Objectvity

I define objectivity as the fact that there are objects/things/being/existents in existence external to our awareness or thought about them.

Are there any people on this board that really truly believe such objects do not exist in any capacity?

If so, do you actually have a good argument to provide evidence for your view?

I do not ‘believe’ anything, “really truly” or otherwise…
It is simple; there is no evidence that there exists anything that is not perceived. Nor can there be. Therefore, ‘objectivity’ as you define it, must be a ‘belief’.

I need not, as there is no, nor can be, evidence for your’s.

The ‘subjectivity’ of the universe are the unique Perspectives (us) of it.

The ‘objectivity’ of the universe is that it is only completely defined as; the sum total of all (subjective) Perspectives, at the moment of definition!

Completely subjective = completely objective! making any claims of ‘superiority’ of one over the other a false dilemna and arbitrary distinction at best.
Everything exists!

Well, that’s all completely wrong. Although I am a little shocked that in 2009 we still have at least one Berkeleyan Idealist.

Any other takers?

I certainly work with that idea most of the time. But if you get down to it, most of what we can say about anything that we are not experiencing is meaningless. The chair exists when I am not there. Well, fine. But when we imagine that existence we imagine it as a perceiver, from a perspective. And even if we try to universalize this somehow, we are still thinking of an object in ways that objects are perceived by subjects - iow in terms of qualities we perceive via our senses. The word ‘exist’ becomes rather hollow. It is too strong, in my opinion, to say the chair no longer exists. But I think there is something misleading about the positive of that sentence. Our language is built up to work with objects as experienced. And so are our ideas of existence.

So is there chair still there when you leave the room or no?

What is a chair? What does this verb ‘is’ mean? and how about the adverb ‘there’?(and I do understand what I get a sense might be some crankiness on your part about this issue, but I am not sure it is so simple. If my wife asks me if the chair is still there, I generally say yes, unless I loaned it to Steve. But in that instance I know the context. Will it be there when she gets home? or something similar. My answer is shorthand for expected experiences, mine or hers or someone’s. But in a potentially ontological discussion the issue is more complicated. You obviously are not asking me about future experiences and what they are likely to be. You are asking me about a chair in a room no one is in and what is ‘present’ or really ‘going on’ in that room. And that is another kettle of fish.)

Something made for a person to sit on, quite often made of wood.

Existing in such a way.

Something like “in the room where one of you had put or found it last time.”

So do you believe the chair is there when you leave the room?

Well, I BARELY believe in objective reality. I think objective reality is subjective. For instance, there is no real way to confirm that we all see the exact same things. Yes, we can name the same things when asked “what is over there?” but are we really seeing the same things, or do we just have the same names for them? For instance, if my favorite color is purple, and your favorite color is red, how do we know whether my purple looks red to you, and your red looks purple to me?

This is the problem with objective reality. When you see something, all you are really “seeing” is light waves that reflect off something and then touch your retinas thereby leaving patterns which are interpreted by your brain. But who is to say that your brain’s interpretation is actually an accurate depiction of what is really there? Same thing goes for touch, hearing, and smell/taste. Each of these are only signals that bounce around in your brain. It is impossible to tell if they accurately represent any reality or not. As a matter of fact I would say they don’t any more then words do. In order for us to perceive the world accurately we would have to physically suck anything observed directly into our minds whole. The fact that we perceive most things as solid is proof that our idea of reality is warped. Nothing is solid, it is mostly empty. It is all waves, even matter is waves. The only thing that makes them feel solid to us is the weak nuclear force which repels certain wave groups when they collide with other wave groups. But it doesn’t even always do that. Some go straght through like x-rays. Point is though, when I see purple and you see red, we are not actually seeing purple or red, only our brain’s interpretation of purple or red.

Next thing I cite to prove the subjective nature of reality is the collapse of the wave function. If you follow quantum physics then you know exactly what I am talking about. During an experiment, there are probability functions which determine the probability of whether a light wave or quanta is going to do one thing or another. All the possibilities are still real up until the point not when the light wave has actually finished its course, but when an observer marks what has happened. It is a somewhat lengthy subject, but here is the wiki article on it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat

Next I like to point out the fallibility of human interpretation of events. No objective reality can be complete since humans can only 75% accurately record an event. Any law student knows exactly what I am talking about here. Even if given pen and paper, and told they would be graded on it, humans still only accurately record 75% of observed events. A flaw in observation is certainly a HUGE flaw in objective reality since all objective reality is is a combination of subjective realities. However, in order for this to be truly objective, the outcome needs to be 100% accurate. If conscious beings cannot agree on an objective reality, then in truth there is no objective reality. Whether or not things are there when conscious beings aren’t present is beside the point. This has no effect on objective or subjective reality. Whether or not those things not under observation are existent during the absence, they certainly are not “real” without someone to postulate them as such. They only exist. Reality depends on the observer, objective or not. Without the observer there is nobody to determine what reality is. books.google.com/books?id=TyogQG … ssor+swift

Finally, I like to point out the reason why things do exist in our absence. The universe itself is conscious. We are all part of one living organism, and this organism is observant of itself. But without that supreme consciousness nothing could exist. Instead everything exists, as nonexistence is nonexistent. The reason the universe is expanding is because it is alive. It will contract one day as well. We are all part of the consciousness of the universe since we are conscious and we are part of the universe. But consciousness is required for any existence to occur, only consciousness is entirely pervasive so everything always exists.

The end.

So when you are in your room sitting on a chair, and you leave the room to go get some beer from the fridge, is the chair still in your room?

Yes, since consciousness pervades the entire universe the chair is always under observation of some type or another. I believe in energy consciousness which is indeed the highest form of consciousness. The room always has energy in it, so the chair is always being perceived in some form or another. I also believe that unconsciousness is a form of consciousness. So even things which are unconscious are able to make observations i.e. plants. Plants have life force, and they record things which happen in their surroundings. They are not conscious since they are not self aware. However, they have the potential for immediate consciousness in our four dimensions which makes them “unconscious”. However, if all consciousness on all 11 dimensions were absent from the room, then the chair and the room itself would no longer exist. This is however for all intensive purposes not possible.

That really is just so cute…
“Oh, a wise guy! Nyuk nyuk nyuk” is insufficient scientific and philosophical refutation.
But, as you so ably demonstrate, the truth cannot be refuted.

Radiohead, you obviously didn’t read moresillysstuff’s post properly, or you were wilfully obtuse about it. Here’s the crucial bit:

It really is incredibly infuriating if you just persist in talking past your interlocutor. You are not Socrates.

Did I talk past him? I don’t see how. Can you explain?

It’s all about power though. In a world where only one person is a Berkeleyan idealist and everyone else rejects it, you don’t have to really take Berkeleyan idealists seriously.

:banana-dance:

But seriously, I’d love to go line by line and refute you philosophically. How shall we start? Perhaps you can define what you mean by “evidence?” What would count as evidence of something existing independently of our consciousness for you?

The chair is in the room playing a fiddle, I know this is true because I asked it. Chairs are not built to lie.

It’s not a topic worth getting into any cutthroat arguments about because there is no right or wrong way to address it - it’s a question of how you prefer to think of things. Ultimately, it all comes down to consciousness, which is as active in creating objects as it is in perceiving them - Objectivity and subjectivity exist on a spectrum, the opposite ends of which meet.

It seems likely that there were objects prior to the evolution of consciousness, but there’s no way to know what those objects were, what form they took or anything else about them - we can only posit and imagine their existence in retrospect AS presently conscious beings NOW - so again, in discussing the geological formations of a planet billions of years ago, we are as much creating those objects as we are perceiving them.

Everything you talk about, Radio, is a function of consciousness - even a chair in an otherwise empty room when no one is looking. Youre conceiving of that as though you were there, which your not - is it there? That’s a conscious question derived from and designed for a universe in which there are conscious beings capable of answering such questions. In a pre-conscious universe, the question would probably be impossible, and incoherent.

Is that really true though? Is my consciousness really as active as it is passive in this case? For example: In all seriousness, I am not satisfied with my television. It isn’t a flatscreen, is only 15", and doesn’t have any cable channels. If this television set is mostly the result of my active constitution of it, I see no reason why I shouldn’t be able to reconstitute it to my desires specifications. But no matter how much I consciously/mentally try to constitute it so, it remains exactly the same in its being what it is. I consider this evidence that, regardless of my being in the room, the television has an ass, 15" screen, and 5 watchable stations, and that this is the way any other person who walks into the room will find it - since it is actually there after all.

So in the end, is my consciousness doing any more work in terms of the tv set other than understanding that it is a tv set and alerting me to its presence and its various ways of being?

It’s not that simple - consciousness doesn’t just invent whatever it wants to invent - it can only perceive certain things within certain finite parameters - but that’s precisely part of the point. Consciousness’ limits are as active in determining what we perceive as whatever is actually there. It’s also worth noting that a TV is a consciously designed synthetic object with a consciously pre-defined purpose - your purposes aren’t aligned with the TV’s and so youre dissatisfied, but that doesn’t mean that objects aren’t products of consciousness as well as subjects of it - it simply means that consciousness is dissatisfied with what it has produced.

I think I agree with you but can you clarify for me what the bold means because I’m not sure I get it

What consciousness perceives as being there is not only a product of what’s there in some apriori sense, but also of the limitations and finitude of conscious perception. What’s there is therefore also a product of the WAYS in which conciousness perceives, etc …