Subject/Object is a Frivilous Distinction

I think that looking at things as if they must be subjective or objective is stupid. Nothing is neither, everything is both. Nothing is purely subjective and nothing is purely objective. Everything is both.

Debate.

I think that the use in thinking this way can be seen in looking at people who don’t think this way.

Black, Alison Harley. Man and Nature in the Philosophical thought of Wang Fu-chih p. 161-164[/u]

Interesting way of putting it. It sort of goes the opposite of what you might expect and makes alot of sense. Brilliant.

What alternative is there?

Every object is a proposition.
Every observer encounters the same propositions. In that there is an object which is distinctly not subjective.
Every observer will have a particular view or vibe or interpretation about each propositional object. That view is necessarily not objective and is where the subjectivity lies.
Nothing is purely objective or purely subjective.
Everything possesses both properties.

Well, nothing can occur in a vacuum so there’s always a dialectic occuring between the two.
Nothing can be purely subjective nor purely objective.

Correct!!

There is no metaphysical objectivity. By saying “metaphysical objectivity”, I mean to differentiate from less problematic meanings like “try to put your emotions aside as much as possible while explaining the events of last evening”. Metaphysical objectivity would have to be a fully non-subjective perspective. There is no such perspective in my ontology.

Human beings can never have objectivity, but they constantly act and speak as if they have it. But they are always disguising subjectivity as objectivity. Usually this takes the form of an attempt to force another into adopting the aggressor’s perspective.

Human beings can never have objectivity. All of our experiences in life are subjective. An objective state of affairs (OSAs) must have independent existence from subjects. This would make OSAs transcendent, and the transcendent cannot be spoken of without uttering nonsense.

Everything humans present as objective is in fact subjective to humans or to a human. We live entirely within the realm of representation and subjectivity. We never make the leap from the subjective to the objective.

The objective/subjective pair is meaningless from a metaphysical standpoint. The metaphysical usage is doomed to failure. They only have use within the bounds of non-metaphysical usage: “The object of this endeavor is…”; “she picked up the object” ; “the subject of the lecture will be…”. In the case of perception: “The subject perceived the object” is misleading. The “subject” always perceives only a representation, and never directly perceives the “object”.

I like what you’re saying about only seeing representations. But what about the informational content of representations? Doesn’t that by nature on certain unchanging elements of nature possess some property of objectivity? I’m not even sure I agree that all we see are representations. What makes you say that? Do you mean that I only see the light that reflects off an object as it is when it hits my eyeball?

I think of objectivity as a subset of subjective modes of seeing reality, not as an opposite. Being objective necessarily presupposes being conscious and experiencing the world - it is a mode of experiencing reality. As an experience, it is mediated by the same underlying process as any other mode of experience, and that mediating process is consciousness itself. Consciousness, at its base, is subjective experience, and we extract, or filter out, the more consistent and reliable of our experiences and thoughts and label them “objectivity”. But really, it’s all from the same source.

By this reasoning, I’d say the objective really is there in the subjective. The informational content of the representation can possess objectivity.

Score one for informational content of propositional objects baby!! WOOHOO!!!

So the subjective beliefs of a religious god can become “real” no matter how wild such a hysteria may be in its existence. :laughing:

(Interesting. :confused: )

That’s like saying we should kill everybody who wears red because god deems it “right” since in your form of thinking it must be an objective “genuine” reality because alot of people hold faith in such hysterias that people wearing red are “unnecessary” by the very inclinations or actions of making their gospel “seem” real.

I can see why you would like such a system of thinking Smears, however I for one am not falling for such foolishness.

With that type of thinking I am sure people can “justify” anything and ironically I believe it is such thinking that spawned our present absurd existence undoubtedly.

Such a system puts man above the measure of reality where the stars are anything but the limit and it puts men in the position to justify any absurd action.

Now you’re getting it!!

I am not certain that there are any unchanging elements of nature that stand on their own in a objective fashion, unfettered by subjectivity. I am not certain that there is a world external to my mind. This is not to say that I am a solipsists. This is to say that I am a skeptic: I think that we cannot tell whether realism or solipsism is true.

We only experience representations. This is true in all domains of our experience, but it different ways. You mention perception, so I’ll deal with perception. We suppose that we receive sense-datum from an external world. Supposing that this is the case, that our eyes are really receiving wavelengths of light, our brain produces a simulation of the external world based on sense-datum. This simulation is a representation of the external world. Because we only have access to this representation, we can never be certain about the existence of the external world, or the existence of other minds. Because we only have access to this representation, we can never have objectivity - we always have subjectivity, because the simulation we create for ourselves is necessarily filtered by our nature as human beings, and as individuals. This extends to all cognitive flora and fauna. Language is representational, ideas and concepts are representational, etc. All of these things are always necessarily subjective. That is why we never really have objectivity.

Objectivity is precisely the opposite of subjectivity, and since we always have subjectivity, we never have objectivity. Being objective does not merely imply experiencing the world, it implies experiencing the world directly and without subjectivity. Since we never do this, we never have objectivity. You are correct that consciousness is a subjective experience, and that were merely label parts of it objective. But it doesn’t follow that objectivity is a facet of subjectivity, or that objectivity is really present in subjectivity, or that the informational content of the representation can possess objectivity. It does follow that what we label “objectivity” is really just subjectivity in masquerade.

Well, you have to realize you’re speaking to a subjectivist here. I can see your point makes sense in an objectivist framework - that is, a framework that describes the world as fundamentally objectively real and without any dependence on perception or experience. But for someone like me who believes the only way something can be real is if it is experienced, then the place objectivity takes is precisely in these labels.

I’m not bent on defending my subjectivist vision, at least not in this thread, but I just wanted to throw that out there so you know where I’m coming from.

Actually, I am also working within a subjectivist framework, because I agree that what we call reality is in fact a collection of subjectivity and convention. What I’m pointing out is that there is no metaphysical objectivity, only practical objectivity. What I think of as practical objectivity, I think, is the same as what you mean when you talk about objectivity-within-the-scope-of-subjectivity. I assert that the naive conception of objectivity doesn’t exist - its just a delusion, or worse. I assert that what we call objectivity, when viewed maturely, is really subjectivity in disguise. I am concerned with making explicit is the fact that naive, metaphysical objectivity does not exist - instead what you describe is true: “Consciousness, at its base, is subjective experience, and we extract, or filter out, the more consistent and reliable of our experiences and thoughts and label them objectivity.” I hope you can see that you’ve made the leap from metaphysical objectivity to practical objectivity.

What’s ‘stupid’ about it? That subject-object duality is the very form of the manifest world. As the Indian philosopher Nagarjuna demonstrated, (and as revealed by Descarte) the ultimate relation of subject and object can’t be stated in words; because you can’t state the ultimate relation of subject and object by using relative words. The paradoxical nature of our duality of thought is demonstrated through our attempt to use language to describe the paradox, when its reality is undescribable. Buddhists refer to a ‘two truths’ concept (conventional and ultimate reality) but, technically, a two-fold reality isn’t what the Buddha described as a result of his awakening. He pointed to ultimate reality with his words, but necessarily in a very specific manner of negation, because of the duality of language. This resulted in Westerners often mistakenly charaterizing him as a nihilist. What he realized was that bridging the gap of subject/object dualism isn’t possible through thought (language), because thought itself is a product of dualism. And Westerners get all hinky about the idea of contemplating the gaps between their thoughts, lol. What this suggests is the reality of awareness absent thought (nonduality).

A favorite quote of mine, from Ken Wilbur:
“I have repeatedly had people explain to me that the Cartesian dualism can be solved by simply understanding that . . . and they then tell me their solutions, which range from Gaia-centric theories to neutral monism to first-third person interactionism to systems theory [to Whitehead process philosophy]. I always respond, ‘So this means that you have overcome the subject-object dualism in your own case. This means that you directly realize that you are one with the entire Kosmos, and this nondual awareness persists through waking, dream, and deep sleep states. Is that right?’
‘Well, no, not really.’”

This quote refers to the fact that the solution to subject-object dualism is neither found nor expressed in thought, because thought itself is a product of our dualism, which itself is generated in the causal realm and can’t be undone without consciously penetrating that realm…which almost always requires contemplative/meditative training.

Personally, I wouldn’t use the word stupid. But when it comes to subject-object duality (this is different from the objectivity/subjectivity distinction which I discussed in my earlier posts) is that in some cases it is strangely arbitrary.

The kind of case that I’m thinking of is between cognitives. When you and I meet, for me, I am the subject and you are the object; and for you, you are the subject and I am the object. So, in a sense, the denotation is frivolous or arbitrary. But the expectation that there is an objective fact of the matter is naive. This does hearken back to my earlier discussion about no-objectivity.

There is no objective fact of the matter - its relative; or subjective. (We’ve got to be careful about our usage here between subjectivity vs objectivity, and subject/object dualism). What I think this shows is that since there is no objective fact of the matter, the reality of things must be non-dual, and our breakdown of things into subjects and objects has a two-fold purpose: (1) linguistic pragmatism; (2) the ego.

Of course, Wilber is right that although I can apprehended this intellectually, it does not give me a persistent experience of non-duality. The reason for this, I think, is not because of some flaw, or fault, or feature of language that prevents me from revealing non-duality. The reason, instead, I think, is that the ego, in its ordinary operational state, prevents non-dual awareness.

The ego precisely is the cognitive mechanism that initiates dualistic awareness. This is why non-duality can be experienced during deep meditative states and other modes of loose-cognitive-binding - the normal operation of the ego is suspended, making room for non-dual awareness.

Fair enough.

At this point, I would interject by adding “for me” to the end of your statement. That is, as subjectivists, in order to stay true to our views, we must always append “for me” at the end of every one of our statements (this can be implicit, of course :wink:). This raises the question about whether views like ours can ever be taken in an absolute sense - that is, the price we pay, as subjectivists, is to forgo any hope that our views will ever be taken as “the right view”. The best we can hope for is that our views be taken as right “for us” where “us” is as many people as possible.

Most of my work involves trying to construct a fully consistent framework in which the subjectivist can speak about his/her views without running into the sorts of paradoxes often leveled against him/her. My aim is towards consistency, not correctness (and this is not so bad considering a subjectivist view purports that “correctness” is always relative anyhow).