it takes a critical-reflexion to become objective. — Pantagruel

Yep, and if the limitations inherent in the critical reflection nosce te ipsum be given, so too is being objective.

undertakings for philosophy to (re)engage or come to grips with today — Statilius

A paradigm-shifting thesis on the metaphysical principles of quantum dynamics, with respect to the observer problem. Which might reconcile the illusory nature of objectivity for that of which direct experience is impossible, with the illusory nature of subjectivity for thinking that which direct experience contradicts.

Nature gave us reason, but neglected to give us the means to control it, which we had to come up with ourselves, oddly enough, by means of the very reason we were given no control over. Sorta like that refrigerator magnet magnanimously warning us.....never let a dog guard your food.

Nahhhhh.....I got nothing.

Perhaps I should clarify: objective form of transmission refers to the general kind of transmission it is, whether written, spoken, signed....stone cairns....whatever. The content of the transmission, whether words, sounds, motions.....whatever, will have its particular form in my faculty of intuition, depending on my experience with them. But yes, in any case, I access that content in whatever the form....kind.... of its transmission, subjectively, as I do with any perception. — Mww

It seems to me, that when communicating, how we observe the rules of the language we are using must not be subjective or else we'd be talking past each other or never understand each other. Your experiences with a particular word beyond how you learned how to use it grammatically, or what it refers to, is irrelevant to the situation, which is talking about some state-of-affairs that is the case for everyone whether they agree with it or not (informing). And that if the state-of-affairs you are talking about is your own pondering without any conviction in the statement, you'd use phrases like, "It seems to me", "I believe", "In my opinion", etc. to inform others that you are referring to your mental state and not some state-of-affairs other than a mental state.

So if we're using the same rules when using these scribbles, then there is no subjective view of the rules. You know when subjectivity comes into play when we stop understanding each other.

This is correct, hence my clarification. The form the transmission takes has to do with what the transmission becomes (phenomenon, in my mind), the form the transmission has, has to do with what kind of object it is (words, sounds, etc., in the world). — Mww

Not only that, but what kind of object is perceiving it, and we are both similar objects, so it stands to reason that there would be similar perceptions of the same object. What the scribbles mean has to do with the rule of the language, and if we both have the same rules, then we are both interpreting the scribbles the same way. I certainly don't claim to know everything about the English language and it is my native language, and I think you would agree the same for you, and that we both may know something that the other doesn't about the English language, so there are bound to be instances where miscommunication occurs.

Don’t neglect time here. Even a strict physicalist must acknowledge a time delay between the stimulus of sensual contact and the operation of the brain in relation to it. Just because there are pre-existent neural pathways for some particular experience doesn’t negate operational necessity. Philosophically as well, each and every object of perception runs exactly the same gamut of theoretical cognitive procedure, whether there is extant knowledge of it or not. The brain, the hardware, is predicated on the laws of Nature; pure reason, the software, is predicated on the laws of logic, each legislative in their own domain. — Mww

I agree with everything up to the last sentence. It is a causal process, and that is how I have explained it, but doesn't that mean that similar causes have similar effects? Our similar backgrounds (we're both human beings with similar sensory organs, developed in the same culture, learned the same language, looking at the same object) should lead to similar outcomes in perception and interpretation or else we wouldn't be able to communicate as successfully as we have so far. I mean look at all the scribbles on this screen. What would you say the success rate is in both of us interpreting them the same way so far?

As far as the last sentence goes, this is a point where I don't understand you're use of scribbles because it seems like a contradiction (misusing the rules of logic, not necessary the language). If the brain is a predicated on the laws of Nature (why the capital N?), then why not pure reason, if that is what the hardware does. If your stomach is predicated on the laws of Nature, then why not what the stomach does - digest food?

I bring this up in order to prevent the assumption that as soon as I see your words I know what you mean by them. In fact, all I know immediately, is that there are words, which in and of themselves, for they are merely objects of perception, tell me absolutely nothing about your intentions in the employment of them. — Mww

Are you sure that you know immediately that they are words? That was something you had to learn, and the fact that you and I both interpret the scribbles as words says something about how similar our cognizing is. Now, that extra step of then interpreting the word means that now that you have interpreted the scribbles as words rather than some random marks, your cognitive faculties go about referencing the rules for the language, which are the same rules I learned. Like I said, there are going to be some differences in our knowledge of the rules, hence there will be some misunderstandings, but those are a rarity in most everyday uses of the language and only seems to be exacerbated when discussing things like religion, politics and philosophy, where logic is often disregarded and word salad is always on the menu.

You’re not cognizing the rules of the language; you’re cognizing the content of language according to rules. This is why theories of knowledge are so complex, because even though all thought is considered to be according to rules, doesn’t mean each instance of it will obtain the same knowledge. It should, but that isn’t the same as it will. Ought is not the same as shall. All thought according to rules can do, is justify its ends, but it cannot attain to absolute truth for them.

The boundaries can be blurred, for sure, but context helps with clarity. They are both qualities, but sometimes what they are qualities of, gets blurry. Subjectivity is pretty cut-and-dried, I think, but objectivity isn’t just about objects. — Mww

If the same knowledge wasn't obtained, the the same rules weren't followed. We would both be following different rules. Like I said, any rules you learned other than what a word refers to is irrelevant to the process of communicating, which is what words are for. If you learned that a particular word, or heard a particular word frequently during a stressful time in your life, you may associate a negative connotation with hearing or seeing that word, but that has nothing to do with what that word refers to. That would be an instance where you are confusing two different sets of rules - what the word means (how your reason interprets it) and how you feel about the word (how your emotions interpret it).


Think about computers. When computers don't use the same protocol in communication, communication fails. The rules, or protocol, matters, and is what syncs the computers. The fact that they are different pieces of hardware is irrelevant to the fact that they are running the same software and using the same protocols.

In order to analyse truth you have to start somewhere. That starting point is inherently uncertain.

It seems to me that your are starting from a place in certainty when asserting that all starting points are inherently uncertain.

Right, but I was responding to ....

From my point of view, the only thing one can be absolutely sure of is that the present exists. — Cidat

[my emphasis] I certainly build from assumptions that might not be correct. I don't want to just lie on the floor and question everything (and certainly not all the time). We build, we do our best.

How do you know what constitutes certainty?

In order to analyse truth you have to start somewhere. That starting point is inherently uncertain. — Cidat

It seems to me that your are starting from a place in certainty when asserting that all starting points are inherently uncertain. — Harry Hindu

How do you know what constitutes certainty? — Cidat

You tell me. Were you certain when you stated that the starting point is uncertain?

Your idea that your starting point is unquestionable is, in itself, an assumption.

That doesn't really answer his question. Perhaps he is making an assumption if he believes that, but then you also could be being certain when you say one must start uncertain. Maybe Jimmy was running in the hallway but he was right pointing out you needed a hall pass.

I dispute that the naming of things is being fully objective about them.

In order to analyse truth you have to start somewhere. That starting point is inherently uncertain. — Cidat

Were you certain when you stated that the starting point is uncertain? — Harry Hindu

Your idea that your starting point is unquestionable is, in itself, an assumption. — Cidat

You didn't answer my question. My question was about your idea, not my idea, which I haven't even provided for you yet. I'm simply asking a question about your idea.

Yes, I was. I was speaking merely conceptually about the nature of truth, not about the truth itself. Certainty ultimately boils down to assumptions.

Is the nature of truth is that it is a conception only? Is it true that you typed the previous post? If we both agree that you did, how is it that we share conceptions of truth?

The truth is what we make it. We cannot verify if truth exists or not, what we perceive as truth is just our strong opinion.

The truth is what we make it. We cannot verify if truth exists or not, what we perceive as truth is just our strong opinion. — Cidat

This is a great example of the misuse of language being used as philosophy.

This is a contradiction. Your first sentence is a description of the nature of truth, then the next sentence says that we can't verify if truth exists, yet your previous sentence just explained what truth is - implying that it exists. You then follow up with another description of truth as being "just our strong opinion". Does truth exist as our strong opinion or not?

You're so sensitive. If I say "objective truth", does that make you happier? What I'm saying is, we don't know for sure if objective truth exists or not, we only form opinions based on our experiences.

You're so sensitive. — Cidat

Is this a truth?

Don't be silly and go off-topic now.

You seem to have a difficult time answering my questions. Come back after you've taken the time to think out your idea in a way that makes sense and can answer my questions.

I think Harry's frustration stems from the fact of not understanding the difference between relative truth and objective truth.

It's funny that this forum devotes itself to discussing esoteric teachings but here we are. That's what philosophy is, esoteric teaching. It was never meant to be intellectualized over. Can't be done without confusion and argument which this forum is full of.

I found the following quote in my reading last night and thought others might find it of interest:

“Being objective is being truthful, making right judgments is a moral activity, all thinking is a function of morality, it's done by humans, it's touched by values right into its centre . . .”

Guess the author of this tidbit and win a free trip to Phibsborough. Will it make a difference in how we think of it if we discover the author is a composer, author, revolutionary, archbishop, philosopher, actor, or whatever?

It is Iris Murdoch, from "The Good Apprentice." Doesn't this clip the wings of the 'is/ought' question?

all thinking is a function of morality — Statilius

Not necessarily.....or.....why would one think this might be true?

Thank you for thoughts. I appreciate it. Can you expand on your question a bit? I'm not sure what you mean. Thanks.

I haven’t read the book. I wonder how the author justifies the proposition, probably somewhere in the story, on the one hand, and why you find it so attractive, on the other.

:up:

“Being objective is being truthful, making right judgments is a moral activity, all thinking is a function of morality, it's done by humans, it's touched by values right into its centre . . .” — Statilius

For late-comers, the quote I posted is from Iris Murdoch's 1986 novel, The Good Apprentice. It appears on the page 29 in a book of 522 pages. Given this, and given how novels work, I imagine some kind of resolution or insight into these ideas will appear somewhere near the end. As Chekhov said: ‘If in Act I you have a pistol hanging on the wall, then it must fire in the last act.’

The quote from my original post is part of a dinner-party conversation revolving around questions of religion, science (“science is what's deep”), machines, (“a machine is objective”), objectivity (“being objective is being truthful”), thinking (“all thinking is a function of morality”), mathematics (“it's just our thinking too”), minds (“minds are persons”), artificial intelligence (“artificial intelligence is a misnomer”), losing our language (“and so losing our souls”), etc.

Selected Dialogue:

Stuart: “we are always involved in distinguishing between good and evil,” “Human minds are possessed by individual persons, they are soaked in values, even perception is evaluation,”

“But isn't serious thinking supposed to be neutral?” said Ursula. “We get away from all that personal stuff.”

Stuart: “Serious thinking depends on the justice and truthfulness of the thinker, it depends on the continuous pressure of his mind upon. . . .”

“That's a different point,” said Ursula, “. . . of course discoveries can be used rightly or wrongly, but the thinking itself can be pure, without values, like genuine science, like maths, like – at any rate that's the ideal and. . . .”

Stuart: “You can't just switch it on. . . . as you say it's an ideal, science is an ideal, and partly an illusion. Our trust in science as reason is something frail...."

End of selected dialogue.

There's more, lot's more to this burnished but somewhat bibulous dinner talk. But, alas, I will lose 90% of my readers if I say even one more word. So I'll stop here except to say that I'm still quite taken by the quote from my initial post; it makes deep intuitive sense to me.

Perhaps the idea gives some insight into the 'is/ought' divide. If what Stuart says is true, the chasm doesn't really exist; there is no such thing as a pure 'is': all 'ises' are dyed in 'oughts'. We are always making judgments—whether explicit or implicit.

I have not worked any of this through, at least not enough to argue it well. It would take me a long time to do so, and even then, I'm not sure I could. Perhaps someone could help me think it through.

Thank you again for your questions. I appreciate it.

Round 1.....

all thinking is a function of morality — Statilius

thinking itself can be pure, without values, like genuine science, like maths — Statilius

If one accepts that one’s thinking with respect to morality is the ground of a subjective code of public conduct, it must depend on personal values, in order for the subject to determine in which form his conduct manifests.

If one accepts thinking itself CAN BE without values, as in the genuine sciences, which manifest no personal code of conduct necessarily, then it follows that NOT all thinking is a function of values, hence NOT a function of morality.
————

Round 2....

there is no such thing as a pure 'is' — Statilius

If that is the case, how much truth can there be in the assertion, “all thinking is a function of morality”? Even dyeing this “is” in an “ought”, giving “all thinking ought to be a function of morality” doesn’t diminish the falsification derived in Round 1.

Anyway....thanks for your effort with the dialogues. Nevertheless, would I be correct in supposing you insinuated the personal interpretation “all thinking is a function of morality” in place of the author’s “serious thinking depends on the justice and truthfulness of the thinker”? Perhaps justice and truthfulness suffice for your idea of morality? Among other things, to be sure.

Taking a sharp right turn here, it might be interesting to know how you connect judgements to the notion that the is/ought divide doesn’t exist. I guess....what is meant by the is/ought divide, such that judgements have something to do with the divide rather than the is or the ought.

Let's just take this part first. In the book, Stuart says: “all thinking is a function of morality, it's done by humans, it's touched by values right into it's centre, empirical science is no exception (p.29).”

In thinking about this I read the following remarks by Michael Polanyi, in his 1958 book “Personal Knowledge.” (see link below) Though he may mean more, perhaps this is some of what Stuart is getting at:

“ Theories of the scientific method which try to explain the establishment of scientific truth by any purely objective formal procedure are doomed to failure. Any process of enquiry unguided by intellectual passions would inevitably spread out into a desert of trivialities. . . . In fact, without a scale of interest and plausibility based on a vision of reality, nothing can be discovered that is of value to science; and only our grasp of scientific beauty, responding to the evidence of our senses, can evoke this vision (135).”

“In fact, without a scale of interest and plausibility based on a vision of reality, nothing can be discovered that is of value to science; and only our grasp of scientific beauty, responding to the evidence of our senses, can evoke this vision (135).”

“Empiricism is valid only as a maxim, the application of which itself forms part of the art of knowing (153).”

Speaking of the history of science: “Unfortunately, the empirical method of enquiry—with its associated conceptions of scientific value and of the nature of reality—is far from unambiguous, and conflicting interpretations of it had therefore ever again to fight each other from either side of a logical gap (153).”

“So difficult is it even for the expert in his own field to distinguish, by criteria of empiricism, scientific merit from incompetent chatter (156).”

“To limit the term science to propositions which we regard as valid, and the premisses of science to what we consider to be its true premises, is to mutilate our subject. A reasonable conception of science must include conflicting views within science and admit of changes in the fundamental beliefs and values of scientists (164).”

“Science is a system of beliefs to which we are committed (171).”

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo19722848.html

“all thinking is a function of morality, it's done by humans, it's touched by values right into it's centre, empirical science is no exception” — Statilius

Good. Now I have proper context. It’s clear you and the author, and I, have very different conceptions of morality. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but I personally reject the supposition that thinking predicated on the appearance of an objective reality, re: empirical science, carries the same implications as thinking predicated on pure a priori conceptions, re: morality, having nothing whatsoever to do with objective reality. It is a fatal flaw in reason, to conflate the rational ground of moral thinking with the empirical exercise of it.

I can dig the gist of Polanyi‘s thesis, given your brief synopsis of sorts, but I really don’t see why a book needs to be written about personal knowledge, seeing as how there’s no such thing as knowledge that isn’t personal.