Is truth subjective or objective?

Val, as you may know, meditation is rapidly becoming a Western practice.
I was thinking about your perspective today (unfortunately while meditating). It does seem that you have a point about "sein". I think of my reality (like you) as pure experience. But I must acknowledge that , in addition to the experiences themselves, there are the urges, the drives, the actions performed by JLNobody that noone else is having at the moments they emerge. So one can, in a sense, identity with one's passions, actions, motivations, etc. But for me, they are all just experiences, to the extent that I am aware of them. I'd like to know what Twyvel has to say about this.
I anticipate that he will say something like: felt drives, motivations and actions, like other phenomena, exist only insofar as they are experienced, and that such experiences occur sans experiencer. That is also my position. You feel that "the me" is not an illusion. I say, it is an experience and nothing else. When we think of the "me" as something other than experience, when we think of it something substantial ("in here" if not "out there"), as some kind of thing among things, THAT is the illusion.
You say that you "don't accept any kind of reality external to experience. But this experience has a referential: me." I've agreed that the ego is essential as a point of reference, but that, despite this essential function, "it" is not substantial/real. I would arge that your referential "me" is external to your experience. It may be logically necessary for you to make sense of your experience (as it is for me--while I'm trying to make logical sense of experience), but that does not grant it the ontological status you give it. At least that is so from my perspective.
It is great, by the way, to have a disagreement with someone who is an epistemological idealist (like me) and not a positivist naive realist like most of the dualist I and other nondualists have been disagreeing with. (pardon my grammar).

I always feel like the "me" is the experience. Jl has a point in that people tend to think that they are their traits and feelings. I think that behaviours, and feelings are not "me" but are only things that are attached to me and something that I must guide by reason.
What can I say, I'm a pure rationalist.

Fine, it takes all kinds, and whatever is the case, it is our home, our reality.

JLNobody

I think what val means by "Sein" might be equivalent to our non-being, or observerless observing, (though maybe not. I find val's description of her/is system ambiguous, though it might just be my nondual referencing..... I know what some think of mynot an illusion.val?


val wrote:



Do you think that a (an unknown) world exists independent of observations, independent of Sein?

Feelings and emotion are grand movers of human behavior.

I'm eager to understand Val, particularly what he means by "sein." It is likely that my understanding is flawed by my own orientation.
Val, if you are willing to explain further your "model", I would be very appreciative.
At bottom, I think reality is not adequately examined by either a nondualist or dualist model. It is beyond both orientations and must be approached in a manner which operates between them. The task may be INTELLECTUALLY insurmountable for that reason. But it's fun to try.

Nobody / Twyvel

Frequently, the greatest difficulty in a philosophical discussion is in the fact that we try to understand the others position within our own set of references. That is true in your case and in mine.

As I have said several times, experience is not what happens to a subject. It is the way a being interacts with things or events. I give a configuration to external stimulus; but those external stimulus are also my body, my consciousness. Light is an external stimulus but the eyes are also external stimulus - I think this is the best way to refute Berkeley's solipsism - since we can touch them.
For you two, there is no being. A being is the set of experiences. But see this: experiences don't "fall on you". Your experience of a tree is not the same of a bat. There is a configuration of external stimulus. And you are not passive in your presence - your dasein. You have intentionality. The same thing can be a fear experience, a projected experience, an indifferent experience ...
When I speak about me, "I am this or that, I did this or that" I am talking about a thing. An it, because, as I said before, I project my "I" in the given experience, it becomes a "thing at hand" like an hammer or a rose. I cannot say what is to be me. To do that, I must see me as an it.
So, I cannot say what is my sein. I cannot say what is to be me. It is impossible, because once I start I am already projecting the "to be me" in "this is what I am" (in fact, that was the only objection of Heidegger towards science: science explains the "wesen" - sorry but I cannot translate it in english - not the "sein".
But the fact that experience is always my experience, the fact that I am the reference to all experience, the fact that I am only in my presence in the world but that presence occurs in ME, the fact that I exist, means that I AM. Like a bat, a snail, a plant are.
I am what? How can I know? I only know the ways I deal and configure my presence - presence is already a configuration. My "sein" is "behind" - not literally of course - my "wesen", in the ways of my experience.
It is like trying to catch my own shadow. But if there is a shadow, then there is something that originates the shadow: light and me.

Twyvel

I didn't see your last question, so I am answering now.

You asked:
"Do you think that a (an unknown) world exists independent of observations, independent of Sein?"

No. I don't. Of course, it may be thousand and thousand of unknown realities that I cannot experience. It is possible there is a God, thousand Gods. Or something I can't even imagine.
I am talking about "realities" that, by definition cannot be in my experience.
But what's the point of admitting it? It is like Kant's "noumena". Why talk about imaginary things?

Val, I think of Kant's noumena not as an "imaginary thing" (even though it is only in his mind, not in the observable world) but as a hypothetical construct, a theoretical notion designed to help understand what we do see (whether or not it actually does that), like the hypothetically deduced atom before we had the technical means to observe it. The parallel is not very good, I know. The atom construct was scientific, not metaphysical, as is that of the noumena.

I'll be returning to the task of understanding your perspective later.

val

I agree with a lot of what you say, but not how you say it. Your repeated use of the term "my experience" is misleading as it objectifies Sein which has no phenomenal presence, "cannot be reached". You also cannot even say "my sein" as there is no one to own sein. In the same way that I wouldn't say "my consciousness" for if consciousness is primary, is the ground of all phenomena the statement is not only false but furthers to propagates illusions. That is, if Sein is not an attribute or owned by anything.



you write:IS with or without any phenomenal appearances etc.

Non-being is not being but is is also not 'no being'. (yet as noted above non-being is one with being).

val



I asked in order to gain some clarity on whether you were fundamentally a realist or idealist.

And I do think that we can come to know, get beyond theory, that there is no physical world, i.e. truth exists and is available, and once gained there is neither truth nor non-truth…...for all is mere concepts… a further truth,…I guess….

If all there is is consciousness then Kant's noumena is not……Yet idealist are accused of recognizing the existence of other minds but not chairs,….

Twyvel, your last two posts have been ringing my bells loudly and clearly. And you, Val, you are providing us with some great stuff to consider.

Here's another "great stuff" to consider.
********
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,1409903,00.html
AN IDIOT SAVANT EXPLAINS HIS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING GENIUS ABILITIES! READ ALL ABOUT HIS AMAZING SKILLS BELOW! -
By Richard Johnson, Staff Writer,
The Guardian,
Wednesday, February 23, 2005

SET-UP PIECE: Daniel Tammet is an autistic savant. He can perform
mind-boggling mathematical calculations at breakneck speeds. But unlike
other savants, who can perform similar feats, Tammet can describe how he
does it. He speaks seven languages and is even devising his own
language. Now scientists are asking whether his exceptional abilities
are the key to unlock the secrets of autism.

Daniel Tammet is talking. As he talks, he studies my shirt and counts
the stitches. Ever since the age of three, when he suffered an epileptic
fit, Tammet has been obsessed with counting. Now he is 26, and a
mathematical genius who can figure out cube roots quicker than a
calculator and recall pi to 22,514 decimal places. He also happens to be
autistic, which is why he can't drive a car, wire a plug, or tell right
from left. He lives with extraordinary ability and disability.

Tammet is calculating 377 multiplied by 795. Actually, he isn't
"calculating": there is nothing conscious about what he is doing. He
arrives at the answer instantly. Since his epileptic fit, he has been
able to see numbers as shapes, colours and textures. The number two, for
instance, is a motion, and five is a clap of thunder.

"When I multiply numbers together, I see two shapes. The image starts to
change and evolve, and a third shape emerges. That's the answer. It's
mental imagery. It's like maths without having to think."

Tammet is a "savant," an individual with an astonishing, extraordinary
mental ability. An estimated 10% of the autistic population -- and an
estimated 1% of the non-autistic population -- have savant abilities,
but no one knows exactly why. A number of scientists now hope that
Tammet might help us to understand better.

Professor Allan Snyder, from the Centre for the Mind at the Australian
National University in Canberra, explains why Tammet is of particular,
and international, scientific interest. "Savants can't usually tell us
how they do what they do," says Snyder. "It just comes to them. Daniel
can. He describes what he sees in his head. That's why he's exciting. He
could be the Rosetta Stone."

There are many theories about savants. Snyder, for instance, believes
that we all possess the savant's extraordinary abilities -- it is just a
question of us learning how to access them.

"Savants have usually had some kind of brain damage. Whether it's an
onset of dementia later in life, a blow to the head or, in the case of
Daniel, an epileptic fit. And it's that brain damage which creates the
savant. I think that it's possible for a perfectly normal person to have
access to these abilities, so working with Daniel could be very
instructive."

Scans of the brains of autistic savants suggest that the right
hemisphere might be compensating for damage in the left hemisphere.
While many savants struggle with language and comprehension (skills
associated primarily with the left hemisphere), they often have amazing
skills in mathematics and memory (primarily right hemisphere skills).

Typically, savants have a limited vocabulary, but there is nothing
limited about Tammet's vocabulary. Tammet is creating his own language,
strongly influenced by the vowel and image-rich languages of northern
Europe. (He already speaks French, German, Spanish, Lithuanian,
Icelandic and Esperanto.)

The vocabulary of his language -- "Mänti", meaning a type of tree --
reflects the relationships between different things. The word "ema," for
instance, translates as "mother," and "ela" is what a mother creates:
"life." "Päike" is "sun", and "päive" is what the sun creates:
"day." Tammet hopes to launch Mänti in academic circles later this
year, his own personal exploration of the power of words and their
inter-relationship.

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre
(ARC) at Cambridge University, is interested in what Mänti might teach
us about savant ability. "I know of other savants who also speak a lot
of languages," says Baron-Cohen. "But it's rare for them to be able to
reflect on how they do it -- let alone create a language of their own."

The ARC team has started scanning Tammet's brain to find out if there
are modules (for number, for example, or for colour, or for texture)
that are connected in a way that is different from most of us. "It's too
early to tell, but we hope it might throw some light on why we don't all
have savant abilities."

Last year Tammet broke the European record for recalling pi, the
mathematical constant, to the furthest decimal point. He found it easy,
he says, because he didn't even have to "think." To him, pi isn't an
abstract set of digits; it's a visual story, a film projected in front
of his eyes. He learnt the number forwards and backwards and, last year,
spent five hours recalling it in front of an adjudicator. He wanted to
prove a point.

"I memorised pi to 22,514 decimal places, and I am technically disabled.
I just wanted to show people that disability needn't get in the way."

Tammet is softly spoken, and shy about making eye contact, which makes
him seem younger than he is. He lives on the Kent coast, but never goes
near the beach -- there are too many pebbles to count. The thought of a
mathematical problem with no solution makes him feel uncomfortable.
Trips to the supermarket are always a chore. "There's too much mental
stimulus. I have to look at every shape and texture. Every price, and
every arrangement of fruit and vegetables. So instead of thinking,'What
cheese do I want this week?', I'm just really uncomfortable."
Tammet has never been able to work 9 to 5. It would be too difficult to
fit around his daily routine. For instance, he has to drink his cups of
tea at exactly the same time every day. Things have to happen in the
same order: he always brushes his teeth before he has his shower. "I
have tried to be more flexible, but I always end up feeling more
uncomfortable. Retaining a sense of control is really important. I like
to do things in my own time, and in my own style, so an office with
targets and bureaucracy just wouldn't work."

Instead, he has set up a business on his own, at home, writing email
courses in language learning, numeracy and literacy for private clients.
It has had the fringe benefit of keeping human interaction to a minimum.
It also gives him time to work on the verb structures of Mänti.

Few people on the streets have recognised Tammet since his pi record
attempt. But, when a documentary about his life is broadcast on Channel
5 later this year, all that will change. "The highlight of filming was
to meet Kim Peek, the real-life character who inspired the film Rain
Man. Before I watched Rain Man, I was frightened. As a nine-year-old
schoolboy, you don't want people to point at the screen and say, 'That's
you.' But I watched it, and felt a real connection. Getting to meet the
real-life Rain Man was inspirational."

Peek was shy and introspective, but he sat and held Tammet's hand for
hours. "We shared so much -- our love of key dates from history, for
instance. And our love of books. As a child, I regularly took over a
room in the house and started my own lending library. I would separate
out fiction and non-fiction, and then alphabetise them all. I even
introduced a ticketing system. I love books so much. I've read more
books than anyone else I know. So I was delighted when Kim wanted to
meet in a library."

Peek CAN READ TWO PAGES SIMULTANEOUSLY, one with each eye. He can also
recall, in exact detail, the 7,600 books he has read. When he is at home
in Utah, he spends afternoons at the Salt Lake City public library,
memorising phone books and address directories. "He is such a lovely
man," says Tammet. "Kim says, 'You don't have to be handicapped to be
different -- everybody's different'. And he's right."

Like Peek, Tammet will read anything and everything, but his favourite
book is a good dictionary, or the works of GK Chesterton. "With all
those aphorisms," he says, "Chesterton was the Groucho Marx of his day."
Tammet is also a Christian, and likes the fact that Chesterton addressed
some complex religious ideas.

"The other thing I like is that, judging by the descriptions of his home
life, I reckon Chesterton was a savant. He couldn't dress himself, and
would always forget where he was going. His poor wife."

Autistic savants have displayed a wide range of talents, from reciting
all nine volumes of Grove's Dictionary Of Music to measuring exact
distances with the naked eye. The blind American savant Leslie Lemke
played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No1, after he heard it for the first
time, and he never had so much as a piano lesson. And the British savant
Stephen Wiltshire was able to draw a highly accurate map of the London
skyline from memory after a single helicopter trip over the city. Even
so, Tammet could still turn out to be the more significant.

He was born on January 31, 1979. He smiles as he points out that 31, 19,
79 and 1979 are all prime numbers -- it's a kind of sign. He was
actually born with another surname, which he prefers to keep private,
but decided to change it by deed poll. It didn't fit with the way he saw
himself. "I first saw 'Tammet' online. It means oak tree in Estonian,
and I liked that association. Besides, I've always had a love of
Estonian. Such a vowel rich language."

As a baby, he banged his head against the wall and cried constantly.
Nobody knew what was wrong. His mother was anxious, and would swing him
to sleep in a blanket. She breastfed him for two years. The only thing
the doctors could say was that perhaps he was understimulated. Then, one
afternoon when he was playing with his brother in the living room, he
had an epileptic fit.

"I was given medication -- round blue tablets -- to control my seizures,
and told not to go out in direct sunlight. I had to visit the hospital
every month for regular blood tests. I hated those tests, but I knew
they were necessary. To make up for it, my father would always buy me a
cup of squash to drink while we sat in the waiting room. It was a
worrying time because my Dad's father had epilepsy, and actually died of
it, in the end. They were thinking, 'This is the end of Daniel's life'."

Tammet's mother was a secretarial assistant, and his father a steelplate
worker. "They both left school without qualifications, but they made us
feel special -- all nine of us. As the oldest of nine, I suppose it's
fair to say I've always felt special." Even if his younger brothers and
sisters could throw and catch better than him, swim better, kick a ball
better, Daniel was always the oldest. "They loved me because I was their
big brother and I could read them stories."

He remembers being given a Ladybird book called Counting when he was
four.

"When I looked at the numbers I 'saw' images. It felt like a place I
could go where I really belonged. That was great. I went to this other
country whenever I could. I would sit on the floor in my bedroom and
just count. I didn't notice that time was passing. It was only when my
Mum shouted up for dinner, or someone knocked at my door, that I would
snap out of it."

One day his brother asked him a sum. "He asked me to multiply something
in my head -- like 'What is 82 x 82 x 82 x 82?' I just looked at the
floor and closed my eyes. My back went very straight and I made my hands
into fists. But after five or 10 seconds, the answer just flowed out of
my mouth. He asked me several others, and I got every one right. My
parents didn't seem surprised. And they never put pressure on me to
perform for the neighbours. They knew I was different, but wanted me to
have a normal life as far as possible."

Tammet could see the car park of his infant school from his bedroom
window, which made him feel safe. "I loved assembly because we got to
sing hymns. The notes formed a pattern in my head, just like the numbers
did." The other children didn't know what to make of him, and would
tease him. The minute the bell went for playtime he would rush off. "I
went to the playground, but not to play. The place was surrounded by
trees. While the other children were playing football, I would just
stand and count the leaves."

As Tammet grew older, he developed an obsessive need to collect --
everything from conkers to newspapers. "I remember seeing a ladybird for
the first time," he says. "I loved it so much, I went round searching
every hedge and every leaf for more. I collected hundreds, and took them
to show the teacher. He was amazed, and asked me to get on with some
assignment. While I was busy he instructed a classmate to take the tub
outside and let the ladybirds go. I was so upset that I cried when I
found out. He didn't understand my world."

Tammet may have been teased at school, but his teachers were always
protective. "I think my parents must have had a word with them, so I was
pretty much left alone." He found it hard to socialise with anyone
outside the family, and, with the advent of adolesence, his shyness got
worse.

After leaving school with three A-levels (History, French and German,
all grade Bs), he decided he wanted to teach -- only not the
predictable, learn-by-rote type of teaching. For a start, he went to
teach in Lithuania, and he worked as a volunteer.

"Because I was there of my own free will, I was given a lot of leeway.
The times of the classes weren't set in stone, and the structures were
all of my own making. It was also the first time I was introduced as
'Daniel' rather than 'the guy who can do weird stuff in his head'. It
was such a pleasant relief." Later, he returned home to live with his
parents, and found work as a maths tutor.

He met the great love of his life, a software engineer called Neil,
online. It began, as these things do, with emailed pictures, but ended
up with a face-to-face meeting. "Because I can't drive, Neil offered to
pick me up at my parents' house, and drive me back to his house in Kent.
He was silent all the way back. I thought, 'Oh dear, this isn't going
well'. Just before we got to his house, he stopped the car. He reached
over and pulled out a bouquet of flowers. I only found out later that he
was quiet because he likes to concentrate when he's driving."
Neil is shy, like Tammet. They live, happily, on a quiet cul-de-sac. The
only aspect of Tammet's autism that causes them problems is his lack of
empathy.

"There's a saying in Judaism, if somebody has a relative who has hanged
themselves, don't ask them where you should hang your coat. I need to
remember that. Like the time I kept quizzing a friend of Neil's who had
just lost her mother. I was asking her all these questions about faith
and death. But that's down to my condition -- no taboos."

When he isn't working, Tammet likes to hang out with his friends on the
church quiz team. His knowledge of popular culture lets him down, but
he's a shoo-in when it comes to the maths questions. "I do love
numbers," he says. "It isn't only an intellectual or aloof thing that I
do. I really feel that there is an emotional attachment, a caring for
numbers. I think this is a human thing -- in the same way that a poet
humanises a river or a tree through metaphor, my world gives me a sense
of numbers as personal. It sounds silly, but numbers are my friends."

Very interesting, C.I., but I fail to see how the phenomenon of the savant helps us to determine whether "truth" is objective or subjective.

JLN, I think it requires us to clear our minds of pre-conceived ideas about truth. Whether it's objective or subjective will depend on what we learn about our brains and how it works. Intellectual capacity is still a mystery, and our study of autistic savants might provide us with some knowledge that may provide us answers to our inquiry about what "truth" is all about. Most of us may be playing on this planet with just a fraction of human capacity. We're still living in dark caves, and further study of austistic savants may lead us into more light. Who knows?

Fine, but as I understand it, the question addresses the metaphysical nature of "truth," not the process of truth construction (epistemology).I personally would prefer the latter; if it were the case--if we were discussing the epistemology of "truth" construction--your post would, then, be very relevant.

I think it must be that both exist. There is in every situation one absolute objective truth. Nobody can ever experience it though. Each person must develop a subjective version for their own use. So when 5 people witness a car crash, the obsolute truth of the crash occurs and the 5 people each develop their own subjective experience of it, keeping, rejecting and ignoring different aspects even as they see it.

Yes, the so-called Roshamon Effect. It seems that we cannot but assume there is an objective fact of the matter, but I believe that there are only perspectives, or perspectivistic constructions of events. The objective case, one that is beyond all particular perspectives, would have to that of some kind of God that has an omnicompetent perspective, i.e., the ability to see an event from all possible angles. Does THAT sound sensible?

Yes, but it would be even bigger than that ..the "complete" truth would include viewing the scene in all possible spectra of light, visable or not, not to mention all the other senses, including those we don't even know exist, not to mention knowing the entire history of everything leading to that moment. I guess the subjective truth of any situation could only include the tiniest percentage of the information that would be included in the complete objective truth. (Funny, I've never really thought about this before)

It depends on your question doesn't it?

You've probably heard of the blind men and the elephant tale, there are different perspectives as to what the elephant could be, but the question then would be what is the object they are holding? and I think the objective truth to that can be obtained.

Keep in mind what we mean by "objective" is according to rational, and human empirical analysis. Seeing it from senses we don't even know of I don't think would answer that question any more than our senses would tell us. You'd be asking for a complete description of everything that happened which would not be important to that question itself.

If you are asking why or how a car crash occured, then it depends on what you imply when you are asking that question. Who hits the car first? There might be different versions, but there is an attainable objective truth. Whose fault is it? That's where it gets sketchy, but really the question is implying who caused the cause that triggerred the whole accident and is the person at fault. I think that is also attainable.