How Objective is Subjective Experience?
- Thread starter Poetic Justice
- Start date
Environments and events are experienced by the individual largely as they "typically" occur for that individual. As things occur we perceive them in a "cookie cutter" fashion, anomalies are brushed aside unless they are so great as to disturb the "preconceived event".
This is why extreme events seem to take so long to happen, we are really taking everything in when we are scared to death.
This is why extreme events seem to take so long to happen, we are really taking everything in when we are scared to death.
Ah but sometimes we adjust our experience to match the preconceived event. What we believe will happen has a MASSIVE effect on what we believe is happening.
I like your metaphor of the cookie cutter. If you mean what i think you do.
What i find interesting is that we for the most part don't notice the absence of all that missing dough.
How can we ever claim objectivity when we can only see a tiny part of the possibilities?
How objective one perceives themselves to be is directly related to their understanding of where they see themselves in the grand scheme of things. Most people only understand their place in the world in a narrowly defined set of circumstances. It is circles within circles. I understand self, I understand that I have a family, I understand that I am part of a community, a nation, a world. How well you perceive the scope of existence will determine how flexible your world view and how much you understand that your reality is limited by your preconceived notions.
I have done acid 3 or 4 times in my life. Once i remember looking at some window blinds and noticed the weirdest thing. They seemed like they were turning round and round. This is really difficult to explain but they didn't LOOK like they were turning. I just had the notion or feeling that they were. I could see that they were perfectly still but somehow still seemed like they were moving.
I doubt you can understand what i even mean without experiencing it. It was clearly some sort of crossed wire in my perception. Some part of my brain that usually only activates when you see something moving being turned on without actually seeing something move.
That really made it hit home to me that our perceptions are a lie. A useful one but a lie nonetheless
Is it truth because you believe it is truth? Is it therefore a lie only because you believe it is a lie???
Perhaps one must start with a premise and seek to find a deeper understanding of what that premise is--if you seek black and white answers, the grey of life will f*ck you over.
Perhaps one must start with a premise and seek to find a deeper understanding of what that premise is--if you seek black and white answers, the grey of life will f*ck you over.
This. Outside of that, I have nothing to add. Objectivity is pretty much a concept or a goal that's not achievable. Subjectivity is what we're working with; our perceptions which aren't solid or particularly truthful. It would probably be painful and excuriating if we paid attention to every single thing we see, I would suspect, so our brain takes out a little information which makes it less objective. Though it's a sliding scale, I think. If multiple people have the same or a similar experience, I would tend to think that that particular experience would lend itself more towards objectivity and can be assumed to be true (due to the fact that it's impossible to prove anything true throughout the whole universe and throughout time) more than a experience in which one person just has one experience that can't be recreated .
And yet, given your reaction, there is something to the meaning of both words that distinguishes them. If you can specify the difference, then you're on your way to an understanding. I believe we strive for objectivity but never completely achieve it. There is objectivity in that most airplanes don't fall out of the sky, and that alternating magnetic fields cause AC electric motors to run, etc. Postmodernists, who are invested in subjectivity, contradict themselves when they step on a plane, use their computers, and order their meals. Things generally work as experience predicts, and that's how we approach objectivity.
I already have a very good understanding of this sort of thing. The purpose of this thread isn't to provide me with an answer to this question. It is to start a discussion so I can see others points of view.
How I define them is thus. Subjectivity is everything we experience. Everything. Even if objective reality states that your plain will not crash, your experience of being in the plane is still subjective
Objectivity is supposed to be the facts. regardless of anyones point of view, experiences, preferences or beliefs objectivity remains the same.
Objective: 1 + 1 = 2
Subjective: That cake tastes nice
What I think people miss is the fact that many of the things people assume to be objective are actually subjective experiences. Take heat for example. There is technically no such thing as heat. It is simply movement. The faster the molecules move the hotter something feels.
Our senses take this information and turn it into something entirely invented. Heat doesn't exist outside of living things ability to interpret movement as heat.
Sound is again movement. It is vibrating air. yet we experience it as something entirely distinct from movement (unless it's really loud then we start to feel it)
I don't agree that if lots of people agree on something that that makes it objective. it's not. It is simply a shared delusion. One word "proves" this: religion.
self fulfilling prophecy is a classic example of this tricky difference between objective and subjective experience.
Someone who believes something positive or negative will usually display behavior which reinforces their belief that their thinking is true and is indeed based on objective reality when it's not. But simply because they act and live as if their beliefs are true/factual, they bring the very they thing into being in their lives and actions, now making it a part of objective reality.
that's all i have . . . so far
Someone who believes something positive or negative will usually display behavior which reinforces their belief that their thinking is true and is indeed based on objective reality when it's not. But simply because they act and live as if their beliefs are true/factual, they bring the very they thing into being in their lives and actions, now making it a part of objective reality.
that's all i have . . . so far
here is the quote I was paraphrasing from Alfred Ribi http://www.fieldsbooks.com/cgi-bin/fields/A7309.html
"We do not experience the object or the environment as it is, but rather as it typically appears to us. Its mode of appearance is transformed into a typical form by the archetype that the object [or the environment] constellates. This transformation also calls up emotions that are connected with the object [or environment]."
"We do not experience the object or the environment as it is, but rather as it typically appears to us. Its mode of appearance is transformed into a typical form by the archetype that the object [or the environment] constellates. This transformation also calls up emotions that are connected with the object [or environment]."
I agree. Basically everything we experience is a generalisation. We can't understand anything until we can on some level relate it to a previous experience. And most of these generalisations happen outside of our consciousness. We don't even get a choice how we perceive things. Most of the time anyway.
Ever been to ikea? The first time you go there you will likely see some strange furniture that you've never seen before. Let's say you see a chair. You've never seen this specific chair before. So how do you know that it is a chair?
The answer is pretty obvious but leads to a profound realisation. We recognise things by generalising. It shares common traits with other chairs you have seen so you immediately recognise it as a chair.
You do this with every single object, person or even concept you encounter. It's automatic. This is a fundamental ingredient to consciousness. It is quite possibly the most useful skill you have.
It is one of the holy grails of creating artificial intelligence. And they can already do it in a limited way. Won't be long now
Subjectivity in the spiritual life is a given and, in daily life, perhaps not a problem. It really does bug me, though, when trying to identify beliefs that one can work with, and we all know the smoke and mirrors that are out there in this realm. The only thing I have been able to use as a trustworthy guide is to combine perspectives of spiritual experience across the long view of time and place. Once we begin to see a composite perspective, more objective facets begin to reveal themselves. Not that it is ever fully objective...just less fully subjective. As I have considered these over the years, it seems that the experiences and insights of many others, while subjective in themselves, point to an objective reality behind them, and there is a consistency to these. It is in this reality-that-looms-behind that something more objective begins to emerge from the mist of subjective experience. Finding such things, connecting the dots as it were, can be pretty amazing. It can give one something more sure to stand on and embolden us to move through this life with less timidity and/or fear, and this can have enormous implications.