The end of the subjectivity debate

Aright I’m confused again lol, but that’s ok because I’m sure you have it conceptualized somehow that makes sense to you, but I can’t see it mainly because I don’t want to put the effort into finding yet more ways people are exploiting each other, especially if it’s that complicated to explain. I suspect KT will have lots of fun with this in the morning lol

I don’t know what to say about Mags except that she doesn’t talk enough for me to formulate an impression, but she seems cool from what I can tell. Are you sure you didn’t go overboard?

Now I don’t. Now that I remembered I had classic feminism as a more extreme position than my own.

She’ll realize it as well.

All human thoughts and beliefs are subjective… even according to objectivists.
I don’t see how this is confusing…

All you’re committed to believing as an objectivist, is that an objective reality exists. It’s not necessary to also believe you have an unerring understanding of that reality.
In other words, objectivists CAN and DO believe they can be wrong about what’s objectively real.

But then again your definitions of “subjective” and “objective” are fairly uncommon. So let’s not let semantics confuse us.
I am not using YOUR definitions… I’m using those words as defined historically.

I’m not sure HOW to use your definitions…
It seems to me the only thing you would call “objective” is something “unconditionally real”…
Which would mean only the force or forces that are universal and eternal would qualify as “objective”… everything else is “subject” to certain conditions.
So anything conditional like “murder is wrong, depending on the situation” would make it “subject” to the conditions.
Even temporal things, like “on august 3rd 1992 it rained somewhere on planet earth” is subject to that specific date as well as subject to there being a planet earth etc.

am I getting this right?

Idk, you’ll have to get phyllo’s opinion on whether he thinks all human thoughts are subjective.

If it’s an opinion that “murder is only wrong sometimes, depending on the situation”, then how does that make one an objectivist?

How can I be an absolutist because I’m a relativist? Makes no sense.

No objectivist would merely hold that all things are relative except for the one thing that he cannot see. That’s not a practical definition, although technically correct.

Appeal to popularity. Why should mediocre intelligence dictate how words should be defined? Who cares how people prefer to colloquially define words, especially if those definitions overlap and have blurry boundaries. When I define categories, I like mutually exclusive definitions with well-defined boundaries.

For instance:

Communism - gov controls 100% of means of production and keeps 100% of profits
Fascism - gov controls 100% of means of production and keeps <100% of profits
Socialism - gov controls <100% of means of production and keeps <100% of profits
Capitalism - gov controls 0% of means of production and keeps 0% of profits.

Everything is clearly defined and nothing overlaps.

But colloquially, people want capitalism to mean “gov regulates some arbitrary % of industry, subject to who you ask, and taxes only moderately, again subject to who you ask, but otherwise a free market.” So that when they finish defining their word, we don’t know anymore than before.

Or how to define perception, awareness, consciousness.

Perception - interception of information
Awareness - perception of perception - the interception of information that information has been intercepted.
Consciousness - perception of awareness.

I don’t care how words are defined, so long as they are mutually exclusive with definite boundaries. I don’t want “awareness” to be another flavor of “consciousness” or have “capitalism” conflated with “socialism” because it just leads to confusion.

Historically defined = arbitrarily defined.

Yes you have it. Woot! :banana-dance:

And so we see how silly absolute subjectivists are.

It’s objectively stated: “on august 3rd 1992, it rained somewhere on planet earth.”

It’s subjectively stated: " on august 3rd 1992, I rained somewhere on planet earth"

Serendipper doesn’t believe in the objective “it”, only the subjective “I”

This is why I pointed out earlier that subjectivists suffer from a narcissistic lack of object permenance.

They have the minds of an infant, as adults, which is quite sad.

If all thoughts were subjective, then it would be impossible to make objective statements. ( Since statements are thoughts expressed.)

Clearly, objectivists think that objective statements can be made.

No, you still haven’t understood that subjects can be inanimate. The negative is subject to the positive object and vice versa. Earth is subject to the sun and calls light from it the same way a positive terminal of a battery calls electrons from the negative. None of these things exist without their polar opposite. You can’t have an electron without a positron; it doesn’t make sense.

You have it backwards: the permanent object is an artifact of the objectivist.

That would be the objectivists, theists, religious, republicans, conservatives, dogmatists, narcissists, etc. And yes, it is sad.

Thank you sir.

You are trying to be deceptively here, most likely due to ignorance.

Ecmandu: It’s objectively stated: “on august 3rd 1992, it rained somewhere on planet earth.”

How do you know to confirm the above?
It is possible there was no rain on that day.

The above is most objective if we get a confirmation from a qualified weatherman who rely on Science and other advance knowledge.
However whatever objective facts the weatherman confirm, it is intersubjective as subjected to the Framework, System, Machinery, principles of weather forecasting.
Thus the objective conclusion of the qualified weatherman is intersubjective, i.e. ultimately subjective.

In addition, August 3rd 1992 is very subjective depending on which Nation’s or international time which can be very variable.

In addition, “raining” is also very subjective, depending on whether how we define ‘rain’ from light rain, heavy mist or thunderstorm, etc. How do you measure the limit of lightness of water falling down to be considered rain? Is it one drop of water, two drops, three or how many drops or liters of water before it is considered to be raining.

As you can see your supposedly “objective” statement is full of subjective variables which is consolidated and concluded by intersubjectively.

That is why I claim what is objective is ultimately and fundamentally subjective, i.e. intersubjective.

Your insistence to cling tenuously to objectivity alone for facts is due to a desperate internal psychology driven by an existential crisis.

Perhaps you agreed with my points and simply wanted to add some other information. But it doesn’t read like a response to my post.

Perhaps you agreed with my points and simply wanted to add some other information. But it doesn’t read like a response to my post.

I really don’t… that statement is true by definition.
If Phyllo thinks otherwise he’s using different definitions for those words OR he’s being self-contradictory.

It was an appeal to reason… you need to be aware of what words mean in order to understand what is being said, much less critique what’s being said.

I’m going to side-step the comment about mediocre intelligence… but note the irony.

Defining words is done for the purpose of clear communication… It helps when people take the time to clarify and discern how terms are defined.
But when you could just as easily express your thoughts on a matter using the established language, yet still prefer to redefine terms, it seems suspect.

Re-defining words that traditionally have a different meaning, lends itself to equivocating on those two meanings and thereby making specious arguments.
Everyone as a consequence has to remain extra vigilant to ensure you’re sticking with the new definition and not confusing it with the traditional one.

For example if you critique what it means to be an “objectivist”, as you have re-defined it, and then think that critique applies to a traditional objectivist, that would be a case of equivocation.

Likewise if you assume other people are using YOUR definitions, even though they have not agreed to do so, you won’t comprehend what they are saying and end up criticising your own misunderstanding rather than any of their arguments. That is a form of straw manning, but of course you’re not doing so intentionally… you’re just confused by semantics.

The fact that thoughts and beliefs are subjective and the opinion of objectivists regarding whether thoughts are subjective are entirely different. You said “even according to objectivists”. Well, Phyllo is an objectivist and according to him, not all thoughts are subjective. Maybe they are in fact, but not according to objectivists.

You said “fairly uncommon”. That’s an appeal to popularity and that IS your reasoning: ie that popular opinion should dictate what words mean.

Note the narcissism.

bell-curve.jpg

You are insisting that words be defined by the big hump in the middle; that science should bow and defer to the wisdom of the hump.

And that’s why I defined my terms.

Why? Words are fucked up all the time.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn9elWR13Z4[/youtube]

I’m tired of hearing “prodigal”
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being used to mean “wandering”, “given to
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running away”, or “leaving and returning”.
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The parable in The Book of Luke tells of
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a son who squanders his father’s money.
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“Prodigal” means “recklessly wasteful” or
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“extravagant” and if you say “popular usage
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has changed that”, I say fuck popular usage.

04:21
Yeah, I know, you’ll say “well
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many people are using it that way, so the
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meaning is changing.”
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And I say “well many people are really
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fucking stupid!” Should we just adopt
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all their standards?

I concur. Fuck popular usage and appealing to dummies for definitions.

Traditional objectivists are objectivists by my definition. The only problem is they label some popularly subjective claims as objective. Or they conflate objectivity with “unbiased assessment” or “standardized framework”.

Yes I will. When a cop says there are objective realities of altercations that must be discerned upon arrival, I know what he means.

Project much? You’re trying to deceive, but as you stated for me, it’s probably just ignorance.

You’re using the infinite regress of perceptual acuity defense.

I actually have a definition for rain! Lol!

It’s when the area underneath all the trees is soaked.

So here’s the deal, perceptual acuity is extremely important to objectivity !

Let’s say I put a microscope on the tree?

It won’t look even remotely like a tree!

Let’s say I stand back 40 miles, it will not only not look like a tree, I won’t be able to see it.

For ALL phenomenon, the sweet spot of perceptual acuity, the middle way, is what creates perception of objects as we name them.

For you, it’s only subjective because we’re standing on the exact atom that gives an optical illusion, where we see it perfectly as a tree still, but if we change our perspective it no longer looks like a tree either.

We have optical illusions like that as well, the one with the old hag and the young woman comes to mind.

At a certain perspective of perceptual acuity, a tree is definitely a tree, so stating the infinite regress of objects problem in that context, is a straw man.

Note: All grammatical constructions are subjective.

A noun and a verb are not subjective.

We just happen to all use them.

Nouns and verbs still exist without subjects, otherwise we ALL wouldn’t be able to perceive them.

Everyone knows nouns and verbs because they are written into the structure of existence.

Serendipper,

What’s really frustrating about this exchange, is how you’re using these terms to make your argument.

Nobody disagrees that otherness is existence.

That’s an objective truth.

But then you come along and state that NON-PERCIEVING extistents are also subjective because the fact that existence is otherness is subjective.

This is ludicrous!!

If existence is just rocks hitting each other by the wind blowing, and that’s it, there’s still otherness, BUT!! No subjects in existence. There’s still wear and tear from friction. There’s still plate tectonics etc…

What are non-perceiving existents?

We cannot comprehend abstract existence, but that is not itself an objective/abstract claim because it’s reliant on there being a knower and a known. I’m not talking about existence, but conceptions of existence. Perhaps there is an abstract existence, but it’s not anything I could possibly conceptualize, much less talk about.

You don’t have to know what it’s like to know it exists!! That’s the problem with subjectivity!

It’s the belief in the lack of object permanence. “Unless it’s me, it doesn’t exist”

This is a stage for babies, infants, it’s wholly narcissistic and not at all mature or realistic.