue. We never logically proved it. Therefor it is fine to say the sky is blue, because no one will contradict you. That doesnt mean that it is ACTUALLY blue, it just means that it is most likely blue, to the point where considering it perhaps not blue is a waste of time.
You can only see the sky as "blue" based on an objective understanding of what the word represents; "blue" has no meaning unless it is something shared with the other people using it. Actual blue is dependent on the agreement of subjects.
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humans do this neat thing called 'idealising' whereby we talk about things that dont actually exist
in science, data is collected, and you know what happens next? it is analysed and then turned into an idealised form whereby we get all of the individual measurements and find the 'line of best fit'. this 'line of best fit' is then treated as if it is the actual state of the world, in order to make further inferences about the world and to make calculations and to turn all the different measurements into a single result. But this line of best fit does not represent reality, it represents a mathematical derivation from the collection of measurements we make, it is an 'ideal'
The "actual" state of the world can refer both to each person's experience and to the common elements; the latter is constantly being approximated and refined to give us a better language with which to describe our personal experiences.
-------------------- No debe haber separación, no puede haber definición.
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Sleepwalker
Overshoes

Registered: 05/07/08
Posts: 5,503
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
#9314040 - 11/25/08 10:04 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
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Describe blue without using the word blue.
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deCypher



Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
#9314050 - 11/25/08 10:06 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
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zannennagara said: You can only see the sky as "blue" based on an objective understanding of what the word represents; "blue" has no meaning unless it is something shared with the other people using it. Actual blue is dependent on the agreement of subjects.
An objective understanding of what the word represents? I'd argue instead that we only see the sky as "blue" because this appears to be a subjectively shared understanding. You originally learned that the sky was blue only because someone told you the name for a particular perception of yours; the name might match but the the subjective perceptions could be completely different.
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
 
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Noteworthy
Sophyphile


Registered: 10/05/08
Posts: 5,599
Last seen: 11 years, 10 days
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
#9314144 - 11/25/08 10:22 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
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there are plenty of shades that one person thinks is blue, the other thinks is indigo. others that one person thinks is orange, another thinks is red. there is no fact of the matter, you can only battle it off with numbers of agreement, and who is to say which people have a more acute sense of colour?
there are shades of turquoise that some people think are 'greeny shade of blue' and others think is a 'cool-green'. note that this is different to saying 'mix between blue and green' which would obviously be the same as 'mix between green and blue'
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zannennagara
Found in Space



Registered: 09/25/08
Posts: 433
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
#9314199 - 11/25/08 10:32 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
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deCypher said: Identifiable components of an experience are only pragmatic considerations; the experience is still a whole as we perceive it. The use of language to communicate this to another bundle of contextually associated perceptions that I label as zannennagara is merely another aspect of my mental experience. Samadhi is a word; nothing more--to understand what it means one can only experience.
Aha! Solipsism rears its ugly head. Where our mental experiences overlap, though, even if it's only a figment of your mind - a bold assumption, particularly because someone invented "solipsism" before you, and because it appears that I'm relating a mental experience of my own - that's what I'm calling objective/physical/whatever. Or my mental experience is a portion of yours, in which case within yours there have still always been portions which overlap which I call objective/physical/whatever.
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But what is physical? If you probe further into its definition, IMO you'll find that it's nothing more than a term for a category of perceptions that is more consistent and regular than others (dreams, or hallucinations, for example). I can only suppose the existence of my eyes, or my ears--I know that I experience sights and sounds, however. (Language here poses a bit of a problem because the words "sight" and "sound" themselves imply the existence of objective phenomena, yet we still say we see a rabbit in our dreams even when our physical eyes were not doing the seeing.)
But what are perceptions? If you probe further into their definition, you'll find that it's nothing more than an objectification of experiences in different physical realms... we run in circles. These are perspectives of the same things.
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The very fact that there is a you hallucinating presupposes a subjective experience, no?
Yet this hallucination is shared with a plethora of others too.
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If we didn't dream, or experience altered perceptions of phenomena that have no objective existence, this might be true--yet these things exist and therefore lend convincing skeptical doubt.
Convincing that there are both physical and mental factors both at play, since there are dreams and altered perceptions while there also are shared experiences.
-------------------- No debe haber separación, no puede haber definición.
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zannennagara
Found in Space



Registered: 09/25/08
Posts: 433
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Sleepwalker]
#9314241 - 11/25/08 10:39 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
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Oweyervishice said: Describe blue without using the word blue.
Rainbow, position 5 out of 7; 450–495 nm light wavelength; cloudless sky, ocean, these round berries here - we can't qualify blue, only say where we mostly agree we see it. "Blue" is the objective placeholder for the items, the (approximate) common thread regardless of all factors apart from color.
-------------------- No debe haber separación, no puede haber definición.
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zannennagara
Found in Space



Registered: 09/25/08
Posts: 433
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
#9314273 - 11/25/08 10:45 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
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deCypher said:
An objective understanding of what the word represents? I'd argue instead that we only see the sky as "blue" because this appears to be a subjectively shared understanding. You originally learned that the sky was blue only because someone told you the name for a particular perception of yours; the name might match but the the subjective perceptions could be completely different.
Subjectively shared = objective. The perception couldn't be completely different, else nobody would agree that it was blue. Different languages do have different understandings of colors, as you pointed out earlier, but they're only labeling different swathes of color under a word from the swathes we have chosen, which we then approximate in translation and say "Our blue is different."
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deCypher



Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
#9315888 - 11/26/08 09:44 AM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
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zannennagara said:The perception couldn't be completely different, else nobody would agree that it was blue.
The inverted spectrum thought experiment refutes this. It is possible for every person to be raised with completely different subjective perceptions of what we call "blue"; the word only implies a label and not the cross consistency of the internal viewpoint.
To avoid this confusion, we can label blue as a particular wavelength of light--but then we're talking about wavelengths, not color as the perception. To do the latter requires purely subjective talk; any attempt at garnering relationships and consistencies in an objective fashion is hopelessly doomed to failure.
You start off from the basic assumption that the existence of a subjective reality and an objective reality are equally probable, and go on to draw the conclusion that one may be equally skeptical of both. This is false--as shown, one cannot be absolutely sure that other people see the same thing, or even that other people exist. You claim that your hallucination is shared by a plethora of others; how do you know you are not just hallucinating the others who supposedly share the hallucination?
It's possible to doubt the existence of others, the world, consensus reality, and even the fact that you have a body. Conversely, it's not possible to deny my own mental experience. From these grounds alone, it makes more sense to be skeptical of objective reality than it does to be skeptical of subjective reality (I can be sure that I exist and am experiencing, but I cannot be sure that you are.) You define perceptions as objectifications of experiences in different physical realms; I ask you to prove the existence of a physical realm in the first place, which you cannot do. Compared to my definition of physical as a category of perceptions that appear to be more consistent and regular than others, my proof of the existence of perceptions is self-evident: I perceive, therefore it must be so. Logically, it seems, skepticism of objectivism is far more natural than the self-contradictory skepticism of subjectivism.
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
 
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Noteworthy
Sophyphile


Registered: 10/05/08
Posts: 5,599
Last seen: 11 years, 10 days
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
#9316040 - 11/26/08 10:33 AM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
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according to the principle of most-shared-subjectivity, it would be an 'objective' view that George Bush deserved to be in parliament.. or something random like that
perhaps a better example is that it would be objectively true that george, a misunderstood man, is hairy. note that george is a bushy viking living with a household of six japanese people, all of whom wax their privates.
no, it is not true that george is objectively hairy because he used to live with four other guys who made wigs from their body hair.
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it stars saddam
Satan

Registered: 05/19/05
Posts: 15,571
Loc: Spahn Ranch
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Epigallo]
#9325448 - 11/28/08 01:22 AM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
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bradley said: Therefore, attempting to quantify the absolute importance of ourselves or our actions would be meaningless.
This notion of meaninglessness seems to be a recurring theme in one's quest for philosophical knowledge.
Hmm...
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zannennagara
Found in Space



Registered: 09/25/08
Posts: 433
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
#9325659 - 11/28/08 03:29 AM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
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deCypher said:
The inverted spectrum thought experiment refutes this. It is possible for every person to be raised with completely different subjective perceptions of what we call "blue"; the word only implies a label and not the cross consistency of the internal viewpoint.
To avoid this confusion, we can label blue as a particular wavelength of light--but then we're talking about wavelengths, not color as the perception. To do the latter requires purely subjective talk; any attempt at garnering relationships and consistencies in an objective fashion is hopelessly doomed to failure.
As I said before, a color label is an objective placeholder - the fact of differences in subjectivity in experience are irrelevant if the functional relationships between those using the labels are the same. The perceptions as individually experienced may be highly subjective, yet the perceptions as associations with objects (shared with other perceivers) are objective. I.e. the issue is not the perception of the thing-in-itself but of the thing in relation to others; we may all have a completely different picture/"serving size" of what "2" is, but 2+2=4 is an objective relational agreement accepted only to make objective sense of our subjective pictures - "2," again, is the placeholder, and the specific experience of "2" for even a single person changes in every situation.
The cross consistency of the internal viewpoint can only be manifest through its external relations, and objectivity is based on relationships and consistencies shown this way, not on determining specifically a subjective thing-in-itself experience to make sure this is identical with other such subjective experiences - that would be hopeless, but it is not relevant to objectivity.
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You start off from the basic assumption that the existence of a subjective reality and an objective reality are equally probable, and go on to draw the conclusion that one may be equally skeptical of both. This is false--as shown, one cannot be absolutely sure that other people see the same thing, or even that other people exist. You claim that your hallucination is shared by a plethora of others; how do you know you are not just hallucinating the others who supposedly share the hallucination?
It's possible to doubt the existence of others, the world, consensus reality, and even the fact that you have a body. Conversely, it's not possible to deny my own mental experience. From these grounds alone, it makes more sense to be skeptical of objective reality than it does to be skeptical of subjective reality (I can be sure that I exist and am experiencing, but I cannot be sure that you are.) You define perceptions as objectifications of experiences in different physical realms; I ask you to prove the existence of a physical realm in the first place, which you cannot do. Compared to my definition of physical as a category of perceptions that appear to be more consistent and regular than others, my proof of the existence of perceptions is self-evident: I perceive, therefore it must be so. Logically, it seems, skepticism of objectivism is far more natural than the self-contradictory skepticism of subjectivism.
I'm assuming nothing about probability, just examining the linguistic and conceptual usage of "subjective vs. objective" reality - it seems very clear that they are terms to distinguish (and create a duality) between two coexistent concepts. I'm skeptical of claims that reality can be one and not the other, as with claims that a man can be pure good or pure evil, because these dual concepts are not choices - they have stemmed from the same nondual source - but perspectives. "Subject" only has meaning in distinguishing the subject from an object and vice-versa; to say that one is a "subject" or experiencing subjectivity is to presume this coexistence, thus to argue for pure subjectivity or pure objectivity is nonsensical.
This doesn't preclude you from believing that the world's all in your mind, but as long as you are observing or noticing anything within it you are having a subject-object relationship. If that object is oneness with nothingness, then the distinction between subject-object is nonexistent; you have erased a duality, not polarized it.
Objectivity and subjectivity are used to distinguish between agreements and personal biases, not to demand we can only trust one or the other. Claims of "It's all subjective" seem to predominate in popular philosophy, as if the fact was an excuse to say scientific findings have only as much applicability to the description of phenomena as any rambling holistic treatment salesman. The point is that one holds true in significantly more cases across a broader spectrum than the other, less dependent on the individual subject, and is thus more objective. No, not entirely! We do often forget that our objectivity is not unimpeachable truth, and may be more subjective than an unconsidered better way of looking at things! But subjectivity can never escape objects (and objective criticism) either, by definition.
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zannennagara
Found in Space



Registered: 09/25/08
Posts: 433
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Noteworthy]
#9325665 - 11/28/08 03:34 AM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
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Noteworthy said: according to the principle of most-shared-subjectivity, it would be an 'objective' view that George Bush deserved to be in parliament.. or something random like that
perhaps a better example is that it would be objectively true that george, a misunderstood man, is hairy. note that george is a bushy viking living with a household of six japanese people, all of whom wax their privates.
no, it is not true that george is objectively hairy because he used to live with four other guys who made wigs from their body hair.
Most-shared? How many people share any of the above views?
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Noteworthy
Sophyphile


Registered: 10/05/08
Posts: 5,599
Last seen: 11 years, 10 days
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
#9326163 - 11/28/08 09:02 AM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
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well there are two views.. the first one.. well george bush was voted in. you can say that not everyone voted equally.. but then again, in NO sample of opinions will all people's opinions be counted equally.
for the second view, I created a hypothetical situation whereby someone could be, by a certain calculation of objectivity, both one thing and another, therefor proving that such a calculation is flawed
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deCypher



Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
#9326892 - 11/28/08 11:54 AM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
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OK, I dig your meaning of objective now. However, I feel this still falls prey to doubt.
You claim that something is at least more objective if more than one person can confirm it with a label (even though the subjective phenomena might be completely different). However, how can one ever be sure that another person confirmed an event with the same label? You could be hallucinating that the other person said cow when you said cow, or even that the other person exists. Skepticism is still possible about this "objective" phenomena, whereas it is impossible to have this about my own perception.
In this sense, far more appeal lies in the subjectivist position due to its unfalsifiability.
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
 
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zannennagara
Found in Space



Registered: 09/25/08
Posts: 433
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
#9328496 - 11/28/08 05:41 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
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I think I better understand your doubt now as well.
You're saying that because you can't really trust that something experienced within your mind is the same experience as something else labeled the same, the objective and shared reality of that something is impossible to verify. Your relationship to your subjective experience is more assured than faith that someone else is sensing the same thing. Agreed.
The experience cannot be objective - this is maybe what you have meant all along - in the sense that we can never fully inhabit another's experience to provide raw perceptual artifacts to compare with our own, and your personal experience is forever personal, which you call subjective. Makes sense.
However, since there is no raw comparison between experiences, the experience cannot really be called subjective either, in the sense (that perhaps only I am using! though I doubt this) that "subjective" distinguishes between types of these comparisons. To say that your experience is subjective is to imply that there could be an experience that would be more shared - even though this is impossible by definition, since you are the observer in any experience.
So calling any experience itself subjective or objective seems silly; everything you experience is real; you really experienced it.
But then comes the concept of "truth," used to connect your experience to a more (back on topic!) cosmic perspective, which takes into account the relationship between different aspects of your cosmic experience, including the accounts/discourses of others and the findings of different thought systems and sciences.
"Objective" and "subjective" only apply to these interrelationships of truth, to compare those aspects of your experience that seem to be highly personal or "one-time-only" and those that take on a more cosmic regularity, connection or consensus, whether between other people and perspectives or between your own thoughts and mental experiences.
It is experience itself that cannot be falsified, which I think is what you mean in using the qualifier "subjectivist" - I only disagree with the terminology, as I don't think experience can be qualified in this way. The glory of an Earth-shattering psychedelic experience is real, but the judgments we eventually make about it, connecting it with other experiences, then enter the realm of subjectivity and objectivity as qualifiers of truth, clarifying the depth of our judgments but not saying what is and is not real by some kind of majority vote.
To try to end this back on topic, cosmic significance of self is inherently tied to self-judgment. To decide that we're meaningless based on our comparative size in (or effects on) the universe - our personal experience "only subjective" - is to forget that subjectivity and objectivity are not experiences but relational judgments. Decreeing that we are objectively meaningless in our subjectivity is a subjective sensation of disconnection from the cosmos.
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