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OfflineEpigallo
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Cosmic significance of self
    #9292544 - 11/22/08 04:11 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

It's commonly concluded that we're completely unimportant, as the whole human race doesn't even make up a perceptible speck in the grand assembly of galaxies.

But, on any scale we have discovered, we see that every thing is both a part of some larger thing, and an assembly of smaller things. This seems to indicate there is no fundamental particle from which all life springs; as much as you can zoom out, you can zoom in.

If importance means having a significant effect on the universe, this shows that when zooming in, our importance is infinite, and when zooming out, our unimportance is infinite.

Therefore, attempting to quantify the absolute importance of ourselves or our actions would be meaningless.


Edited by Epigallo (11/22/08 04:20 PM)


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Offlinemilkman
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Epigallo]
    #9292899 - 11/22/08 05:13 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

well said


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InvisibleSleepwalker
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Epigallo]
    #9293095 - 11/22/08 05:32 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

We are currently "zoomed in" on the human aspect of the universe.  We are important if we decide to see ourselves that way.


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Offlinemr_kite
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Epigallo]
    #9293775 - 11/22/08 07:33 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

bradley said:
It's commonly concluded that we're completely unimportant, as the whole human race doesn't even make up a perceptible speck in the grand assembly of galaxies.

But, on any scale we have discovered, we see that every thing is both a part of some larger thing, and an assembly of smaller things. This seems to indicate there is no fundamental particle from which all life springs; as much as you can zoom out, you can zoom in.

If importance means having a significant effect on the universe, this shows that when zooming in, our importance is infinite, and when zooming out, our unimportance is infinite.

Therefore, attempting to quantify the absolute importance of ourselves or our actions would be meaningless.




Seeing ourselves as Important or Unimportant is humanising the universe. Looking at it universally, we're no more or less important that anything else that is, be it a black hole or a bowl of rice.

Everything is the same. Noone hould give a fuck


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let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love


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Offlinemyriadeyes
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: mr_kite]
    #9294807 - 11/22/08 11:23 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Is a 6 foot man more important than a 5 foot man? A horse than a man? I think this supposed ratio of size to importance only feels plausible when one of the sizes involved is very great - which betrays the true basis of this type of thought. If this relation is achieved by reason, it should hold true universally - that small differences in size would be accompanied by small differences in importance. I think the importance we attach to great differences of size is not from reason, but from our emotions. IMO one cannot approach the importance of human beings from this angle.


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If you spare a little of your imagination . . .


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OfflineEpigallo
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: myriadeyes]
    #9294871 - 11/22/08 11:35 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

It's not quite size we place importance on, but the size of impact we perceive. Naturally larger things seem to make bigger dents (usually).


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OfflineEpigallo
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Epigallo]
    #9294914 - 11/22/08 11:44 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:


Seeing ourselves as Important or Unimportant is humanising the universe.




Not necessarily. One can look at importance with a detached scientific judgment; a physics problem might have unimportant variables, for example. If you are looking at the resonance of a bridge, wind gusts might be important, but not the sound vibrations from car stereos.


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OfflineEpigallo
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Epigallo]
    #9294924 - 11/22/08 11:48 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Looking at it universally, we're no more or less important that anything else that is, be it a black hole or a bowl of rice.

Everything is the same.




My point was that it isn't. This is just a view, where the magnification is low (zoomed out) from far away and we become obscured and indistinct.

Oh well, I'm not sure my point has any practical value anyway.


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Offlinemyriadeyes
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Epigallo]
    #9294957 - 11/22/08 11:54 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

bradley said:
It's not quite size we place importance on, but the size of impact we perceive. Naturally larger things seem to make bigger dents (usually).




Exactly. I don't see there being a significant difference between size and impact. I don't believe the importance of something can be determined by its "significant effect". Do not real variations of importance only exist when coinciding with the idea of objective truth? Otherwise, from a naturalistic viewpoint, I am as important as an atom as a galaxy as a universe - the only thing more important (and it may not be either) is "the whole show" or the thing "going on of it's own accord" - the totality of Nature.


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If you spare a little of your imagination . . .


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InvisibleJ3illy
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: myriadeyes]
    #9295023 - 11/23/08 12:07 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Personally I feel when ppl start thinking the whole "humans and everything on earth doesn't matter in the BIG scheme of things" - they need to snap out of it and start concentrating on the small scheme of things.  It's cool to think about sometimes, sure - but having that mentality is gonna get you nowhere in this life.  Our life we have here is what matters to US, and that's that.  Don't let it pass you by thinking about ambiguous shit that we'll never comprehend anyways.


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Offlinemyriadeyes
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: J3illy]
    #9295034 - 11/23/08 12:10 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Hey now, don't jump to conclusions. I believe in objective Truth.


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If you spare a little of your imagination . . .


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OfflineEpigallo
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: J3illy]
    #9295060 - 11/23/08 12:16 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

I sort of agree, I mean the big scheme is a nice argument for not fretting or worrying too much, but compared to the microscopic schemes we are like our own (planets?) or something, or even larger depending how small you compare to.


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OfflineNoteworthy
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Epigallo]
    #9295691 - 11/23/08 02:45 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Why do people try to judge their importance to the universe?

Id say we mean nothing in the 'big scheme of things'. Id say that there is no such thing as 'objective' meaning.

but that doesn't matter anyway

all that matters is our importance to eachother


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InvisibleSleepwalker
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: mr_kite]
    #9295692 - 11/23/08 02:46 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

mr_kite said:
Seeing ourselves as Important or Unimportant is humanising the universe.




Maybe refusing to categorize humans as important or unimportant is an attempt to universalize humanity...:strokebeard3:


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OfflinePlasmid
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Epigallo]
    #9295730 - 11/23/08 03:06 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

It's commonly concluded that we're completely unimportant




Who cares what the brainless masses think?  I mean, who is commonly concluding this?  I wouldn't listen to anyone who thinks they can come to that kind of conclusion.  (I wonder if you just said that for effect though, simply because this isn't something I hear people say)

We're important to our selves.  Isn't that enough?


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OfflineEpigallo
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Noteworthy]
    #9295755 - 11/23/08 03:18 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

I don't understand if y'all are in disagreement, or elaborating, or what. :confused:



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OfflineBooby
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Epigallo]
    #9295805 - 11/23/08 03:29 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Markthegnostic may have a better reference than I, but there is a perspective that we are the grain, the food that the gods eat who walk amongst us. As the sustenance begotten from a fertilized Earth.


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Let it not be remembered
That mycelium eats detritus and dies
But that life in all it's glory
Counts mycelium to be on it's side.


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OfflineEpigallo
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Booby]
    #9295814 - 11/23/08 03:32 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Of course there is. There's lots of perspectives. :yesnod:


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InvisibleChronic7

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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Epigallo]
    #9296081 - 11/23/08 06:16 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Absolutley speaking nothing has menaing
Relatively speaking it all has meaning

Both are wrong

Everything is cosmically wiped away, so what can have meaning?
Yet relatively we codepend on each other to exist so we all have meaning.

Its where we relate to each other that gives our life meaning, yet the nature of relationship is meaningless as there is only one, therefore both are empty philosophies apprently contradicting each other, not able to exist without the other

If you can comment on reality & come to a conclusion, then your wrong

You can say nothing is ever happening or that everything possible is happening, but there's still no '2 ways' about it :wink:


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Edited by Chronic7 (11/23/08 06:25 AM)


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InvisibleMiddlemanM

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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Chronic7]
    #9296392 - 11/23/08 09:05 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Man I'm so wrong I'm right. Throw that Dr. Phil fucker out of here. :lol:


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OfflineHelpme1
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Middleman]
    #9297030 - 11/23/08 12:20 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Objectivity is erroneous. "Experience" in and of itself proves that all life is subjective. This means that once we begin to experience life, we lose all objectivity, we can only experience life through our own peepholes, consequently we prejudge things, thus the discourse on philosophy began. In the constant search for objetive truth, humanity falls EVER short because of the relativity of knowledge. We put benign labels on EVERYTHING that we percieve, which in effect it loses its OBJECTIVE MEANING. This is why we can never hold any knowledge or "truth" because "truth" is relative, and life is infinitely subjective.

Our discourse is what shapes or maps our reality. It is through experience that we posit ourselves to an ontology. So perhaps instead of perpetually questioning and answering this question of reality with: our realities are "unimportant" in a universal sense,  or our "being" in the universe is ultimately MEANINGLESS. Why don't we instead confront reality with hearty (and effectually malicious) intent and LIVE our LIVES because, I think we can all agree that reality itself can never be avoided. Would this not solve your questions of ontology?

Also many of you are mildly correct in your stance that we shouldn't question reality. Why? Reality cannot be avoided. So instead we should CONFRONT reality, and live in it.
As such we see two realities or truths emerging. "Subjectivity or Relative Truth" and "Objectivity" or reality in and of itself, independent of the way things appear to us (our perceptions) This was termed "being" by Emmanual Kant.

Everyone on the shroomery is SO full of shit, quite ammusing actually.


--------------------
:bobmarley:
"woah, that cat was really buggin out man, you should have put on some grateful dead so he could relax and enjoi his trip" -random shroomerite


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OfflinePlasmid
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Helpme1]
    #9297325 - 11/23/08 01:18 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Helpme1 said:
Everyone on the shroomery is SO full of shit, quite ammusing actually.




And what are we supposed to make of arrogant posts like yours?  Just because you say that everyone is full of shit, we should believe you?  Aren't you full of shit?

Quote:

"Experience" in and of itself proves that all life is subjective.




No it doesn't.

I don't think that you're full of shit or that most people here are full of shit.  I think that you aren't critically thinking about what you're saying.

Experience is subjective, but the fact that living organisms can have subjective experiences does not mean that all of life is subjective. 

Most of your post, IMO, is such mumbo jumbo that I'd have a hard time giving it a good criticism.  It's mostly nonsense because you're jumping from one conclusion to the next based on nothing.  It's like you've given us a map for how to get across a series of islands but all the bridges you tell us to take don't exist.

Quote:

This means that once we begin to experience life, we lose all objectivit




We don't experience life.  We have experiences in life.  That doesn't mean that objective truth doesn't exist.  It just means that perhaps subjective experience is not a perfectly accurate representation of everything else.

Why is knowledge relative?  Why does using a word (signifier) to represent something (signified) mean that "it" (the signified?) loses objective meaning?  Using words may compromise the objectivity of knowledge encoded by those words, but it doesn't necessarily nullify that knowledge entirely.

I think that making unnecessarily pretentious and verbose posts obscures objectivity and meaning.  Needlessly inserting adjectives and making CHOICE words bold just detracts from the point you're trying to make.


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Invisiblezannennagara
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Epigallo]
    #9297511 - 11/23/08 01:55 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Assessing "absolute" or "objective" importance/significance/meaning seems to be an appeal to a higher power or authority figure, an ironically theistic viewpoint considering that most saying "We have no meaning" would think themselves opposed to the idea of a monotheistic father-figure God.

You are part of the cosmos, and as far as we can tell there is no one guy pulling all the strings, so why would you address your value judgments to His absolute perspective, whatever that means (because there's the paradox of what created God and is beyond God)? A heliocentric model refers to the force of gravity, not "meaning."

We are tiny parts of a vast universe yet capable of such profoundly moving experiences and emotions and thought systems, so why not take that to mean something wonderful?


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OfflineHelpme1
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9298764 - 11/23/08 05:21 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

to plasmid: LOLZORZ

Knowledge is relative at the point where reality is experienced subjectively.

"We don't experience life"
So you once again are trying to avoid reality. Reality(experiencing life) cannot be avoided. Don't even try arguing that we don't "experience life". Seriously. It discredits your entire critique.

At the point when we begin to experience life, as in, once the external world creates a relationship with the internal world of our cognitive mind. That is- Once our heart starts to beat, we take our first breaths of air. Our mind is at work! We begin to think, create shemas, or concepts in our mind. These mental shemas or concepts are Based off of the reality that we experience. It has a lot to do with psychology too actually, we form opinions, judgments that are based upon our experiences...what else would we have to base opinions on?You are saying that we are born tabula rasa and continue through our life to be a clean slate? Never accepting external knowledge ? That we can some how remain nuetral ?

Also having "experiences in life", like you say, mutually excludes objective truth knowledge.

The knowledge that we have only has value when we OURSELVES ASSIGN it value. Meaning that these "truths", these 'knowledges' that we believe to be true, are only valuable in the sense that we have assigned them to relative, subjective value.


--------------------
:bobmarley:
"woah, that cat was really buggin out man, you should have put on some grateful dead so he could relax and enjoi his trip" -random shroomerite


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OfflineHelpme1
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9298834 - 11/23/08 05:32 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

We don't all experience reality the same. Example: Two people are rooting for differing football teams, once team wins, one team loses. These two people have experienced the game SUBJECTIVELY. as one person wanted team A to win, and the other wanted team B to win. Only one team can win. Some the person that wanted team A to win feels he is a winner when his team wins, and person B feels he is a loser.

I don't know if I can simplify the conecpt of subjective reality any further. Neither person could have experienced this neutrally, and if he attempted to do so, he would have created a subjective intersectionality of choice, by CHOOSING; HE CHOSE 'SUBJECTIVELY' TO REMAIN NEUTRAL.

The relativity of knowledge could be understood like this: You attempt to explain a concept; the concept of objectivity. Through your discourse, your attempt at definition fell short. You could not break through my subjective lense, the cataract of subjectivity, if you will. You gave a defintion based upon your relatively narrow scope of knowledge (pun intended), YOUR RELATIVE KNOWLEDGE. YOUR THOUGHTS. YOUR BELIEFS ON THE SUBJECT. Did they fall short? yes. Did I understand? No. Was it your subjective discourse that fell short?  yes. Your belief based upon prior experience on the subject, correct?

Therefor, we can easily see how subjectivity destroys the truth of the matter, even assuming that you are correct in your understanding of objectivity, your relative knowledge on the subject could not define even a feeble, weak, truth on the matter. Your own attempt at the definition of objectivity fell short in turn BECAUSE OF THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE.


--------------------
:bobmarley:
"woah, that cat was really buggin out man, you should have put on some grateful dead so he could relax and enjoi his trip" -random shroomerite


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Invisiblezannennagara
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Helpme1]
    #9299648 - 11/23/08 07:29 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

What is "the truth of the matter?" You must realize that "no knowledge or experience can be objective" (or the like) is an absurd statement: using "objective" presumes you have some definition of the word, a definition of which you say cannot exist.

From freedictionary.com:

adj.
1. Of or having to do with a material object.
2. Having actual existence or reality.
3.
a. Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices: an objective critic.
b. Based on observable phenomena; presented factually: an objective appraisal.

You seem to be extrapolating a different definition of objectivity that could not possibly be true. What is truth to you, and how can you possibly define or reject it if you say that nobody can experience it?


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No debe haber separación, no puede haber definición.


Edited by zannennagara (11/23/08 07:46 PM)


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OfflineNoteworthy
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9301249 - 11/23/08 11:51 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

no one has ever had access to the objective reality. If it exists, it is beyond our scope of experience in this world. however, we can try to get an idea of what it is by developing ways of considering the world that can be replicated by any observer. nevertheless, we can only get closer to objectivity, but never actually reach it.
it is very abstract idea.. that there is this concrete world out there. However, we dont really have a choice in whether to believe it or not because we assume it our whole lives anyway and if we stopped assuming it, we would likely fail at life


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Invisiblezannennagara
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Noteworthy]
    #9301449 - 11/24/08 12:23 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Again, what is your meaning of objective reality? What does it mean to have a concept of something that no one has ever had access to and that is beyond our scope of experience? This sense (of a human) of an ultimate objective reality which no human will ever know seems a lot like belief in God as a distinct and exalted entity.

I don't think that different experiences or thoughts mean individual objectivity is irreconcilable because I don't look at objectivity as one particular perspective of experiences or thoughts, "truer" or "higher" than the rest. I think of it as the underlying connections communicated between and by all such perspectives, intrinsic to everything rather than an Other above everything.


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OfflineNoteworthy
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9301531 - 11/24/08 12:38 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

yes actually, you have to have faith in objective reality.


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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Noteworthy]
    #9301593 - 11/24/08 12:51 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

I have heard this way too many times which is why I created the Swami 'Rock-to-the-back-of-the-head' Challenge. So far no one has volunteered to test their personal theory.


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Invisiblezannennagara
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Noteworthy]
    #9301599 - 11/24/08 12:53 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Faith in the same sense of faith in any existence whatsoever, perhaps, but faith to me implies a belief without logical or scientific support, and I think logic and science are able to explain and exemplify objective truth.


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OfflineNoteworthy
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9301690 - 11/24/08 01:12 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

You cannot use logic to prove objective truth. You can only use logic + assumed objective truths, to find more objective truths. But if you dont have an objective truth in your premises to begin with, you cannot conclude anything objective.

every single person has 'faith' in something. Some people just have faith in strange things that defy logic, and other people make sure to organise their faiths away into things that are 'common sense' or 'duh' issues, so that they never really have to adress their faiths.

but we all have faith.

even scientists.

I find it a little odd when people say 'faith means believing things  without logical support '... when The only thing we can know without faith is that we exist right now... 'i think therefor I am'... everything else can be false, according to LOGIC.


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Invisiblezannennagara
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Noteworthy]
    #9301822 - 11/24/08 01:41 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

How are you defining "objective truth?"


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OfflineNoteworthy
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9302098 - 11/24/08 03:30 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

how many ways could I be defining it? I am referring to the concept of a truth that is seperate from an observer, that is, without bias. a truth statement about an object which is not trully influenced in any way by the subject's qualities.
how do you define objective truth?


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Invisiblezannennagara
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Noteworthy]
    #9303784 - 11/24/08 12:11 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

adj.
1. Of or having to do with a material object.
2. Having actual existence or reality.
3.
a. Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices: an objective critic.
b. Based on observable phenomena; presented factually: an objective appraisal.

I posted this already. The meaning you've given only applies slightly to 3a, but there's nothing about objectivity being unobserved. Again, I think you are extrapolating a conception of the word that is self-contradictory. Humans, all of whom are observers, are the only ones forming the concepts here, so why would we create a concept of truth that none of us can possibly understand or experience, ever? How can anything assess or conceptualize truth without observation?

I would say that it's nonsensical to define objectivity in those terms. Any perspectival concept of truth we come up with will have to be contingent on our observation, else we couldn't have come up with the concept in the first place. Objective truth to me involves observed relationships/connections between objects, whether materials, thoughts or experiences, the common language that underlies existence.

This is what I mean about faith without logical support. I'm perfectly fine with feelings and experiences that stand out as extraordinary or unexplained fully; the problem is then insisting on explaining the phenomenon as beyond science or logic, because you're creating an irreconcilable dualism instead of trying to incorporate the experiences. Science and logic are only systems of explanation after the facts, and there can be no fact so special that it cannot possibly be explained. Disagreement with the particular explanation is fine, I do it all the time, but you can't give your experience immunity from logical incorporation just because it doesn't fit with the current way of explaining things.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9303803 - 11/24/08 12:15 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

zannennagara said:
I would say that it's nonsensical to define objectivity in those terms.




No, it could also mean that truly objective phenomena do not exist.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
    #9304009 - 11/24/08 12:56 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

It could mean that if you want it to, but I disagree with holding a meaning of truth as something nonexistent. You could focus your truth assessment on the differences of observer experience, or you could focus it on the similarities.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9304014 - 11/24/08 12:57 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

What if there is no Truth?

:strokebeard:


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9304048 - 11/24/08 01:04 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Same as above.

Whether you say the world contains truth or no truth, its interrelationships are still the same.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
    #9304076 - 11/24/08 01:09 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

1. Of or having to do with a material object.
2. Having actual existence or reality.
3.
a. Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices: an objective critic.
b. Based on observable phenomena; presented factually: an objective appraisal.

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.

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.

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'.


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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?


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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


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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?


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
    #9309950 - 11/25/08 10:37 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Only in the Mystery forum.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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)


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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.


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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?


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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?


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #9312580 - 11/25/08 06:20 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

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.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
    #9312589 - 11/25/08 06:22 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

deCypher said:
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?




If you only accept that objectivity exists when there is no subjective experience, then you must only accept that subjectivity exists when there is no objectivity to experience, which means nothing to identify and have, no terms or phenomena, no consistencies or regularities, no information and no perception of anything, no concept of subjectivity or subjectivity itself at all.

But you accept objects into your subjective experience, and obviously any description you could have of it, so you must possess a degree of objectivity that makes your experience not entirely subjective, i.e. they both feed off of and require each other, sliding towards greater objectivity with more commonality between subjects and towards greater subjectivity with less commonality between subjects.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9312603 - 11/25/08 06:25 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Objective reality is reality independent from any mind.  Although we can certainly see patterns and regularities in our interactions with others, these do not prove the existence of objective reality; we can only guess at its existence.

Subjective reality, on the other hand, is proven by its phenomenology (or even by your attempt to make the proof itself).

Accepting objects into a subjective experience implies that you accept the object's objective existence in reality; whereas if one is to be truly philosophically precise one may only say that one accepts the probability of an object into a subjective experience.  There is no such thing as a degree of objectivity: X either has objective existence or it does not.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
    #9312812 - 11/25/08 07:01 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Phenomonology, phenomena, are objects, no? Within your mind, then, the phenomena are objective until contradicted by evidence that the objects are within your mind but no other subject's; you can have no proof that the mind-objects are exclusively (your) mind-objects until you ask another subject.

If there can be no such thing as a degree of objectivity, there can be no such thing as a degree of subjectivity either, and either it's completely in your mind or it's completely not, despite the fact that other subjects notice some objects with more similarity to you than with other objects.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9313021 - 11/25/08 07:38 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

zannennagara said:
Phenomonology, phenomena, are objects, no? Within your mind, then, the phenomena are objective until contradicted by evidence that the objects are within your mind but no other subject's; you can have no proof that the mind-objects are exclusively (your) mind-objects until you ask another subject.

If there can be no such thing as a degree of objectivity, there can be no such thing as a degree of subjectivity either, and either it's completely in your mind or it's completely not, despite the fact that other subjects notice some objects with more similarity to you than with other objects.




I agree completely: there is no such thing as a degree of subjectivity, as all things we perceive are by definition subjective.  Our perception of other subjects noticing objects is also, likewise, subjective.

One has to start from a point of no doubt and then work our way from there; you're starting from the assumption that an objective reality exists when even this is doubtful.  From the moment of their first appearance, phenomena are wholly subjective (we experience a particular sensation, for example, or see a particular pattern of light or color).  It's only after we build on this fundamental skepticism that we can allow for the possibility of their objective existence: the pattern of light could be a cow, or it could be just an after-image.  Starting from Descartes' position of utter skepticism, we can only progress into an idealist view: everything is mental experience until otherwise contradicted by evidence towards of an objective reality (and even then it will never contradict fully; only hint at).


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
    #9313323 - 11/25/08 08:19 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

I don't see how it's more doubtful to assume that an objective reality exists than to assume that a wholly subjective one does. A wholly subjective perspective assumes that the mind takes precedence over anything it experiences, that individual experience is a given before the existence of anything else - in spite of the fact that any experience requires phenomena, phenomena only describable or knowable due to objective "things," which would suggest that they are coexistent.

Descartes says "I think," but that's not very specific: what all is entailed in thinking? Thought, like experience, requires some object to suffuse it with content. Nothing can exist in and of itself, only as an interaction with its apparent environment; there has never been a blank and isolated mind before it had contents, or if there was there could be no experiencing it.

If we're assuming our mind is limited to our body, then the existence of other bodies sharing what appears to be a near-similar mental experience offers far more proof for objectivity than pure subjectivity. If we're assuming that our mind is everywhere at once, then yes, it could all be a mental experience, but then in examining its phenomenology we still have the same observations to make within it as if it were not.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9313454 - 11/25/08 08:36 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

zannennagara said:
any experience requires phenomena, phenomena only describable or knowable due to objective "things," which would suggest that they are coexistent.




Why does an experience require phenomena?  An experience is what it is; any further suppositions are merely that, suppositions.

Quote:

Descartes says "I think," but that's not very specific: what all is entailed in thinking? Thought, like experience, requires some object to suffuse it with content.




One can have the pure experience of awareness without an referent object, certainly.  This is the desired no-mind state of samadhi and ego death.

Quote:

Nothing can exist in and of itself, only as an interaction with its apparent environment; there has never been a blank and isolated mind before it had contents, or if there was there could be no experiencing it.




Again, these are assumptions.  All we can ever know, see, think, hear, or feel are by definition mental experiences; anything further is built off pattern and consistency.

Quote:

If we're assuming our mind is limited to our body, then the existence of other bodies sharing what appears to be a near-similar mental experience offers far more proof for objectivity than pure subjectivity.




We're only assuming that we have various sensations, feelings, and experiences that in total we label a body; but your statement implies the objective existence of such, thereby begging the question.

I agree that, pragmatically speaking, the line between the external and the internal (the observer and the observed) can blend quite a bit, and the boundary of such is very loose.  But from a skeptical standpoint, and starting only from what we're sure to be true, mental experience is the only thing that we can know for certain.


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OfflineNoteworthy
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
    #9313696 - 11/25/08 09:11 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

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.

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'


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Middleman]
    #9313725 - 11/25/08 09:14 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

q. what is consciousness?

a.the part of you that was wondering.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Noteworthy]
    #9313751 - 11/25/08 09:16 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

well lets not ask the question in the first place


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Noteworthy]
    #9313785 - 11/25/08 09:21 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

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.




I completely agree with your viewpoint, but there are also definite problems with assuming that each person has a similar subjective experience even if they all say the sky is blue... what if they're color-blind from birth and whenever they pointed at a blue object (that they saw as red or something wholly different) their mother told them that it was called 'blue'?  We have no way of distinguishing their mental experience simply by their words.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
    #9313839 - 11/25/08 09:30 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

deCypher said:
Quote:

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.




I completely agree with your viewpoint, but there are also definite problems with assuming that each person has a similar subjective experience even if they all say the sky is blue... what if they're color-blind from birth and whenever they pointed at a blue object (that they saw as red or something wholly different) their mother told them that it was called 'blue'?  We have no way of distinguishing their mental experience simply by their words.




The fact that the sky tends to stay constant, whether or not we all see the same "blue", still points to an objective stimulus IMO.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Sleepwalker]
    #9313857 - 11/25/08 09:32 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Oweyervishice said:
The fact that the sky tends to stay constant




From whose eyes?  :wink:


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
    #9313892 - 11/25/08 09:38 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

:uhoh:



I'm right and you're wrong and that's the truth.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
    #9313914 - 11/25/08 09:42 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

An experience itself is a phenomenon, and one can only communicate it in terms of phenomena, even if it is to describe ego death. I may not have delved as psychonautically deep as you have, but what has felt like ego death to me has either seemed like a union between the self and all "objects," so that I lose perception of mental object-distinction, or been a reappearance in an utterly alien world, yet with perceivable thoughts and settings. "Samadhi" as a word in common with different experiences is then an objective concept.

To suppose that an experience can have identifiable components is no more of a jump than to suppose that it is entirely self-contained; this supposition is the foundation for language itself, so in using language to describe our experience we are bound to acknowledge these objective things.

The definitions of know, see, think, hear and feel entail the usage of physical neurons, eyes, ears and skin; why must the mental experience be divorced from from the physical, why start with the assumption that mentality precedes physicality? Whether hallucinatory or not, they are, or seem to be, always coexistent; why trust the mental as true, while disregarding the objective as possible hallucinations? Might you be hallucinating that you have a mind that is not objective?

There cannot be a line between observer and observed; observation requires both for either to exist. From a skeptical standpoint, we should be less sure of a mental experience's exclusivity than the apparent truth that the experience includes the physical object - in whatever way we relate to something as not devoid of experience - as well.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Sleepwalker]
    #9313919 - 11/25/08 09:43 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Oweyervishice said:
Quote:

deCypher said:
Quote:

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.




I completely agree with your viewpoint, but there are also definite problems with assuming that each person has a similar subjective experience even if they all say the sky is blue... what if they're color-blind from birth and whenever they pointed at a blue object (that they saw as red or something wholly different) their mother told them that it was called 'blue'?  We have no way of distinguishing their mental experience simply by their words.




The fact that the sky tends to stay constant, whether or not we all see the same "blue", still points to an objective stimulus IMO.




YES

but... how does that prove there is an objective stimulus? 'points to' is no solid ontological grounds

and this 'objective reality' that the data 'points to', how could we ever know what it is, even, lets say, if you were sure it existed?


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9313929 - 11/25/08 09:44 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

zannennagara said:
Might you be hallucinating that you have a mind that is not objective?




Does that make no sense to anyone else? :grin:


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Sleepwalker]
    #9313987 - 11/25/08 09:54 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

:uhoh:


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Noteworthy]
    #9313995 - 11/25/08 09:55 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Noteworthy said:
how does that prove there is an objective stimulus? 'points to' is no solid ontological grounds

and this 'objective reality' that the data 'points to', how could we ever know what it is, even, lets say, if you were sure it existed?




Well I can't really add anything new to this thread.  I can't ever be sure that anything exists beyond what is immediately apparent to me.  Logically, I know I can't really trust that anything I experience is happening "out there", but practically, I have a trust my mind to a certain degree or I would be a vegetable.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9314007 - 11/25/08 09:58 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

zannennagara said:
An experience itself is a phenomenon, and one can only communicate it in terms of phenomena, even if it is to describe ego death. I may not have delved as psychonautically deep as you have, but what has felt like ego death to me has either seemed like a union between the self and all "objects," so that I lose perception of mental object-distinction, or been a reappearance in an utterly alien world, yet with perceivable thoughts and settings. "Samadhi" as a word in common with different experiences is then an objective concept.

To suppose that an experience can have identifiable components is no more of a jump than to suppose that it is entirely self-contained; this supposition is the foundation for language itself, so in using language to describe our experience we are bound to acknowledge these objective things.




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.

Quote:

The definitions of know, see, think, hear and feel entail the usage of physical neurons, eyes, ears and skin




These are the physical correlates, sure.  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.)

Quote:

Might you be hallucinating that you have a mind that is not objective?




The very fact that there is a you hallucinating presupposes a subjective experience, no?

Quote:

From a skeptical standpoint, we should be less sure of a mental experience's exclusivity than the apparent truth that the experience includes the physical object




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.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Sleepwalker]
    #9314011 - 11/25/08 09:59 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

yup. that is why it doesnt matter much that we cant prove objective reality exists.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Noteworthy]
    #9314033 - 11/25/08 10:03 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9314040 - 11/25/08 10:04 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Describe blue without using the word blue.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9314050 - 11/25/08 10:06 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

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.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
    #9314144 - 11/25/08 10:22 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

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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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
    #9314199 - 11/25/08 10:32 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Sleepwalker]
    #9314241 - 11/25/08 10:39 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

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.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
    #9314273 - 11/25/08 10:45 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

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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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9315888 - 11/26/08 09:44 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

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.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9316040 - 11/26/08 10:33 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

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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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Epigallo]
    #9325448 - 11/28/08 01:22 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

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...

:strokebeard:


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
    #9325659 - 11/28/08 03:29 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: Noteworthy]
    #9325665 - 11/28/08 03:34 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

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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OfflineNoteworthy
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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9326163 - 11/28/08 09:02 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

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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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: zannennagara]
    #9326892 - 11/28/08 11:54 AM (15 years, 2 months ago)

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.


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Re: Cosmic significance of self [Re: deCypher]
    #9328496 - 11/28/08 05:41 PM (15 years, 2 months ago)

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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