There are a couple of meanings or senses we have of the word objective and subjective

In the Ontological sense (ie what there is to know in the universe), we have both objective facts and subjective facts.
There are facts of the material world we understand in physics, chemistry etc.
There are also the facts of subjectivity from conscious creatures.

"Whats its like to be you in this moment?" ...It has subjective facts, underpinned by objective facts about your body and your brain.

We can talk about human subjectivity objectively in the Epistemological sense.
Take for example the phenomenon condition Tinnitus.
Tinnitus is a physical condition, experienced as noises or ringing in the ears or head when no such external physical noise is present. Tinnitus is usually caused by a fault in the hearing system; it is a symptom, not a disease in itself.

We know it's real and not imagined.
We know what kind of inner ear damage can produce it.
We can study it from subjective facts (subject can tell if it's a high frequency or low frequency ring, or even the exact tone)

There should be no impediments to us studying Tinnitus, or ANY other subjective experiences we have, such as those experiences with DMT.
Unfortunately yes, we have to rely on self report to some degree to study these things. We know that sometimes people aren't the best judge of their moment to moment experience. People who have been manipulated into thinking certain things via neuro linguistic programming techniques, will often give different reasons for why they came to a conclusions, yet we know why they did.
Its worth worrying about this when trying to design specific experiments, but this is not a fundamental epistemological problem that rules out understanding of this in scientific terms. And if it does, then that would rule everything out about science of the mind. It would rule out anything to know about depression, schizophrenia, anything in neuroscience and psychology, because these things are subjective experiences.

The universe exists whether we observe it or not. If you die, your subjective experience is that the universe as you previously knew it is gone, but the universe continues whether you acknowledge it or not.

That is the basis of what objectivity is. Objectivity is not some mystical state. It is an understanding of the universe that is free of the bias of subjective experience. Each individual may only experience a subjective reality, but with enough observation it becomes possible to say with relative certainty what is and what is not true in objective reality.

The reason this works is because each observation leads to conclusions that have some amount of objective truth to them despite coming individually from subjective experiences. Once you superimpose enough observations it becomes possible to pick out conclusions that are free of the illusions of subjective experience.

Some observations are so mundane and undeniable, though, that it is possible to say outright that they are objectively true. For instance, "what goes up must come down" is an objective truth as long as conditions on the planet remain relatively constant. The statement, "Life on earth requires a source of carbon, a source of energy, and water," is another objective truth. It's not that 100 million people believe these things to be true. These statement have been found to be true trillions of times. I've personally affirmed the previous two statements many thousands of times in my life alone.

And what about our understanding of objective truth that comes from measurements performed by calibrated machines. These machines are generally free of bias. When used correctly, their measurements are functionally free of subjectivity. For instance, I may see the sky as blue but a color blind person might see it as greenish. This is subjective. But if you measure the spectrum of the light reflected by the sky, you will get numbers that are free of subjectivity. The units of measurement used to measure it might be a little arbitrary, but they are constant and standardized and therefore functionally free of subjectivity. There is some subjectivity in measurement though, this is where the concept of uncertainty comes from. But, once again, with enough measurements it is possible to draw conclusions that do not stray into uncertain territory.

Not all scientific conclusions are as objectively true as others, but there are some scientific conclusions that are so well supported that they couldn't be untrue. You are wrong when you say that we are so far removed from objective truth that we are unable to perceive objective truth. Each subjective experience contains some objective truth in it and through scientific collaboration we can sift through subjective experiences to pick out the bits of objectivity.

Perhaps. or perhaps not. Maybe the conscious decision is just illusory. The decision was made as a reaction to the environment that the prisoner was in. Maybe a plant that was contained in an environment that was not conducive to it"s well being would choose to do the same thing.



Shaking someones hand could be a reactionary by product of body language and chemistry. You could always choose to shake the hand of someone you don"t like but is it really a conscious decision? Or are you just doing what is expected in order to survive? You go for a job interview, you take an instinctive dislike to the person that is interviewing you. But, due to the need to flourish and grow, you shake their hand, as not shaking their hand would add to the chances of not getting the job and so detracting from your ability to provide for yourself.

Maybe the conscious decisions that we think that we make are just a result of our brains getting programmed by our environment as we go through life. I know it maybe hard for some people to take but we have to explore the possibility that we are all just a bunch of deluded meat plants.

There could be a lot worse things to be than being a plant.

I got the blessing of experiencing plant awareness one day.
It probably doesn't feel like you think it does. It isn't as defined as our awareness, our way of viewing reality is very localized, theirs is much broader and stable.
I can't really explain it properly, but the only real strong emotion I remember from the whole set of experiences was fruiting/sporulation, which was spectacular.

I'd like to stay active in this argument.

Objectivity.

Awareness, consciousness.

Errr quantum.

Yeah you best believe I know what I'm talking about.

But its not true objectivity. Take for example Human awareness and the universe. If you are the thing that your looking at, you will never see it for what it truly is, so everything will appear subjectively. In my opinion, that's just the paradox of life.

I objectively believe I was poking fun, it's a fact that I was being objective, in my subjective opinion

I object!

Let me point this out again. You are confusing 'consciousness' with 'freedom of will'

You make some very good points. I will now counter:

Subjectivity.

Unawareness, unconsciousness.

Errr spectrum.

Yeah, I said it.


So I can't see my hand for what it truly is then? Or are you saying my hand isn't me? But you also seem to be saying that we are the universe, so then my hand is me because it's part of the universe.

Your statement is consistent with the idea that there is no part of the human consciousness that is removed from the universe and that we can't contort our mind in any way to allow it to view anything objectively. Anytime we observe anything, it must be that we are looking at ourselves because what we are looking at is in this universe.

I think the larger implication here is that in your view, nothing that the mind experiences then can be a result of something outside the universe. But aren't higher planes of existence supposed to be removed from the universe. They are supposed to be separate from our universe.

So if your beliefs are consistent with your last post, then all spiritual experiences are actually mundane. The "spiritual" planes are then coexisting in our universe and therefore one day scientists should be able to believe that they understand the spiritual in an objective way (despite whether you agree with them or not).

But also, if we can't perceive anything objectively then everything is subjective. And we know that subjective experience can be wrong. So we therefore can't believe that any of our experiences are true because we have nothing true to compare our experiences to. Therefore in your view everything is an illusion. In order to be consistent with your previous post, you can't believe anything to be true. You must believe that everything is false since only the objective is true. But even that is a belief.

Although I doubt you live this way. When you jump in the air, do you fear that you will fly away into space while everything on the surface remains in it's place? Probably not, because you believe in the objective truth of gravity. You may or may not know the known mechanics behind gravity, but in your mind you know that the consequences of gravity are true.

I would say that your beliefs are totally consistent with materialism. We are part of the universe so we can only perceive the subjective because we can't perceive anything from the outside. So anything we perceive on the inside of the universe is part of the universe. The universe is ultimately material and everything we perceive must result from the universe, so everything is material.

But your views don't seem to be consistent with rationalism or empiricism. If we can't perceive anything objectively, we can't ever perceive truth. So our senses are useless. Everything we sense is false. And reason is worthless. Every set of statements that we use to reason are based on false perceptions.

Possibly. I get a bit lost in philosophical discussions (even the easy ones).



The point i was trying to make was that our decision making, whether we are doing it consciously or subconsciously, is a product of chemistry and a reaction to our environment. You have an experience based on exterior stimuli, a chemical reaction takes place inside of you and you make a decision based on that chemical reaction. QED we are plants.

we agree on something it turns out (except us being plants)

Take care

Exactly ^ because human consciousness is just a drop in the ocean of THE consciousness. And there is nothing outside of consciousness. How could anything exist outside of the all?

To try to answer your question about the hand would be very difficult to do.. How do you define ''Me"? will play a large role in how I would answer...lol




Again, this would depend on how you define ''universe''...subjectively of course . I can't imagine anything outside the universe(multiverse) My logic is that there can be nothing outside of the universe, multiverse, god, the absolute, the all. Everything is connected, or there would be nothing (but no thing cannont even be imagined because to imagine ''no thing'', it must be compared to something...so again...a paradox). Now using words to try to describe something ineffable will ultimately mean that it ''potentially'' only points in the direction of truth.



I don't know if I would use the term mundane...But essentially yes, you interpreted what i said correctly ....Like I have stated before...One centuries magic is another centuries science. What we don't understand we call magic, or false.



This is a difficult one to explain...... It all depends on how you try to define truth. And how someone defines truth is based on how they view the ''whole''. ''You must believe that everything is false since only the objective is true. But even that is a belief.'' Thats part of the paradox. "Truth'' cannot be defined. Beliefs are not entirely true, because once you define something you have limited/contained it, thus stripping it of its truth. So in a sense, everything I say or anyone says is not true. It can only point towards the truth. I'm not sure if it was in this post, but someone said something like ''God is Truth''. God is limitless. I kind of feel like I am going around in circles with what I am trying to say, but I am limited in my abilities.

So yes, I guess you could say that I see everything as false. I forget who said it but'' Reality is an illusion, albeit a persistent one''. Having this belief does not influence my day to day actions. I accept it for what it is. It doesn't matter that I will never know objective truth. Subjective truth is enough for me.




What you call the laws of gravity is a subjective truth. And yes I do believe in subjective truth, so i'm not worried I will fly away...But if I did, that would be kinda cool



Exactly. It's all material. Everything is matter. But there are so many different densities of matter, that if we want to understand more about how this illusive subjective reality is based, then we must divide the matter in levels. Body, , electricity, thoughts, mind. These are crude divisions, but I hope you see my point. Matter arises from the way that the unified field of consciousness is ''stressed''. Again, to restate, I do believe in subjective truth. If I didnt, then I would have nothing to compare anything against.



Subjective truth is all we have, and all weed need. Reasoning is one of the most amazing gifts that our creator has endowed us with. I consider my views to be rational....But I completely understand why most people would think I'm a nutcase (but hopefully not here on the nexu).

Please site source or evidence for this claim



I'm more worried that you find the laws of gravity a subjective truth. I suppose 1+1=2 is also subjective? Dear me....




Not true. What about antimatter?



I really do not intent to say this in a cruel or offensive way, but hearing you say the words "creator", "reason" and "rational" in the same context says a lot about your worldview and grasp of common sense. Like I mentioned before, there is no reasoning with someone who has draw views of his world based on irrational evidence based claims. Clearly you do not value reason the same as I do. I would choose to inject words like "I think.." or "I believe.." or even "we are not sure, but..", instead of making claims based on insufficient evidence at best

I wouldn't call you a complete nutcase, as you said, you can completely understand why most people would think you are

Thanks for the compliment.

I don"t think you are a nutter either Synkromystic. I think that it is perfectly normal to have a faith based belief system based upon personal experiences. Martin Luther King, max Planck, Leo Tolstoy, Florence Nightingale, Mr T, Richard Dawkins, Isaac Newton,Nelson Mandela, Anton Chekhov, Ludwig van Beethoven, Bob Marley and Sammy Davis Junior to name but a few. You are in good company mate.

This is my que!



Haha, that is funny. U are asking for evidence of cosmological proportions. If what he says is true and consciousness is subjective then providing direct/objective evidence is going to be impossible? We can only find patterns of subjectivity in physics, i suppose. But we can never objectively show that consciousness is an illusion if all we have to work with is the illusion in the first place.

But I will adhore ur question, Apparently Dolphins are able to recognize them selves in a mirror. Thus providing to christians and scientists for one of the first times that there are indeed conscious beings besides us humans. How they experience consciousness is still being disputed.


It is.. 1+1=2 is a subjective language.
1+1=3 and 1+1=2 are both equally true in my subjective language system
Sounds ridiculous i know, but.. 2 is just something we gave a name to. If you add 1 and 1 together you will come up with a third nominator, hence 1+1=3.




It is going to be hard to agree with you if you yourself do not provide a source, or provide evidence that antimatter actually exists.

So would you please provide source or evidence for this?

Thanks, Cyb. Grr.. It is still a nominator. Calling something Antimatter does not mean it is immaterial.

In fact, your source cites "electric and magnetic fields hold the antiprotons separate from positrons in a near-perfect vacuum that keeps them away from regular matter. The antiprotons pass through a dense electron gas, which slows them down further."

Electromagnetic fields are properties of matter still. Quantum physics seems to hint that Photons are particles on a quantum level. You could say that they are interdimensional to us subjectively. But objectively, i think we can safely call Photons particles as well.

Saying that antimatter particles are being held in place by electrons clearly indicated to me that what we are looking at is a form of matter. A form of matter whose properties are not yes fully understood but matter non-theless. Correct me if i'm wrong?

My argument with Shadow was not the existence of Antimatter but i personally dispute that antimatter is immaterial. I was hoping for a challenge, since i have never actually heared of antimatter myself. Thanks for giving me that challenge. Those are some enormous amounts of information to try and digest.
Going to have to look into antimatter some more, now.

Antimatter is ordinary matter.

The difference is that antimatter particles have the opposite electrical charge.

e.g. Electrons are negatively charged. Positrons are identical to electrons except that they are positively charged.