Everything is subjective- can't we have true objectivity?

[DrSketchpad]

I'll read more on this later, but for now here's my uneducated mindspill-

Everything is subjective, but how?

My thought process is that there may be a reality, but the only relationship we can be aware of is whatever our amalgamation of senses and reason tells us. However, since these senses tell us that there are multiple consciousnesses in existence our view of "reality" is fragmented and messy. Not that having one consciousness would bring us any closer to reality. I mean ... would it? If our view of what we think is reality is by nature subjective, then having one consciousness and therefore one single view of reality (well, until time get's involved. Let's stick to a static view for now though) would make that view indisputable. This doesn't really help though. We could just say again basically that everyone has their own reality and then the one brain thought would cease its utility.

So, my response to the title would be no. We can use our subjective logic in tandem with what we think are real tidbits of information to map out a reality we can trust, but I'm not sure we can have much else, right?

 

[Sabreena]

I would say that no, we can't have true objectivity, because everything we think we know or see is filtered to the lens of our own perceptions and biases. So, if we are to believe that other people have consciousness, each person would have their own reality with overlap in some areas, but not complete synchronization. Does that make sense?

I've never heard the concept of one consciousness outside of shitty sci-fi novels. It reminds me of religion, in an oblique way, because people of faith tend to uphod the view that there is only one reality controlled by one being's moral values.

 

[Brontosaurie]

^ yup, there's no collective consciousness. collective unconscious on the other hand...

 

[StevenM]

I'll read more on this later, but for now here's my uneducated mindspill-

Everything is subjective, but how?

My thought process is that there may be a reality, but the only relationship we can be aware of is whatever our amalgamation of senses and reason tells us. However, since these senses tell us that there are multiple consciousnesses in existence our view of "reality" is fragmented and messy. Not that having one consciousness would bring us any closer to reality. I mean ... would it? If our view of what we think is reality is by nature subjective, then having one consciousness and therefore one single view of reality (well, until time get's involved. Let's stick to a static view for now though) would make that view indisputable. This doesn't really help though. We could just say again basically that everyone has their own reality and then the one brain thought would cease its utility.

So, my response to the title would be no. We can use our subjective logic in tandem with what we think are real tidbits of information to map out a reality we can trust, but I'm not sure we can have much else, right?

In my opinion, that's taken a little bit to the extreme.

I think our senses and brain do provide a representation of reality as accurate as need be.

For instance, you could say there is no such thing as color, and you'd partly be right. But there is an outer reality of electromagnetic energy that oscillates on a frequency, and really does absorb and reflect variably off different states of matter.

We don't get the whole picture, but we've evolved to get enough of it as we need to live sustainably. Again, it's as accurate as it needs to be.

"Knowing", and intelligence can be thought of in the same way. For instance, if you were to hook up a web-cam to a computer, it's input is all represented in binary 0's and 1's. You'd be partly right to say that objective reality is not zero's and one's. However, the context and utilization of that data is as close to accuracy of the real world as the web-cam was designed for. The brain uses a different system of neurons and electrical paths to represent and store all of this, and does err, but still is designed to form as accurate of a representation as it can.

Then of course, there is subjectivity, for all the abstract data not tangible in reality. It does not represent anything that is real in the outside world. I guess that's where we differ from a computer rigged with a webcam.

And of course, I really don't know about all of this for sure.

 

[Analyzer]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersubjectivity

 

[computerhxr]

In my opinion, that's taken a little bit to the extreme.

I agree.

By the same extreme thought, is there any such thing as true subjectivity?

 

[Sir Eus Lee]

I don't think you can ever be truly objective in an approach or opinion or sorts, but you can have objective data to draw from. Most everything we say or think has a subjective context, but their is some objectivity to it.

If you were doing a math problem to add up 2 and 2, objectively you're adding up 4 units total, but the expression of the problem, the units it may be representing, the symbols representing the numbers, all these might be subjective. But as to the raw problem, there is objectivity in adding 2 and 2 and getting four, and though you may express this subjectively to another person, or think about it subjectively in your head, you can understand the essence of the truth.

So as to true objectivity, I think we can have objectivity in what we do or the conclusions we come to, but there's always subjective flavoring. Each piano piece or composition is a fun mix of objectivity and subjectivity, in that the best pieces can represent a tune or progression that seems to run along in a manner reflecting how it should progress, or a natural progression, which could be seen as objective, but we still see a lot of subjectivity in it.

If you boiled objectivity down to being truth, and subjectivity to being the viewpoints of truth, everybody is able of comprehending truth to some degree, i'd say axiomatically though, and everybody is capable of having a subjective stance on it.

Then again subjectivity and objectivity may just both be ways of approaching truth.

/rant

 

[emmabobary]

I don't think you can ever be truly objective in an approach or opinion or sorts, but you can have objective data to draw from. Most everything we say or think has a subjective context, but their is some objectivity to it.

If you were doing a math problem to add up 2 and 2, objectively you're adding up 4 units total, but the expression of the problem, the units it may be representing, the symbols representing the numbers, all these might be subjective. But as to the raw problem, there is objectivity in adding 2 and 2 and getting four, and though you may express this subjectively to another person, or think about it subjectively in your head, you can understand the essence of the truth.

So as to true objectivity, I think we can have objectivity in what we do or the conclusions we come to, but there's always subjective flavoring. Each piano piece or composition is a fun mix of objectivity and subjectivity, in that the best pieces can represent a tune or progression that seems to run along in a manner reflecting how it should progress, or a natural progression, which could be seen as objective, but we still see a lot of subjectivity in it.

If you boiled objectivity down to being truth, and subjectivity to being the viewpoints of truth, everybody is able of comprehending truth to some degree, i'd say axiomatically though, and everybody is capable of having a subjective stance on it.

Then again subjectivity and objectivity may just both be ways of approaching truth.

/rant

I think we need to separate concepts here. Subjectivity and objectivity used as adjectives doesn't help us to understand this topic. When you talk about maths and piano partitures as beautifully logical, that's what they are logical, but logic is not objective. I see maths as a completely different system than reality. There are no errors there, but its not real, its symbolic.
Of course I'm supposing here that there's such a thing as an absolute reality, an object which a subject is trying to know. A subject who is doomed to never completely know the object.

In another note I actually want to believe: there are patterns, conducts repeating everywhere, we map them so we can read the face of what we want to think is something bigger than us and our understanding, we make sense of something that doesn't mean for anything or anyone else in the universe. Well, we like to do that. ...humans :v

 

[Grayman]

http://www.livescience.com/21275-color-red-blue-scientists.html


Although reality is known to be the objective reference. All interpretations of the mind even down to the most basic sensory data is subjective.

 

[Sinny91]

Reality is an illusion, albiet a persistant one - some famous INTP.

 

[INTPINTP]

I think our Extraverted Functions are a bit more objective. Ne and Fe.

I think that applying objectivity to everything is not accurate because each situation is subjective when in the heat of the moment. Or something like that. I'm just being subjective here...

 

[Stagename]

Reality is objective. Experience is subjective.

 

[scorpiomover]

Reality is objective. Experience is subjective.

What do we know about reality apart from that which is based on experience?

 

[Stagename]

What do we know about reality apart from that which is based on experience?

You got me. We don't know. Objective reality is merely the idea of reality as it exists independent of subjective experience. But it is still wrong to say that "everything is subjective", whereas it is true that every experience is subjective.

 

[YOLOisonlyprinciple]

What you see cannot be PARTIALLY *subjective* or *objective*

Instead you start with either *everything* or *nothing*
-You either *began* with an objective definition of all possible *things* and proceed to rediscover them.
-Or you began with nothing and you fill up the dictionary as you continue imagining (*seeing*) the things around you
Life is like a dictionary, where you cant give stupid definitions like these (google search);

Life- *the existence of an individual human being or animal.*
Existance- *the fact or state of living or having objective reality.*
(really where do they come up with these stupid definitions)

-> so either everything is subjective or everything is objective.
Just like how either everything is real or nothing is real

 

[gladness]

I like this idea, ill be making a post soon that may or may not expand on this. its kind of scary how similar our questions and theories are.

 

[onesteptwostep]

I like this page from this particular book:

Spoiler

 

[DrSketchpad]

To onesteptwostep:

I like it, but it's conflicting with what I've refined to be my stance on it:

Whether reality exists or, subjectivity is the relationship (and only thing) we have with "objective" reality. So engaging *with* reality at all is subjective.

 

[QuickTwist]

I don't think you can ever be truly objective in an approach or opinion or sorts, but you can have objective data to draw from. Most everything we say or think has a subjective context, but their is some objectivity to it.

If you were doing a math problem to add up 2 and 2, objectively you're adding up 4 units total, but the expression of the problem, the units it may be representing, the symbols representing the numbers, all these might be subjective. But as to the raw problem, there is objectivity in adding 2 and 2 and getting four, and though you may express this subjectively to another person, or think about it subjectively in your head, you can understand the essence of the truth.

So as to true objectivity, I think we can have objectivity in what we do or the conclusions we come to, but there's always subjective flavoring. Each piano piece or composition is a fun mix of objectivity and subjectivity, in that the best pieces can represent a tune or progression that seems to run along in a manner reflecting how it should progress, or a natural progression, which could be seen as objective, but we still see a lot of subjectivity in it.

If you boiled objectivity down to being truth, and subjectivity to being the viewpoints of truth, everybody is able of comprehending truth to some degree, i'd say axiomatically though, and everybody is capable of having a subjective stance on it.

Then again subjectivity and objectivity may just both be ways of approaching truth.

/rant

I think the difference is that you can certainly be objective in part and still wholly subjective. I believe what gets lost in translation is the context of what the senses of reality pick up and how that translates to objective understanding.

I didn't like how you left no room for an alternate interpretation of 2 + 2 = 3 for example and I think much is missed when you leave out that interpretation.

I think we need to separate concepts here. Subjectivity and objectivity used as adjectives doesn't help us to understand this topic. When you talk about maths and piano partitures as beautifully logical, that's what they are logical, but logic is not objective. I see maths as a completely different system than reality. There are no errors there, but its not real, its symbolic.
Of course I'm supposing here that there's such a thing as an absolute reality, an object which a subject is trying to know. A subject who is doomed to never completely know the object.

In another note I actually want to believe: there are patterns, conducts repeating everywhere, we map them so we can read the face of what we want to think is something bigger than us and our understanding, we make sense of something that doesn't mean for anything or anyone else in the universe. Well, we like to do that. ...humans :v

If we are to find a universal truth it will first be known in the form of an equation. It will then be translated into words in ways for your average Joe to be able to understand. So oddly enough it would be through a subjective means by way of symbolism of maths to be interpreted for the common individual to understand later as the knowledge of this universal truth gets translated to the common tongue much later down the line.

They patterns can certainly be known as what is to be the universal truth!

What you see cannot be PARTIALLY *subjective* or *objective*

Instead you start with either *everything* or *nothing*
-You either *began* with an objective definition of all possible *things* and proceed to rediscover them.
-Or you began with nothing and you fill up the dictionary as you continue imagining (*seeing*) the things around you
Life is like a dictionary, where you cant give stupid definitions like these (google search);

Life- *the existence of an individual human being or animal.*
Existance- *the fact or state of living or having objective reality.*
(really where do they come up with these stupid definitions)

-> so either everything is subjective or everything is objective.
Just like how either everything is real or nothing is real

I heartily disagree with this! Certainly something can be fully objective with a subjective basis. That is the very nature of mathematics!