How is objectivity possible?

Objectivity is subjectivity to the point where you cant tell

how do we know any of those things are objective?

can't tell what?

because they are repeatable. Chemistry is a good example of that. Bond interactions are, so far, extremely predictable once known

except the idea that those wavelengths are "red" is based on the idea that they make us see red, which they don't to a colorblind person

how does that make it objective? why couldn't something subjective be repeatable or predictable?

Well a colorblind person would say "red does not exist", which is subjective, because it does exist, just not for them. It's similar to if i said "infrared doesnt exist because i cannot perceive it" when i just lack the cells to do so. that's how i see it at least

it makes it objective only if you believe reality is objective. Something subjective can be repeatable and predictable for you, but not for someone else, or they may perceive it differently. If everyone perceives something as repeatable and predictable, it generally is objective, until more information proving otherwise is known. Like psychology experiments. Many are not objective because they cannot be repeated by others, but im sure the original psychologist would claim to be able to repeat it. I feel im not wording myself very well, im a little stoned so sorry

>Well a colorblind person would say "red does not exist", which is subjective
how is that subjective then? isn't it just false?

not for the colorblind person. They are not lying, they just lack the ability to perceive it.
i worded that too absolutely. A colorblind person who says "red does not exist" yes, they are false. They would really say "I cannot see red" (and have no idea what it is i cannot see, but acknowledge it exists)

some colors are harder to see than other like yellow against a white background

if someone saw yellow instead of red this would be immediately apparent

theres a difference between saying reality really exists independently of the mind and that reality we see is objective. Also, because reality we see isn't objective doesn't mean its inconsistent or that scientific theories dont work or make predictions. I believe what people see as objective is really just intersubjectivity. If there is such thing as objectivity, it certainly doesn't describe the ontology of reality or what's "out there".

my point is that something could be consistent enough to be repeating and predictable, even though it only existed within some limited paradigm (like within human consciousness or some specific cultural or theoretical perspective)
so you could observe regularities that were completely predictable from your point of view, while you were still always just confined to that point of view

>not for the colorblind person. They are not lying, they just lack the ability to perceive it.
well then aren't you just saying that a statement is subjective if somebody believes it but it isn't actually true?

>How is objectivity possible?
by consensus on observations

Good post, I get what you're saying. I like to think reality exists outside the mind because it existed before my mind did, and will most likely continue after my mind, but this is intersubjectivity as you stated. But, would you agree with those statements? If everyone would agree with those statements (which i think most would), then reality does exist, at least like this guy said , at least while it is under that limited paradigm (theoretical perspective). Once that's established, it's just a matter of how objectively your senses perceive reality.
terrible at wording my thoughts right now

I wonder if you could grab an example of what you mean, im not disagreeing with it, i just cant think of one.

>what people see as objective is really just intersubjectivity
no because it's possible for everyone to agree (intersubjective) but be wrong (objective)

No, im saying our senses are subjective. What is actually present (which can be measured usually using instrumentation) is objective. The way we measure/define what is present is subjective as well. this is assuming reality is objective of course

you know what, im going to expand.
our senses are not even subjective really, not on the cellular level, since it's all just chemistry and extremely known, predictable chemical interactions. what is subjective is how your brain interprets the signals from your sensory cells.

>example
theoretical perspective: unfalsifiable theories by definition predict every possible observation (think of popper's examples of freudianism & marxism)
human consciousness: maybe the consistent world we experience is just a mental construct (simulation etc)

sigh had another thought.
your senses can also be only giving you partial information, which you use to create an opinion you consider to be objective. It's like that picture with a cylinder and 2 people are viewing it from 2 different head on angles. One person would say the object is a sphere, the other a rectangular prism, but they are both wrong, even though their senses didnt lie to them and their brain didnt interpret it wrong, they just have insufficient information and do not realize it. objectivity is knowing from a 3rd person perspective what they are looking at is a cylinder

Yea those things could be subjective creations, but i still like to believe there is an objective reality which can be known, just maybe not by myself. Either way, since those would be things you could never really know until exposed, im going to assume my senses are objective and my brain is interpreting them objectively, unless a majority of people tell me im wrong (mental illness). If not, id go crazy personally

predictability doesn't make chemistry objective though (see etc)
and how do we know our instruments give us objective reality and don't just give us measurements that are useful within our limited perspective?

>im going to assume my senses are objective and my brain is interpreting them objectively, unless a majority of people tell me im wrong
other animals experience things differently so their senses would "tell you you're wrong" (aliens probably would too)
and colors, smells, tastes, sounds, feels etc obviously aren't "in" the objects themselves so how could sensations be "objective"?

see
best way i can put it. Until we can know we are in a limited perspective, i think it's best to assume we are not.

but we obviously can't have complete information or take a "3rd person perspective" on our experiences, so doesn't that just mean objectivity is impossible?

>other animals experience things differently so their senses would "tell you you're wrong" (aliens probably would too)
but they suffer from the same condition that we do. In the same we cannot see certain wavelengths, it does not mean that they do not exist. We just lacked the instrumentation to detect them. The instruments hopefully represent an objective level of detection/knowledge, but like said even that COULD be limited.
>and colors, smells, tastes, sounds, feels etc obviously aren't "in" the objects themselves so how could sensations be "objective"?
all those things are measurable, predictable, except for feelings. I don't like the word sensation, im going to say your brain's interpretation of those signals can be subjective, especially with regard to emotional response in most cases

Knowing whether or not what we perceive as objective (the knowledge we have accumulated over years of research and shit) is like absolutely objective is pretty much impossible without some big revelation or something, yea.

I knew a physics student that seemed to want to learn physics just to shit on it. He once said "how do you know you detect an electron in some experiment? it could be a different particle with properties like an electron". I told him that "if it walk like an electron and quacks like an electron, it's probably an electron. unless this 'different' particle is some how measurably different than an electron, all we can do is call it what it seems to be".

but the point is that we know different species and even different people get different colors, smells, tastes, sounds etc from the same things, so don't we already know that nobody's sense experience is objective?

You have to divide senses into 2 stages. the first being perception, when the chemicals to be detected bind to the receptors and cause a neuron to fire. I would argue this is objective in all people/organisms, since chemistry is fairly absolute (not going into all that "absolute objectivity, let's assume it is absolute)
the second part is the way the brain interprets the neuron signal. This is more likely to be subjective with things that evoke an emotional response, but if a vast majority of people's brain interprets the signal in the same way, it most likely represents an objective interpretation, at least given our knowledge and set parameters

what do you mean by "absolutely objective" then?
what kind of "revelation" do you mean that could give us objectivity? even if a new discovery overturned our whole research tradition, that's something that has happened before. why wouldn't the new discovery just be an improvement within our own perspective on reality?

[citation needed]

>the first being perception, when the chemicals to be detected bind to the receptors and cause a neuron to fire. I would argue this is objective in all people/organisms
but that's not cognition, basically just dumb physical collision, so there's no issue of "objective vs subjective"
and the idea that it happens like that is one of the ideas whose objectivity is in question
>but if a vast majority of people's brain interprets the signal in the same way, it most likely represents an objective interpretation
isn't that just the "intersubjective consensus" argument? plus, hasn't it already been refuted because we know different individuals and species don't "interpret the signals" in the same way (they have different sense experiences)?

>isn't that just the "intersubjective consensus" argument?
basically yea. It's been refuted to be the ultimate end all objective reality, but that's all we have until more information is given that tells us it's wrong. You're right about individual species not being able to, but that's why we use instrumentation to record data, not individual's perception. Instrumentation works on those physical collisions you were talking about, where there is no issue of subjective vs objective, as you said. Unless you call everything into question, which ultimately we cannot answer.
something that gives us information we could not detect within our limited set parameters, ie, all of a sudden the person controlling the simulation reveals it is indeed a simulation.

oh absolutely objective would be what actually is present and true regardless of observation

even if there are regularities, the way you interpret them, that data is still dependent on prior assumptions and essentially what you could say is a viewpoint. obviously the regularities occur, but they are only meaningful to anyone, that is, they can only be described in terms of an explanation in a way thats not necessarily objective, even if it explains the regularities. and in some cases the same regularities can produce different conclusions.

yes once you can establish things under a single viewpoint as you say (which is how science is done) but it still doesn't change that these viewpoints depend on prior assumptions which can be disagreed with and is kind of intersubjective.

>how objectively your senses perceive reality

im not saying that reality doesn't exist. An objective reality certainly does exist but our perception of it doesn't. nor is it a matter of how objective your senses are. We can perceive things in multiple ways and they can not necessarily contradict with eachother or be equally correct. there are numerous models that can fit to sensory data, kind of like how different theories can fit to the same data in science. for that reason how can multiple models be simultaneously true? we do know that theories such as einstein's theory of relativity don't necessarily reflect what is "out there", but simply describe it. strange as it sounds, we could arguably apply this to our perception of e.g. what a duck is. we think when we say we see a duck, youre objectively pointing at this animal but our concept is heavily based on assumptions we've learned, on culture and it isnt robust to things like the species problem or ship of theseus problem or things like that. nor does the duck idea take into account microscopic stucture or things like that. the duck obviously exists but our models of it arent. and the only way that that objective thing "out there" has any utility to us is once it comes through our cognitive models.

>Instrumentation works on those physical collisions you were talking about, where there is no issue of subjective vs objective, as you said.
well, not just physical collisions, since their design is premised on our understanding and so is any reading of their results
many science methodologists think the readings of instruments are ultimately all physical science can tell us about (instrumentalists, constructive empiricists), so aren't you just agreeing with them that science is subjective?
>Unless you call everything into question, which ultimately we cannot answer
this is what i was getting at... aren't you making absolute certainty a requirement for real objectivity?

pretty goop wrap up to the thread actually. thoroughly enjoyed this discussion, even if it was pretty semantic
my one response to you is that the prior assumptions sciences uses to create instruments to generate data caused by physical atomic interactions have never really been proven wrong in any really crazy way that would suggest that our perception of the world is very far off.

but observers and observations themselves aren't present regardless of observation, that's why definitions of objectivity as "observer-independence" are usually rejected

i would argue that the fact that the instruments work proves our understanding is correct. not only do the instruments work but they work remarkably well to reproduce stuff, which only reinforces what we believe to be true.
>aren't you making absolute certainty a requirement for real objectivity?
yes, 100%. the mythical 3rd person observer must have absolute certainty if they really were looking at real objectivity

>nothing is 100% certain so you can't know nothing

It isn't. Objectivity is just a useful fiction.

>that's why definitions of objectivity as "observer-independence" are usually rejected
that definition depends on observer-independence objectivity being true. Quantum shit is a good example of something we just do not have enough information to really define objectively. is it a particle or a wave, welp, it's both, it's subjective based on observation

i kind of counter that there is a point where you can say your senses stop and your brain begins, i dont really think there is, and information from higher areas impacts lower sensory areas so yeah. another thought is that our senses don't actually directly sense things, they sense consequences of them i.e. the perturbations of light and through sound etc. i.e. energy.

and with your example, the observation these people make and about what it is is dependent on their conceptions of geometry. someone could have the same argument with a different conception or paradigm of geometry or whatever. within that framework, then you could say this is objective, but this doesn't necessarily means that what they perceive through these frameworks is what's "out there" so to say.

>the fact that the instruments work proves our understanding is correct
but that's just the regularity/predictability argument again, right?
>yes, 100%.
so then you don't believe objectivity is possible at all? i assume you don't believe absolute certainty is possible

great post, this is pretty much my argument that we do exist in an absolute objective reality, that we simply describe things, and have been able to predict things like elements with extreme rigidity. But then quantum physics comes along and shatters that with

then what does the fiction say?

>so then you don't believe objectivity is possible at all? i assume you don't believe absolute certainty is possible
no i do believe it is possible, just not without absolute certainty, which i dont believe is possible. So in effect, no i dont believe it's possible to be perfectly objective, with our current limitations.
>but that's just the regularity/predictability argument again, right?
somewhat but not completely, because some predictions about elements and gravity waves and stuff have been perfect. There was no way to have a subjective bias about them through observation since we had not observed them yet

objective if everyone is wrong?

if you could prove it somehow, sure. but that's the problem, proving it

>our senses don't actually directly sense things
this depends on identifying "our senses" with whatever biochemical receptors the "consequences" impact on
but we do sense things (& events & properties & states of affairs etc) and not just their consequent microphysical impacts on our bodies, so that identification is wrong
seeing a star is directly sensing a star, so whatever a "sense" is, it's something that can take X as its direct object even if X no longer exists and the only physical connection between X and the perceiver is a tiny microphysical product of X impinging on the perceiver's body
this is plausible also because we know we can sense facts about the past (for example you can take a whiff of the milk in your fridge and smell that it went bad days ago)

The concept of objectivity isn't dependant on our ability to understand it. Some thing either objectively is, or objectively isn't.

the concept no, but to define something as objective, yes it is dependent on our ability to understand it. Understanding something absolutely is the only way to assign objectivity to it. Whether or not you understand something completely, or completely enough to make that call is up to the collective subjectivity that science compromises, not only including individual humans who can make errors, but instruments which measure those physical interactions.
>Some thing either objectively is, or objectively isn't.
you have to make a leap of faith here somewhat in defining humans (scientists and instruments) as the 3rd party observer who has absolute certainty, or enough certainty to make the call for the time being. Until another 3rd party observer who has more certainty than us makes itself known, i think we can assume not only we are doing the best we can, but it is fairly objective.
that's what i love about science though, we are constantly trying to prove ourselves wrong for this exact reason, to prove that some definition is not subjective in any way

god im loving this thread

i actually feel like that the instruments continually get updated and reinterpretated. theres examples of galilean astronomy and interpreting observations out of telescopes and another good one involves how results from different experiments and paradigms were interpreted and compared in debates about electromagnetic field and waves and particles. you could say that in many areas of science, new theories rest on reinterpretation of observations through instruments. you have to remember, the instruments themselves are validated on theories which predict things so you get a circularity so that you cant say the instrument proves our understanding correct.

your posts are great. i think we feel very similarly about this whole topic. It's funny i saw this thread and thought it would go way over my head but it's somewhat just a practice in logic and rationality

not sure what you meant by > this depends on identifying "our senses" with whatever biochemical receptors the "consequences" impact on

im not saying we dont sense things, just that what we sense is dependent on the medium we sense through.

an analogy ( youtube.com/watch?v=FjHJ7FmV0M4 ) is like an insect on the surface of a pool sensing the ripples of someone who jumped in on the other end. thats what sensing is like and thats what i meant by it not being direct. we are perceiving the ripples, not the person, or vision wouldnt have to do such a good job of decoding it.

So this is the power of the Sam Harris school of thought.... incredible

But this is somewhat a false equivalency, because as humans we can predict those ripples coming (in the metaphor) based on previous experience and knowledge accumulated by scientists. I get what you're saying completely but until a grand revelation is revealed that we are missing a piece of data, we can only work with what we have. The fact that scientific predictions turn out to be true often is a good indicator we are on the right track.

>we are perceiving the ripples, not the person
that is what i meant to argue against
we are perceiving the person, by the ripples impacting on our bodies
otherwise it wouldn't be true to say "i see a computer screen" or anything like that, but instead we should say "i see photons" because those are all that the eyes are hit by

mine is more about whether those perceptions represent the actual ontology of what's "out there" which i say isn't so and might even be a nonsensical issue. "what's it like to be a mind-independent object?". im not worried about us being right or wrong; i said before we can describe things in multiple ways, they can be instrumentally valid and we can validate our them with prediction until science disagrees. yes they rely on prior assumptions but humans dont live in a vaccuum and our theories go through critical analysis anyway.

btw i dont see how the 3rd party observer can even be an anlogy to objectivity. its just like adding another person in the room and i think it actually shows the problem of prior assumptions quite well because ill go ask that person how they know that knowledge... and it just becomes this regression in referring to other past observers. And if it was realistic, alot of them would be wrong in someway because science has shown itself wrong continually and still does. the few successes of science probably stand on infinite failures. if you call this kind of changeability objective then...

urgh this cut out the top of my thing;

was saying that the understanding you speak of is to a degreee subjective, based on prior assumptions or not mutually exclusive of other understandings.

and that i think me and you have two different concerns; yours is more about us epistemology; about being wrong about whats out there and not being completely certain of it.

>btw i dont see how the 3rd party observer can even be an anlogy to objectivity.
sorry im probably wording it wrong, it's not an analogy to objectivity, i just use that as a reference to absolute objectivity, this completely certain 3rd party observer. It's not an actual entity, just something uninhibited by any parameters we have limiting us. I'm using it more as an analogy for "what is real", using it as a way to define an absolute reality

i think our argument just proves that absolute objectivity really is impossible lol

yeah but we aren't seeing photons either... literally all im saying is that our perception is contextualised in a piece of machinery which is unique. think about the difference between audition and vision and how two people might perceive the world because of having one and not the other. or maybe with really good smell or something like that.

im literally not speaking about whether we are correct about things or our predictions being wrong. my issue isnt with being correct about predicting data; our brains do this very well, we do this very well. that is a different issue to objectivity. objectivity isnt the same as being right or wrong and it isnt a criterion for it.

in my view; we can have multiple theories accounting for data that are all equally good at predicting it theoretically. its not to do with being correct or not. And if it was the case of multiple theories, which one would then be correct if its objective?

>And if it was the case of multiple theories, which one would then be correct if its objective?
most likely bits and pieces from each theory, the objective observations, while the discarded parts of the theories would be more subjective assertions which are not really repeatable.
it's not about being right or wrong i agree, it's about being as right to the observations which are repeatable as is possible.
we're definitely being semantic at this point

>and that i think me and you have two different concerns; yours is more about us epistemology; about being wrong about whats out there and not being completely certain of it.
i agree, this thread veers too much into just arguing about absolute certainty or knowledge of the truth
subjectivity isn't supposed to be the same as uncertainty or falsehood
"the earth is flat" is an objective proposition but it's false, and "there are intelligent ETs" is an objective uncertain proposition
"grass is green," "sugar is sweet," "stealing is wrong," "beethoven's 9th is a masterpiece," "gold is more valuable than lead," etc are real examples of propositions that arguably might be subjective
and it's not because they're uncertain or false... rather it's something like the fact that they're actually true, but only true from certain points of view, and neither true nor false if abstracted from all points of view
for example, whereas "the earth is flat" may be true from the perspective of someone who believes it but false when you abstract from all perspectives, by contrast "grass is green" may be true from the perspective of (normal) humans, false from the perspective of bees, but neither true nor false sub specie aeternitatis

you can't always cut up theories though. what about in physics where you have precise mathematical descriptions.

and i don't think we are because im not about being correct to observations at all. its got nothing to do with that. its about, whether the models of those observations are right or wrong, can we undeniably say that they can be an objective reflection of a mind-dependent world.

read this

I honestly dont know how people believe in subjectivity.

If anything is a fact, is objectively so. If you believe anything, you are treating it as a fact- and in some sense it truly is- and its therefore objective too. People disagree, and facts might seem fleeting, but that doesnt change their objectivity.

how are you defining objectivity and subjectivity?

Clarity and certainty. Clear truth conditions.

If it can be thought at all, it can be thought logically. If it can be thought at all, its clear and objective. If you dont have a coherent thought, its not that you have a subjective kind of thought, you just dont have anything going on in your head.

People who talk about subjectivity are just using that as a euphemism for their inability to grasp whats going on. They dont want to look stupid, so they say its a messy unclear kind of thought rather than no thought at all.

what do you make of then?

Repeatable observable empirical data on which predictive models are based.
It doesn't matter if one person percieves red and the other blue. What matters is that they agree blue and red are distinct from each other, and that they agree the same wavelenght of light is emmited by the object.

objective*observer=subjective
this is "you" ---------------^
LMAO

Thanks for directing me to the proper comment.

I would say his examples ("steeling is wrong", etc) are objective. Why should you think otherwise? One might not be able to explain or defend the position, but so what? One might find a lot of disagreement between people, but again, so what? These social considerations are just not relevant. Suppose that something objective today became greatly controversial. Nothing changed about the subject matter, so why should we change the objectivity of the fact? Making facticity contingent on how people talk about facts is wrong.

I understand that my definitions of objectivity and subjectivity are one of a few. Like I know that in some philosophic literature objectivity means like "pertaining to the objects" and subjectivity is "pertaining to ones mind or perspective". On that question I think its just a bad dichotomy.

Well it doesn't matter. Its like particle interactions, there's an infinite number of paths it can take, but the end result is always the same.

Now unlike most scientists, I do consider qualia a topic worthy of study just to find out more, but at the end of the day, they'll both agree on what colour the strawberry is just like a particle interaction will agree on the final velocity and charge of the particle interaction.

but the question is what someone who thinks "stealing is wrong" is subjective actually thinks
the idea is that the subjectivist thinks "stealing is wrong" only has a truth value from a given point of view, not that it's unclear, uncertain, or incoherent (as you suggested)

No observation can be 100% accurate, so even if they agree it's only because they also agree on acceptable error margins, which is more convention than anything else. Objectivity is impossible, but that doesn't mean that all opinions are equally valid. We define truth through consensus of informed individuals. This would work fine if brainlets could learn that some people's opinions are more valuable than theirs, and act accordingly.

what the fuck are you on about? So by your logic we should listen to authority?

We define truth through observable data.
Of course our models and observation will never be 100% accurate, that's what falsification principle is for, since the only state of knowing we can be sure about is if our model or observation is incorrect. That doesn't mean we should rely on authority.
If someone is informed individual it should give him the neccesary tools to show others his observation and models correspond to reality and that they are repeatable. It shouldn't give the individual more valuabe opinions automaticly.

>the idea is that the subjectivist thinks "stealing is wrong" only has a truth value from a given point of view,

In which point of view is it true? I really have a hard time imagining what kind of concrete thing a "point of view" is. You mean such and such people often think such and such thing? Sounds good, but, why call it a "point of view"? They are different kinds of people, and they think different thinks of thing. Its not a matter of perspective.

I think propositions are true when there is a corresponding fact. So if its true at all, whether to someones point of view or not, its true according to fact, which must be objectively so.

When you say its only true according to a "point of view", its like you are saying "its the sort of thing only they understand", which is fine, but then its still objective. If you think "stealing is wrong" is subjective because it matters to a "point of view", dont you also consider weird propositions from esoteric fields of math to be subjective? What if everyone has the same point of view, but there could be others, is it not subjective?

That its subjective

>we should listen to authority?
Yes. If you're a physicist and want to know about molecular geometry, you ask a chemist. If you're a chemist and want to know about the cosmological constant, you ask a physicist. You don't need a degree in every subject to be a functioning person. This is why civilization works. I'm not a doctor, and I don't need to know why albuterol works, but I know when I take it my asthma attack ends. Objectivity is the idea that there is a truth we can all agree on because it can be proven. Our understanding is hugely limited and it's almost certainly always going to be. If all you mean by objectivity is that you have evidence to support your claims, then fine. But it doesn't seem like that's what OP meant, and the kind of objectivity he meant doesn't exist because evidence can only support a claim, never prove it.

ftfy

Sorry i should have phrase that differently, what i find problematic with that statement isn't that we should listen to authority but that truth should be based on authority.

I mean, it's a gray area like everything else. My point is that a lot of people think they're smarter than the experts, leading to bullshit pseudoscience and shitty policy decisions by politicians who don't listen to expert advisors. I trust my doctor, but if you have reason not to, at least read a bit before calling him a quack. As far as objectivity goes, if answers made themselves obvious we wouldn't have to work so hard. Sometimes we just have to go with our best interpretation of the data, and that's fine, but to claim that it's true beyond any doubt is dumb, and to accept the chance it could be untrue is to reject objectivity.

>One might not be able to explain or defend the position, but so what?

we need more scientists and philosophers like you my friend.

i also have a weird suspicion you are mixing up objectivity and validity

>How is objectivity possible?
It's is not. Only double digit brainlets could disagree.

/thread

i dont think it really works like that in the normal social world. i mean would you rather learn physics from richard feynman or your mother?

i dont think we can argue with you because you just dont seem to know what objectivity means.