Subjectivity

Excellent question
I believe (See Hilary Putnam's "Brain in a Vat") that without a reference for something a concept or tangible idea cannot be completely understood, though symbols allow it to be partially understood. The meaning is lost (Taoism) when the ideas are put into words. This being said, the next problem which arrises is existential. It is very difficult to define one's own being in a way satisfactory to all. I prefer (and I think it is Existentialism and not Phenomenology, but I am not sure) to define being as unique and constantly changing (also tied to personal perspective). For the sake of length I will fail to explain the entirety of the nature of existence, but since they don't interfere with the argument it doesn't matter :wink: . Since the entity known as you is constantly changing, even you cannot fully understand the meaning of a previous thought or statement. Before I answer the second part I would like you to clarify the definition of "statement". Is it the thought or the words? As for bridging the gap, it is to late. You already said it and changed the world. Just a note: This is my first post. I'm really into the Philosophy. I'm also looking for a teacher named Bill from TIP. I have a hunch he might be here.

Sincerely,
Second Socrates

According to Whorf and Sapir, words and thoughts are inseparable and act as symbolic representations of reality.

Maturana and Varela suggest operational closure (semantic impenetrability).

Berkeley championed solipsism.

Communication exists. Meaning transfers (perhaps impurely).

Perhaps the latter three gentlemen were onto something. If their logical conclusions are teased out a bit more, we may catch a glimpse of the bridge.

It depends on whether the bridge is on stilts or suspended. c.i.

Everything in life is "subjectivity." c.i.

BOOKS OF THE TIMES;Of Objectivity, Subjectivity and Painful Mishmash By CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT


For Alan Lightman -- a physicist (who teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and novelist ("Einstein's Dreams" and "Good Benito") -- the distinction between science and art is sharp. And out of the tension between the two arise some of the better effects in "Dance for Two," a charming collection of Mr. Lightman's favorite two-dozen essays, most of which first appeared in two earlier collections, "Time Travel and Papa Joe's Pipe" and "A Modern-Day Yankee in a Connecticut Court."

Often he simply balances the two subjects, as in "Pas de Deux," where he describes the physics of ballet, or in "Smile," where he details what goes on biophysically when a man and woman see and greet each other, or in "Students and Teachers," where he dramatizes how both physicists and painters require strong teachers in the mainstream of tradition.

Yet science tends to have the upper hand in his awareness, and he writes delightfully about it. He may well have been a klutz in the lab, as he makes entertainingly clear in "A Flash of Light," "Other Rooms" and "Seasons," each of which touches on some lab project he botched. But his experiments in language certainly succeed, particularly his description, in "To Cleave an Atom," of a nuclear chain reaction as resembling a roomful of cocked mousetraps and bouncing Ping-Pong balls.

The problem for Mr. Lightman is that science, being objective, "offers little comfort to anyone who aches to leave behind a personal message in his work." This presumably is why he set out to write fiction. You can see him taking his first steps in this collection in the way he plays with time travel, a favorite subject of his.

In the first essay he ever wrote, "Time Travel and Papa Joe's Pipe," he explains the many reasons time travel is impossible and then dips his toe into the past by smoking the favorite pipe of a great-grandfather who died 70 years before he was born. But later in the collection he throws practical obstacles aside. In "A Visit from Isaac Newton," he brings the past into the present. And in "A Modern-Day Yankee in a Connecticut Court," he plays an amusing variation on the situation of the man who travels back in time and tries to describe the future to unbelieving denizens of the past.

Which only goes to show that while people may not be able to fly -- for reasons Mr. Lightman explains in "If Birds Can Fly, Why, Oh Why, Can't I?" -- even scientists can overleap the boundaries of fact.

Susan Neville, who teaches English at Butler University, sees no such clear distinctions between the objective and subjective in "Indiana Winter," a collection of essays first published two years ago and now reissued with an enthusiastic introduction by the writer Dan Wakefield, like Ms. Neville an Indiana native.

"The problem with the world is that things are so enmeshed," Ms. Neville writes in "Quake," about a predicted cataclysmic earthquake that failed to occur in New Harmony, Ind., in 1990. "You can't predict a thing, good and evil so bound together that it's impossible sometimes to separate them," she continues. "You try so hard for control and order, and you get disorder. You put your faith in science, and you see ghosts. How do you know how to live your life? The ground is always shifting underneath your feet."

Blending fictional and reportorial technique, Ms. Neville unwinds a tapestry of the Indiana seasons, often describing herself in the third person, often embracing the banal. "This is the art we live with," she writes about an exhibition of "pretty" rural scenes, "our vision of the good, the way our lives would be if all the pain were boiled away and we were as pure as distilled water. This is the art that calms, the art that reassures."

But for her the pain has not all boiled away, and in scene after remarkable scene she succeeds in disturbing and undermining one's calm. In "Seeds: A Meditation on the Body," she takes her two children, "both c-sections," to a state fair, where instead of a rich harvest they look at an exhibition on war. In "The Problem of Evil," she conveys with subtle art that despite the fecundity of the land she and her husband farm, she is about to have a miscarriage.

"In the John Dillinger Museum" describes a comically pathetic tourist attraction, where the author and her husband act out in contrasting ways their bewilderment over losing their baby son. Finally, in the book's long concluding piece, "In the Suburbs," Ms. Neville writes about growing up with a mother who from time to time would break down emotionally and have to be hospitalized.

"There is clearly a genetic basis for affective disorders, and the same gene also produces artists," she writes. "Why would the same gene that produces dissolution also produce form?" And how, she wants to know, can you tell the difference between madness and creativity?

Her answer is that "there's an authority in the voice of the creator" that gives us faith in "the created world." She concludes, "We lack that faith in the voice of the mad, sometimes to our detriment as well as theirs." To this she might have added that a sustained sense of design lies in the work of the creative that is rarely present in the expressions of the mad.

But her neglect to do so doesn't matter. Her moving book itself makes the point.

Published: 04 - 04 - 1996 , Late Edition - Final , Section C , Column 3 , Page 16

Subjectivity

Subjectivity & OBJECTIVITY

If so, (and assuming that you ignore the problems of imperfect perception and imperfect language/ symbol arguments), I feel the bridge lies in the ability to understand the trends in the changing self well enough to predict your future selves experiences enough to pin down their way of thinking of the world. Then a few simple key-word style memories may set off enough of an understanding to be able to merely walk over the crack that the chasm has become. Of course this all hinges on concepts far from basic universal logic; by my thinking illogical. But practical? You can decide for yourself... It works for me (some of the time :-)). By the way I did ont know that Berkley was also a solipcist; I thought he was the one who lied down on the train tracks and thought that reality was only perception. I'm giggleing because there is an obvious flaw in his argument: If cogito ergo sum, then would not the perceptions also, as they exist as a part of the individual undenieably (see Kant's experiential Knowledge, not sure though), by their nature infer a "location" or place to harbor their being? If so, then are they not real, do they not exist within there place? Are they not part of being in that they appear to us? Please respond somone, for these questions gnaw at my bones and nibble marrow and stuff. Wouldn't it be great if this were fast enough to get Socratic dialogue going? Nw that would be rocking it! Love that Socrates!
Oh yeah: Don't get me wrong . I'm not a solopsist. Solopsists suck in my personal opinion. I just think that stmbols fail to represent the intrinsic beauty of ideas. The people exist (though I'm not sure how to PROVE it), but the words are just another fleeting shadow in the Allegory in my own personal cave. Previous statements about perception being inescapable were meant to emphasize the inability to remove ones being from the universe in order to experience the true meaning of someone elses words. Man, I could go on for hours... Dinner time now :-)

Your's truly (pun intended),
Second Socrates

the medium is the massage, so what are you doing Marshall McLuhan?

Any message may be interpreted differently. Sometimes it's not a matter of right or wrong; just simply how one's experience fits into the perception of the message. c.i.

GitVonGat,

I fear that you have not given us enough information about your "question" for us to understand it as you do.

Derrida (among others) looked in some detail at the concept of "deconstruction" - the understanding of the point of view of the author, in order to give meaning and context to their narrative.

Therefore, another's understanding of the text and consequent commentary upon that text, the "metanarrative", is dependent on adequate understanding of the author's intentions, motivations, background experience etc.

We all have our own interpretations of something, based in our own experience and genetic make up, which is why any one person's "understanding" will inevitably be subjective.

If you want to increase the degree to which these subjective interpetations are similar, you need to provide contextual information, which will colour the manner in which the interpretation occurs.

This also brings to mind the old "Schrodinger's cat" issue about perception influencing that which is perceived, but I think that's off-track for this thread, and more suited to discussion of particle/quantum physics.

KP is correct; as shown by polls and how the question is posed. A little nuance goes a long way, depending on the subjective interpretation of how the question is stated. A change in a word or two can make a big difference to the results of polls. c.i.

It is highly questionable whether enough information could ever be given (Godel/Chaitin, Varela/Maturana, Berkeley).

Language can only provide a vague basis for understanding. Nonverbal communication accounts for the vast majority of communication.

Nonverbal might be a bit difficult via this platform, but perhaps we can verbally discuss it to see if the above Godel/Chaitin, Varela/Maturana, Berkeley et al were onto something.

In order for there to exist subjectivity, there must first exist a subject. That subject itself must therefore exist other than subjecively.

I suggest that subjectivity and objectivity are simply relative models of perception, not all-encompassing models of reality. The universe is neither "subjective" nor "objective"; it just is.

Also, subjectivity is not the same as uncertainty.

A thought for Jamespetts
by subject do you mean the existence of the actual meaning of the words? it exists within or without or somwhere, but we know they exist because we have a reference for them through thought. Perhaps they do not exist as we imagine... but before I present a full argument, I would like your definition. Thankyou.

Second Socrates

Re: A thought for Jamespetts


I do not mean the existance of the meanings of words :-) Subjectivity is a form of perception, and in order for there to be perception, there first has to be a perciever, whom I call the subject.

Yes... now I may understand... maybe
Hi Jamespetts!
I definately agree on your idea about the nature of the universe (the universal one atleast) existing seperate from perception. Did you come up with that? If so I would love to see a full argument if you have one. I guess I don't get out enough on the weekends, because I would really enjoy reading it. I like the simple logic that can sum up much more complicatedd arguments. It was great...
On the existance of words, what I meant is this:
By existence (of words) I meant to ask if a universal concept, perhaps something as simple as a perfect circle, (I am avoiding using words because they are arguably personal in their true meaning), neccesitates any sort of location or presence as does the phenomena of concious perception (Descartes Meditations). If so then perhaps the true meaning of words would infer their own existence, allowing for a clear distinction between the percieved meaning and the actuall meaning of the concept in perfect form. If not though, you get a sticky wicket . The sticky wicket is that there then is no universally true meaning of words, in reality making the meaning a truly personal issue ;if you choose to believe that you understand them then the meanings exist, and visa versa. The same can be said for anything percieved really... Which brings me to Subjectivity:
If you mean to describe the phenomena which occurs when you try to describe that you can only percieve things the way that you percieve them, than I believe that you are merely adding a name to an idea and presenting nothing new (not enough to fill a thimble, at least...). Perhaps it is that I don't understand the question asked... was there a question we're trying to answer... I forgot... darn...
Anyway to sum it up, I think the question here is over the existence of universal truth which hits at the root of these arguments. A minor question would be wether or not it can be percieved... (which forces me to question wether existence adheers to logic or to its own rules) I could be wrong about the question thing though.... I forgot. Sticky wicket hehehehe.... / ! Oh yeh this is the point:
Subjectivity depends on the assumption existence of a universal concept/universe because it assumes that personal perception is not reality. Without this assumption there is no reference point with which to pin the true existence of, or a root location for, perceptions (where they come from). Thus the true argument here should really be one over the existence of Universal Truth (Kant, I think...), at least in my eyes it is that way. I hate having to be blunt... but rereading this I realized I had to be, or else it would be to incoherent to understand...
Confused as ever,
Second Socrates

I have an exercise for you, to provide a subjective experience of an objective phenominon;

You are required to take up a position on the earth's surface, preferably a fairly high location with a sizeably distant visibility horizon.
This exercise must take place at the chosen location at, or slightly before sunrise.
Now standing, facing east, you must "experience" the earth's motion, forward toward the horizon, as you watch the sun ("appearing") totally static in the morning sky.

This exercise requires no new words to be spoken to confuse the issue, no new ideas to be invented to qualify what will occur, nothing but experiencing subjectively, what you know objectively is happening!

In response...
If I knew what your point was, then I'd have a witty retort to the argument, but since I have no clue what your point is, then ____________ (fill in the blank). NO! Previous statement does NOT infer that I don't have a witty retort. all those who thought it did are entitled to slapping themselves in the face for me.
Just kidding.... woo. Anyway, I'm not sure what your point is, and would appreciate a clarification. All I'm saying is that since location for objects is infered by perception, then doesn't thought infer location also? thats the small part of my beef with subjectivity... I'll tell you the rest if I get a reply.
wow... I like these emoticons
Yours truly,
Second Socrates