Objective Knowledge

C.I., I let myself be pushed into overstatements of my position regarding the subject-object distinction. BOTH exist but not as separate phemonmena; they exist as mutually (co)dependent facets of a relationship, as illustrated by the yin and yang symbol. I grant that "I" am subjective in my perspective on, and interpretations about, objective situations. In reality, however, the split is false insofar as it is not absolute. I AM the world about which I think and see, not a distinct perceiver of "it". The topic has become clouded.
I do not deny the fact that you made some choices. At the level of everyday thought and talk that's non-problematical. But philosophically and spiritually there is--for me at least--a real issue about the existence of a separate chooser, the reality of the subject-object split, and the simple existence of absolute "things" (as opposed to "processes" and cultural constructions) like "keyboards,", "computers", even the molecules and atoms of which they are constituted.
Yes, it IS your reality in a way. But don't you consider "reality", "time", and the "you" that spends your time problematical (philosophically not practically)?

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I agree that "they" co-exist in our world of choices. We can only rely on what we think, feel, and act; that's the entirety of our reality. Yes, we are limited by many things including our biology and environment, and some of the limits imposed on us by our culture/society is every bit of the constraints we must live by.

What matters is that man has been able to evolve from the simplest primate to what man has accomplished to this day to make use of the natural resources of this planet to develop technology that allows us to fly and communicate to most places on this planet without wires.

Our reality (at least for some of us lucky ones) continues to grow at rates not seen in previous centuries and millenniums. I think the past one hundred years have been phenomenal.

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Well stated.

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Interesting discussion.

It seems to me that most epistemological disagreements regarding "objectivity" are based on a misapplication of our "confidence" in that term from a local mundane realm to a universal realm. In daily transactions we cannot function effectively without "cause" and "effect" and these linear linkages are the very railtracks of what we are happy to think of as the fabric of "reality".

But then along comes cognitive "ambition" which attempts to extend "causal argument" to say the conduct of "the Middle East conflict" or to the behaviour of subatomic particles. It simply doesn't work. There has been a "realm-observer" shift such that their previously assumed duality has been rendered inappropriate, together with its handmaidens of "causality" and "objectivity". Yet what happens ? Political pundits claim to to understand the "causes" of conflict and how to resolve them. Scientists as eminent as Einstein attempted to reject the "uncertainty principle" and all its "spooky" (Einstein's word) repercussions for non-locality and retro-action in time (= the demolition of "causality")
In other words, there is resistance to accept the null-hypothesis of "non-duality" in the face of the failure of "duality". We (homo sapiens)strive for prediction and control....to be masters of our "ship" in the face of the elements...when in ultimate reality "we", "the ship", and "the elements" are one.

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JLNobody wrote:

It IS, as you should realize, difficult to SPEAK in a manner that gives no appearance of absolutism and dualism.

Yeah, I'm sure that's a real problem for you. Of course, if you find that you have trouble coming up with the language that is suitable to describe your position, maybe the problem isn't with the language but rather with the position.

JLNobody wrote:

Do you REALLY "see" causes and effects in the world? Please point to one for me. Next you'll say you "see" truths. The reality is that we THINK them.

I don't want to turn this into a discussion of the "reality" of cause and effect. I chose your statement on cause and effect not because I necessarily disagree with it, but because it is the kind of law-like claim that you frequently make and that, as a relativist, you shouldn't be making.

JLNobody wrote:

Maybe I should make a distinction for you between objectivity and objective truth. By "objectivity: I may try to transcend my subjective bias and take into account the views of others' subjectivity: i.e., an intersubjective truth.
By objective "truth" (not the same as Absolute Truth) I refer to truths OUT THERE in the world as opposed to propositions about the world IN HERE, in my (or OUR intersubjective) head.

Well, you can try to define yourself out of the cul-de-sac of your epistemological position, but I doubt it will do you any good. Every definition, after all, is just another absolute claim that you are unable to defend on the basis of your relativism.

JLNobody wrote:

Joe, you say that "There can be objectivity even in a world where everyone's perceptions are highly subjective."
I like John Searle's statement that all experience is subjective--and that's an objective fact. (I think I have that right).

Yes, subjectivity is objective.

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.....and perhaps I should have added that "subjectivity-objectivity" are merely two sides of the same coin...neither can be defined without considering the other. The "higher" epistemological position is surely the one which recognizes this. Piaget for example talks of "knowledge" as "eqilibrium" between inner and outer states. i.e. The "mind state" is not isomorphic to a "world state" but each is co-existent with the other.
The "river analogy" is useful here in that it illustrates the the "reality" of the river lies in both the forces of the water (inner state) and the composition of the bank (outer state). "Reality" is thus dynamic interaction which is neither subjective nor objective.

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JOE quotes me: "It IS, as you should realize, difficult to SPEAK in a manner that gives no appearance of absolutism and dualism."

And then snarls: "Yeah, I'm sure that's a real problem for you. Of course, if you find that you have trouble coming up with the language that is suitable to describe your position, maybe the problem isn't with the language but rather with the position."

You have little problem defending your dualistic worldview because our language is a reflection of it.
I have difficulty because of the inadequacy of our dualistic grammar to express a non-dualistic perspective. (one reason that the mystical literature is awash with paradoxes).
Now you and I and others have gone around with this issue for a long time now. Must we continue when it's obvious that you are impenetrable?

By the way, while subjectivity is objective, objectivity is a subjective experience.

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JLN: By the way, while subjectivity is objective, objectivity is a subjective experience.

That's the reason why they co-exist.

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JLNobody wrote:

I have difficulty because of the inadequacy of our dualistic grammar to express a non-dualistic perspective. (one reason that the mystical literature is awash with paradoxes).

The hard sciences have moved away from reliance on traditional language, is there perhaps a better system to express non-dualistic perspectives?Surely it must have at least been attempted, and that's in part why I made the tongue in cheek reference as per

Chumly wrote:

JLNobody wrote:
Yitwail, it may be fanciful--a nice fancy, I admit--to be able to REDUCE all social phenomena to principles of neuroscience, but that may be something like the search for solid philosophical FOUNDATIONS for knowledge.
Asimovian Psychohistory and ol' Hari Seldon

Hi CI,
how the hell are yah?

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Hi Chumly, Do'n great! We're having a meet in San Francisco on August 26 with several of us committed to attend; try to join us if you can.

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JLNobody wrote:

You have little problem defending your dualistic worldview because our language is a reflection of it.

Maybe our language reflects dualism because dualism best reflects the world around us.

JLNobody wrote:

I have difficulty because of the inadequacy of our dualistic grammar to express a non-dualistic perspective. (one reason that the mystical literature is awash with paradoxes).

No, non-dualism is awash with paradoxes because it is bereft of logic.

JLNobody wrote:

Now you and I and others have gone around with this issue for a long time now. Must we continue when it's obvious that you are impenetrable?

I'm impenetrable. That's rich, coming from you.

JLNobody wrote:

By the way, while subjectivity is objective, objectivity is a subjective experience.

I disagree. "Objectivity" isn't an experience at all.

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joe, But external or material reality is objectivity. That it "happened" is the objective reality.

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Joe, I just read through the text of our debate, and I realize that I have overstated some of my points. But it also seems that you and I represent a clash of "paradigms" (i.e., perspectives regarding presuppositions). A meta-level analysis BY SOMEONE ELSE might lay out the structure of our differences (different perspectives) better than we can. We both perceive the other as impenetrable. I don't think we are impenetrable to our worlds: we learn every day, but our epistemologies ARE mutually exclusive--that is a kind of impenetrability to each other. Too bad, but that's how it works.

If I may oversimplify, it seems to me that for you everything is most accurately seen as objective and absolute, i.e., the world we experience is GIVEN (epistemological realism). But you acknowledge, of course, that objective facts can be interpreted and misinterpreted subjectively. Is that close?

For me, the world of human experience is the product of a dynamic COMBINATION of admittedly GIVEN conditions (i.e., they enable and constrain me)* and the meanings we ascribe to them. We live in a subjective world of definitions as much as we do within a world of objective conditions. And this overall (culturally and psychologically constituted) definitional pattern may, perhaps, be considered "absolute" and "objective", only from an extra-human or "god's-eye perspective". But since I focus on human social constructions of reality, my epistemology is "relative" to the forces that shape them. You might call this my closet objectivist insight; I call it a meta-subjectivist interpretation.

When I consider my experience very closely I realize that I THINK and "speak" dualistically but that I SEE (in terms of immediate experience) a non-dualistic phenomenonal field. I see that, as the mystics note, my precognitive or linguistically unmediated experience transcends the neat distinctions and bifurcations of language and logic. Non-dualism is awash with paradoxes because it transcends logic, not because it is merely "bereft" of it.

*Nevertheless, they are only (inter)subjectively meaningful: they must have meaning ascribed to them. Reality in the mystical sense (and that refers to an absolute Reality beyond our conceptual grasp, perhaps like Kant's "thing-in-itself" noumena?

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I wrote (referring to John Searle's notion that subjectivity is an objective fact):
"...while subjectivity is objective, objectivity is a subjective experience.

Joe answsered: "I disagree. "Objectivity" isn't an experience at all."

I guess that's the core of our difference. "Objectivity" for you refers to an ontological state (objectivity=objective fact); for me its an epistemological state (the idea of "objectivity"=subjective fact).
For you it's a hard given; for me its a soft construction (what Buddhism might call a factual illusion--like a REAL mirage). Asherman?

Or as my wife puts it: everyone's crazy.

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JLN: Or as my wife puts it: everyone's crazy.

See, even your wife's statement is subjective in concert with objective reality - depends on whose' reality.

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C.I., I do not mean to say that reality is just in my imagination. I'm saying that ITS MEANINGFULNESS consists either of human (inter)subjectivity, or, if we insist, on objectivity--which is necessarily God's subjectivity.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

joe, But external or material reality is objectivity. That it "happened" is the objective reality.

Don't tell me, tell that to JLN.

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JLNobody wrote:

Joe, I just read through the text of our debate, and I realize that I have overstated some of my points. But it also seems that you and I represent a clash of "paradigms" (i.e., perspectives regarding presuppositions).

No, we don't. As I've explained before, in order for there to be a clash of paradigms between us, we must be talking about the same thing. But we're not. I have an epistemological viewpoint. You have a metaphysical one. There can be no clash of paradigms here.

JLNobody wrote:

A meta-level analysis BY SOMEONE ELSE might lay out the structure of our differences (different perspectives) better than we can. We both perceive the other as impenetrable. I don't think we are impenetrable to our worlds: we learn every day, but our epistemologies ARE mutually exclusive--that is a kind of impenetrability to each other. Too bad, but that's how it works.

As I said before, your epistemology isn't impenetrable, it's just not an epistemology at all.

JLNobody wrote:

If I may oversimplify, it seems to me that for you everything is most accurately seen as objective and absolute, i.e., the world we experience is GIVEN (epistemological realism). But you acknowledge, of course, that objective facts can be interpreted and misinterpreted subjectively. Is that close?

Established facts are objective unless and until we have some better reason to think otherwise.

JLNobody wrote:

For me, the world of human experience is the product of a dynamic COMBINATION of admittedly GIVEN conditions (i.e., they enable and constrain me)* and the meanings we ascribe to them. We live in a subjective world of definitions as much as we do within a world of objective conditions.

Then you're not a relativist. At best, you're confused.

JLNobody wrote:

And this overall (culturally and psychologically constituted) definitional pattern may, perhaps, be considered "absolute" and "objective", only from an extra-human or "god's-eye perspective". But since I focus on human social constructions of reality, my epistemology is "relative" to the forces that shape them. You might call this my closet objectivist insight; I call it a meta-subjectivist interpretation.

No, I wouldn't call it a "closet objectivist insight." I'd just call it "nonsense."

JLNobody wrote:

When I consider my experience very closely I realize that I THINK and "speak" dualistically but that I SEE (in terms of immediate experience) a non-dualistic phenomenonal field.

No you don't.

JLNobody wrote:

I see that, as the mystics note, my precognitive or linguistically unmediated experience transcends the neat distinctions and bifurcations of language and logic. Non-dualism is awash with paradoxes because it transcends logic, not because it is merely "bereft" of it.

Transcends, abandons, neglects, ignores -- it's pretty much all the same.

JLNobody wrote:

I guess that's the core of our difference. "Objectivity" for you refers to an ontological state (objectivity=objective fact); for me its an epistemological state (the idea of "objectivity"=subjective fact).
For you it's a hard given; for me its a soft construction (what Buddhism might call a factual illusion--like a REAL mirage).

When will you learn? Nothing for you is an epistemological state.

JLNobody wrote:

Asherman?

Yeah, right. Like he can help.

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