Subjective Evidence

sealchan · Mar 25, 2019

I think that it would be helpful to discuss how it is and is not applicable that a person can make a decision based not on provable knowledge but on subjective knowledge which is knowledge which pertains to one or more people but cannot be proven to be universal.

I propose that there are many classes of subjective knowledge and in each class there is an objective component if we assume sincerity (not lying):

Personal preference
Personal preference is a truth that is true for someone due to unconscious or experiential influences. One example is a person's favorite flavor of ice cream. Certainly this is true for the individual but not provably true for anyone else. It is, in fact, a trivially accepted unique characteristic of the person's psychological and physical configuration which is itself a complex of complex, adaptive systems. My personal preferences are granted as individual facts because we all recognize that we develop such things differently.

Unique characteristic/combination of characteristics
Besides one's name and, perhaps, one's inertial frame of reference, we may each have unique characteristics which influence our choice of truths and actions. My home recently lost power due to a snow storm and heavy damage to power lines. Once power was restored I still did not have internet access in my home from my DSL service. However, my neighbor, who shares his router with us in such cases, his DSL was working even though it is with the same company. Apparently as an older customer on "older technology" his system is quicker to be restored than mine. I was able to continue working from home while four additional days went by before my own service was restored. His house happens to be situated very close to mine and close to the property boundary between us. My desk happens to be in front of a window which faces his house...etc...due to a number of fortunate circumstances I was able to resume working from home approximately four days earlier than any other DSL customer on the newer technology in my area. The truth of my experience was largely dictated by a number of unique circumstances about the location of my home, its connectivity and the relationship I had with my neighbor. Each of these elements are objective facts but their combination provides me with a rather uncommon experience for someone in my particular circumstances.

Historical development
Who my parents are, the language I speak, the culture I was raised in whether religious, economic or political are all particular facts about my own circumstance but which give me a different, subjective perspective on our shared reality. If I wore glasses as a child and was shy and did well in school, that led to a different reality for me as far as my experience of public school and my overall attitude post-graduation. Who my parents are, what schools I attended are objective facts but how these truths played into the complexities of the influences on me as I grew up are very subjective. The objective fact of who my parents are is a trivial item of knowledge when compared with the years long impact on ME of their raising me. There is generally understood to be room for someone's history to qualify their perspective and in the absence of resources or experiences other's haven't had, one would expect to have different viewpoints due to historical influences. We can, in a democracy, understand that we can all meet "in the middle" in order to negotiate our individual needs for freedom and respect.

Mythic assumptions
Lurking underneath the truths that a culture holds to be self-evident are mysterious ideas which take on a level of importance that doubting them will not allow or operating without objective proof of their integrity will be overlooked. Such ideas as individual human rights, free will, consciousness, God, the superiority of rationality, the progress of technology, the soul, inter-personal love...are all ideas which are poorly defined even if they are felt to be essential and familiar. They are the axioms of a society and their importance masks their mystery and controversy. The philosophers of such a society wonder at how society can continue on without resolution to these controversies, but continue on none-the-less it does.

Gaps in objective knowledge
Gaps in objective knowledge are enormous and continuous. What is discontinuous, like the holes in Swiss cheese, are proven truths. While science is ever more rapidly mending this, the fact of day to day experience is that there is information that is simply not accessible for various reasons, but were we to have it, it might improve our knowledge and choice of actions. The nature of science is that currently there are many specific questions worthy of effort to be answered and as such this worthiness means that important personal decisions will not be able to receive the benefit of scientific knowledge. There may be knowledge that one may need but for various reasons economic or cultural or otherwise, one is not aware of. Given that most of the signficant decision we make require knowledge of other's states of mind or historical influences or other incidental factors, we cannot practically nor in many cases theoretically determine the best course of action based on a collation of all relevant objective data. Chaos theory and complexity science may also offer that it is impossible to achieve a precision in the initial state of a system in such a way to get anything more than an approximation of its outcome rendering the future a qualified deterministic system with no reasonable means for an individual to reach a decision in a reasonable amount of time. To compensate for this we often rely on our subjective knowledge (personal preferences, mythic assumptions, etc.) to help us to make our decisions.

Each of the classes is overlapping and meant to serve as considerations of how it is we actually make use of our knowledge to assemble our beliefs and make our decisions big and small.

Any thoughts, feedback, additional classes, etc...welcome.

And, of course, any thoughts on if any of this is relevant to a discussion of truth between two individuals whose systemic context will inevitably leave them with different perspectives on our more-or-less shared reality are especially welcome.

TransmutingSoul · Mar 25, 2019

What may be seen by some as subjective evidence, could be seen by somebody else as objective evidence.

My example would be that if a person made a claim, then some would immediately say subjective. Some may take it further and test that claim, find proofs it is so and thus have supported objective evidence.

Even then, some may say the evidence is subjective.

Personally I see Faith must be based on objective evidence, evidence some may discount, as they restrict themselves to the material senses.

Regards Tony

Nakosis · Mar 25, 2019

Self interest, maybe this falls under personal preference...

Most, maybe all of my decisions are based on my personal interests. My interests are a fact to me. Whatever they happen to be. There are obstacles which stop me from pursuing my personal interests. Those obstacles are subjective facts to me, of which it becomes a matter of personal interest to deal with to get back to whatever my original pursuit/interest was.

I suppose the latter falls under unique situations.

Knowledge of my opinion. Right or wrong, the fact remains that it is my opinion. I make choices based on my subjective opinion.

I wonder how often we make a choice based on purely objective evidence. Never?
There is probably some degree of objective evidence in most people's choices, however I suspect the majority of "truth" most make choices by is subjective.

Polymath257 · Mar 25, 2019

Nice analysis.

I would generally put 'personal preference' under the category of opinion.

Unique characteristics and historical development are, in my typical categorization, objective and called 'initial conditionhttp://www.math.niu.edu/s'. Gaps in objective knowledge is also called ignorance.

My main issues tend to be with the 'myth' category. I hope we all realize that money, for example, is a societal construct. Our ideas of liberty, freedom, etc are also societal constructs.

Such notions as free-will are harder because they have both a social component and an objective component. Do the laws of physics allow for the type of free will that many people believe in? I sort of doubt it.

And, we have notions like Santa Claus, which are societal constructs, but are fun or meaningful because they are not 'real'.

My problem comes when we have notions like 'gods'. Are they social constructs that we accept because they help to unify us? or do they have a reality that goes beyond convention? I suspect most people don't see 'gods' as societal constructs only and that they have an existence beyond our social assumptions. At that point, the question is whether 'gods' have an objective existence or do they exist only in our societal and personal assumptions?

Polymath257 · Mar 25, 2019

I'm also not sure I think the construct 'subjective evidence' is meaningful. Doesn't the word 'evidence' imply that it is objective?

It Aint Necessarily So · Mar 25, 2019

sealchan said:
subjective evidence

Isn't all evidence evaluated subjectively, that is, by an individual from his or her perspective? We call it objectively true when most other subjective evaluations are the same as ours, although this isn't always the case, either. If 1000 out of 1000 people agree that a sunset is beautiful, is that objective truth? How about if they agree that the sun is yellow? From space, it appears white. What if they agree that it is hot?

Polymath257 said:
I'm also not sure I think the construct 'subjective evidence' is meaningful. Doesn't the word 'evidence' imply that it is objective?

Evidence ought to be evident, but to how many does it need to be evident to in order to be called evidence?

Stevicus · Mar 25, 2019

sealchan said:
I think that it would be helpful to discuss how it is and is not applicable that a person can make a decision based not on provable knowledge but on subjective knowledge which is knowledge which pertains to one or more people but cannot be proven to be universal.

I propose that there are many classes of subjective knowledge and in each class there is an objective component if we assume sincerity (not lying):

Personal preference
Personal preference is a truth that is true for someone due to unconscious or experiential influences. One example is a person's favorite flavor of ice cream. Certainly this is true for the individual but not provably true for anyone else. It is, in fact, a trivially accepted unique characteristic of the person's psychological and physical configuration which is itself a complex of complex, adaptive systems. My personal preferences are granted as individual facts because we all recognize that we develop such things differently.

Unique characteristic/combination of characteristics
Besides one's name and, perhaps, one's inertial frame of reference, we may each have unique characteristics which influence our choice of truths and actions. My home recently lost power due to a snow storm and heavy damage to power lines. Once power was restored I still did not have internet access in my home from my DSL service. However, my neighbor, who shares his router with us in such cases, his DSL was working even though it is with the same company. Apparently as an older customer on "older technology" his system is quicker to be restored than mine. I was able to continue working from home while four additional days went by before my own service was restored. His house happens to be situated very close to mine and close to the property boundary between us. My desk happens to be in front of a window which faces his house...etc...due to a number of fortunate circumstances I was able to resume working from home approximately four days earlier than any other DSL customer on the newer technology in my area. The truth of my experience was largely dictated by a number of unique circumstances about the location of my home, its connectivity and the relationship I had with my neighbor. Each of these elements are objective facts but their combination provides me with a rather uncommon experience for someone in my particular circumstances.

Historical development
Who my parents are, the language I speak, the culture I was raised in whether religious, economic or political are all particular facts about my own circumstance but which give me a different, subjective perspective on our shared reality. If I wore glasses as a child and was shy and did well in school, that led to a different reality for me as far as my experience of public school and my overall attitude post-graduation. Who my parents are, what schools I attended are objective facts but how these truths played into the complexities of the influences on me as I grew up are very subjective. The objective fact of who my parents are is a trivial item of knowledge when compared with the years long impact on ME of their raising me. There is generally understood to be room for someone's history to qualify their perspective and in the absence of resources or experiences other's haven't had, one would expect to have different viewpoints due to historical influences. We can, in a democracy, understand that we can all meet "in the middle" in order to negotiate our individual needs for freedom and respect.

Mythic assumptions
Lurking underneath the truths that a culture holds to be self-evident are mysterious ideas which take on a level of importance that doubting them will not allow or operating without objective proof of their integrity will be overlooked. Such ideas as individual human rights, free will, consciousness, God, the superiority of rationality, the progress of technology, the soul, inter-personal love...are all ideas which are poorly defined even if they are felt to be essential and familiar. They are the axioms of a society and their importance masks their mystery and controversy. The philosophers of such a society wonder at how society can continue on without resolution to these controversies, but continue on none-the-less it does.

Gaps in objective knowledge
Gaps in objective knowledge are enormous and continuous. What is discontinuous, like the holes in Swiss cheese, are proven truths. While science is ever more rapidly mending this, the fact of day to day experience is that there is information that is simply not accessible for various reasons, but were we to have it, it might improve our knowledge and choice of actions. The nature of science is that currently there are many specific questions worthy of effort to be answered and as such this worthiness means that important personal decisions will not be able to receive the benefit of scientific knowledge. There may be knowledge that one may need but for various reasons economic or cultural or otherwise, one is not aware of. Given that most of the signficant decision we make require knowledge of other's states of mind or historical influences or other incidental factors, we cannot practically nor in many cases theoretically determine the best course of action based on a collation of all relevant objective data. Chaos theory and complexity science may also offer that it is impossible to achieve a precision in the initial state of a system in such a way to get anything more than an approximation of its outcome rendering the future a qualified deterministic system with no reasonable means for an individual to reach a decision in a reasonable amount of time. To compensate for this we often rely on our subjective knowledge (personal preferences, mythic assumptions, etc.) to help us to make our decisions.

Each of the classes is overlapping and meant to serve as considerations of how it is we actually make use of our knowledge to assemble our beliefs and make our decisions big and small.

Any thoughts, feedback, additional classes, etc...welcome.

And, of course, any thoughts on if any of this is relevant to a discussion of truth between two individuals whose systemic context will inevitably leave them with different perspectives on our more-or-less shared reality are especially welcome.

This is a cogent and thoughtful analysis. Well done.

Reading this, I sometimes wonder what, exactly, would qualify as truly objective evidence, especially if a discussion is such where the actual evidence is not available for immediate examination by interested parties who are participating.

At best, we might get various citations and sources - sometimes they're primary sources, although more often secondary or tertiary sources. The sources themselves can also be made into an issue. Either way, if one is not examining the evidence first hand, then one is forced to rely upon those who have access to the evidence and whatever learned interpretations they can offer.

So, for the average person, there might still be some level of subjectivity in deciding who or what to believe.

sealchan · Mar 26, 2019

Tony Bristow-Stagg said:
What may be seen by some as subjective evidence, could be seen by somebody else as objective evidence.

My example would be that if a person made a claim, then some would immediately say subjective. Some may take it further and test that claim, find proofs it is so and thus have supported objective evidence.

Even then, some may say the evidence is subjective.

Personally I see Faith must be based on objective evidence, evidence some may discount, as they restrict themselves to the material senses.

Regards Tony

Yes, it takes a well knit community to agree on what constitutes evidence. Sometimes evidence is irrevocably tied to interpretation. In my own case I've had an experience or two which I interpret as an experience of God in a personal sense. I know that one could also come up with a scientific interpretation of that experience. If i were to focus on the latter then no doubt my experience would be seen as evidence to non-believers. As such it is seen as only a subjective interpretation of a "merely" psychological experience.

Ironically my thing is that psychology is much more than "merely" even and especially when it does not point to anything beyond psychology. Somehow even if psychology is seen as physical behavior at the neural level it is still considered as second class experience, that is, it does not amount to anything significant.

I suspect this because psychology deals with an area of natural phenomenon that many objectivists find uncomfortable ironically due to a reason that many people find it an uncomfortable topic...psychology threatens to uncover one's sphexishness. This may challenge ones sense of self mastery or free will and, of course, reveal embarrassing habits, appetites or personal history.

But because I tend to focus on a more literal interpretation of the experience, I find that I have a deep and clear hold on an essential sense of meaning and direction in my life. I become a believer and label myself Christian. I allow myself to remain solidly one foot in the realm of this story I tell that has deep ties to the mythos of the Judeo-Christian tradition even as I recognize the total relevance of a more "reductionistic" explanation in terms of science.

This is where I think the idea that the brain offers more than one cognitive system for identifying truth comes in handy. Using thinking, feeling (the rational functions) or intuition, sensation (the irrational or perceptive functions) produces a variety of truth contexts that people with different personality types handle differently. As a strong introverted intuitive, it is relatively easy for me to go around in "story mode" without that intruding on my sense of extroverted thinking which favors a collaborative rational truth community like science.

My experience involved a sort of rebalancing of my interpersonal feeling side in a scientific sense. But my strong sense of story finds nearly endless mileage of personal value in that experience. Others who have a strong sense of a personal God might appreciate my experience at face value.

sealchan · Mar 26, 2019

Nakosis said:
Self interest, maybe this falls under personal preference...

Most, maybe all of my decisions are based on my personal interests. My interests are a fact to me. Whatever they happen to be. There are obstacles which stop me from pursuing my personal interests. Those obstacles are subjective facts to me, of which it becomes a matter of personal interest to deal with to get back to whatever my original pursuit/interest was.

I suppose the latter falls under unique situations.

Knowledge of my opinion. Right or wrong, the fact remains that it is my opinion. I make choices based on my subjective opinion.

I wonder how often we make a choice based on purely objective evidence. Never?
There is probably some degree of objective evidence in most people's choices, however I suspect the majority of "truth" most make choices by is subjective.

I think you are pointing out to me that we all evaluate the relevance of any given fact or piece of data to our lives. This is my understanding of the rational feeling function, to rationally evaluate values and determine importance in a structured way such that one can make decisions that later will be seen as relevant and meaningful to one's life.

Our particular circumstances and incidental preferences contribute to our sense of what is of value. This can go from the disappointment and decision not to have ice cream at all because one's favorite flavor isn't available to struggling to question one's religious beliefs because of the entanglement of personal relationships that also would be threatened were such questions raised.

We all live in a net of "valuations" that are both of our own making and also reflective of the realities of our unchosen circumstances. We cannot lightly through off such "valuations" in favor of impersonal truths. They are, after all, the scaffold of our sense of safety, belonging and personal meaning.

This is, perhaps, why it is critical that we have science as a strong part of our society although not the only part. We need there to be a clear value for objective scientific knowledge or our culture would descend into a fantasy from which it might not escape. Authority placed in such things corrupts the very principles that religious belief systems are aiming to uphold.

With science buried deep in our education, our culture, we can rest more assured that our personal preferences are based on solid ground because we have, without effort, been exposed to proven truths in an open minded way.

TransmutingSoul · Mar 26, 2019

sealchan said:
Yes, it takes a well knit community to agree on what constitutes evidence. Sometimes evidence is irrevocably tied to interpretation. In my own case I've had an experience or two which I interpret as an experience of God in a personal sense. I know that one could also come up with a scientific interpretation of that experience. If i were to focus on the latter then no doubt my experience would be seen as evidence to non-believers. As such it is seen as only a subjective interpretation of a "merely" psychological experience.

Ironically my thing is that psychology is much more than "merely" even and especially when it does not point to anything beyond psychology. Somehow even if psychology is seen as physical behavior at the neural level it is still considered as second class experience, that is, it does not amount to anything significant.

I suspect this because psychology deals with an area of natural phenomenon that many objectivists find uncomfortable ironically due to a reason that many people find it an uncomfortable topic...psychology threatens to uncover one's sphexishness. This may challenge ones sense of self mastery or free will and, of course, reveal embarrassing habits, appetites or personal history.

But because I tend to focus on a more literal interpretation of the experience, I find that I have a deep and clear hold on an essential sense of meaning and direction in my life. I become a believer and label myself Christian. I allow myself to remain solidly one foot in the realm of this story I tell that has deep ties to the mythos of the Judeo-Christian tradition even as I recognize the total relevance of a more "reductionistic" explanation in terms of science.

This is where I think the idea that the brain offers more than one cognitive system for identifying truth comes in handy. Using thinking, feeling (the rational functions) or intuition, sensation (the irrational or perceptive functions) produces a variety of truth contexts that people with different personality types handle differently. As a strong introverted intuitive, it is relatively easy for me to go around in "story mode" without that intruding on my sense of extroverted thinking which favors a collaborative rational truth community like science.

My experience involved a sort of rebalancing of my interpersonal feeling side in a scientific sense. But my strong sense of story finds nearly endless mileage of personal value in that experience. Others who have a strong sense of a personal God might appreciate my experience at face value.

This passage is always worth expanding upon when we go beyond the material senses;

1 Thessalonians 5:21"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."

Thus I see our challenge is to find Christ in all things, which opens up new frames of references when we look at other Faiths, is Christ also in them?

I personally say yes, as Christ is the First and the Last.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Regards Tony

sealchan · Mar 27, 2019

Polymath257 said:
Nice analysis.

I would generally put 'personal preference' under the category of opinion.

Unique characteristics and historical development are, in my typical categorization, objective and called 'initial conditionhttp://www.math.niu.edu/s'. Gaps in objective knowledge is also called ignorance.

My main issues tend to be with the 'myth' category. I hope we all realize that money, for example, is a societal construct. Our ideas of liberty, freedom, etc are also societal constructs.

Such notions as free-will are harder because they have both a social component and an objective component. Do the laws of physics allow for the type of free will that many people believe in? I sort of doubt it.

And, we have notions like Santa Claus, which are societal constructs, but are fun or meaningful because they are not 'real'.

My problem comes when we have notions like 'gods'. Are they social constructs that we accept because they help to unify us? or do they have a reality that goes beyond convention? I suspect most people don't see 'gods' as societal constructs only and that they have an existence beyond our social assumptions. At that point, the question is whether 'gods' have an objective existence or do they exist only in our societal and personal assumptions?

What is a social construct? What determines what becomes a social construct for any given people? What determines what social constructs survive and even spread across cultures?

I suspect that the same factors apply to social constructs as does for the evolution of a species: the construct (genes) can be supported by the individual, the construct can be supported by the group, the construct can be supported by the environment. What constitutes support is defined by the system in which the gene and its expression/social construct exists.

This, of course, means that in the long run the social construct is subject to inevitable change and selection pressures. The historical accident of the social constructs arrival (its subjectivity) may be preserved by self-organizing properties of the systems the construct exists within. God changes over time as does the people who perceive that God. This is well described even as it is denied in the Bible though most believers might gloss over such things.

Liberty is another such understanding. Once slavery was a part of many societies, now it is widely reviled. That took time and a slow evolution of social systems to achieve. It is still an ideal being worked out on various political stages.

I think that we need, as Daniel Dennett might argue, to understand how a social construct like God fits into its evolutionary context, how it has value, does work, resolves individual and collective needs which are endemic (objective) to the nature of that individual, group and environment, in order to understand what might satisfactorily replace it if any such thing can be conceived.

My belief in the case of God is that atheism is a natural variation in the evolution of a cultures social construction of God and provides a valuable counterpoint supported by a portion of the population to the potential excesses of a narrowly focused and overly stated sense of the physical objectivity of God. Atheism will, in this view, help to improve the survivability of God by helping the culture to recognize the drag factor a belief in God might create for and individual, its society and its relationship to the environment. Primarily I see literalism is on the chopping block of any healthy developing culture.

So while the various ways of understanding God evidence gods subjective nature, the persistence of God across cultures is reflective of some sort of objective quality or qualities of our shared human existence. Just as liberty. At its heart is a mystery of such value and familiarity that we cannot simply abandon it for the sake of what appears to be a straightforward practical logic. Planning ones life choices purely by virtue of practical logic is, variably tolerable to intolerable to individual human beings.

What gets clarified in such social constructs going forward is part of the human story which I for one am personally trying to influence through such small means as I have at my disposal.

sealchan · Mar 27, 2019

Polymath257 said:
I'm also not sure I think the construct 'subjective evidence' is meaningful. Doesn't the word 'evidence' imply that it is objective?

Well that's the central concern of my post...to give subjective some credit where it is often used to almost reflexively deny credit.

Unique characteristic is an interesting beast...I find the analogy of inertial frame of reference in relativity theory to be an instructive reference. We know that different people will see each other's velocities as a subjective matter (I see your velocity is different according to you than it is according to me), but this is okay because there is a sort of meta-framework for correlating those subjective inertial frames of reference together...special relativity theory. in this way the subjective experience of velocity is seen valid within a broader objective understanding. Before that theory there the subjectivity would predominate and our objective sensibilities irritated.

What if the broader field of the human experience of truth was also subject to legitimate differences in perspective that through some unknown meta-framework could be resolved and accepted as objective?

Twilight Hue · Mar 27, 2019

Sometimes I think people confuse whats subjective and whats speculation.

sealchan · Mar 27, 2019

It Aint Necessarily So said:
Isn't all evidence evaluated subjectively, that is, by an individual from his or her perspective? We call it objectively true when most other subjective evaluations are the same as ours, although this isn't always the case, either. If 1000 out of 1000 people agree that a sunset is beautiful, is that objective truth? How about if they agree that the sun is yellow? From space, it appears white. What if they agree that it is hot?

Evidence ought to be evident, but to how many does it need to be evident to in order to be called evidence?

Yes our sense of truth is really embedded in a system, a community of knowers. Objectivity may be defined as the unanimity of a group on a truth. That may seem to cheapen objectivity but I think that it really doesn't. Generations of respected knowers in a mutually evaluating community create a sort of deep validation for a given notion of truth.

When comparing religious and scientific communities we have the concern that the religious believer can claim a deeper tradition for establishing objectivity. But within the two communities we have to look at the methodology...the methodology for knowing truth in religion is significantly different than it is in science. We should accept then that scientific truths may differ from religious truths on the same matter and as such they do not invalidate each other. However, scientists as a community can invalidate or render irrelevant truths postulated by the religious community and vice versa...so long as they are willing to remain within the scope of their methodology.

In this sense, then, I think that it is useful to recognize, as Stephen Gould apparently did, that there are different domains of truth and the two domains should be considered within their respective methodologies and limitations.

Now how I see this as fitting into a literalistic interpretation of scripture...it is not necessary (although it is a very, very strong inclination in all believers) to find an "anchor" for one's spiritual stories and characters in physical reality. But science is truly the master of understanding what physical reality (aka God's creation to some) is and how it operates. Literalism is under a real growing pressure to abandon its sense of provable objective truth in the face of superior scientific knowledge.

I have to run at the moment so I may not have finished this thought...

sealchan · Mar 28, 2019

Stevicus said:
This is a cogent and thoughtful analysis. Well done.

Reading this, I sometimes wonder what, exactly, would qualify as truly objective evidence, especially if a discussion is such where the actual evidence is not available for immediate examination by interested parties who are participating.

At best, we might get various citations and sources - sometimes they're primary sources, although more often secondary or tertiary sources. The sources themselves can also be made into an issue. Either way, if one is not examining the evidence first hand, then one is forced to rely upon those who have access to the evidence and whatever learned interpretations they can offer.

So, for the average person, there might still be some level of subjectivity in deciding who or what to believe.

And practicality...who has the time, ability or inclination to review all relevant scientific literature? We must absolutely trust authoritative sources.

The more developed the science the more trust members of a society must resort to...and then we are at the same place many people are with religion.

Education's aim then is to teach the method and results of science...and then we can see those results in our daily lives and visits to the doctors.

But given the continual fact that decisions requiring a timely response within the hustle and bustle of our lives wont have the benefit of all relevant knowledge, it seems our subjectivity is absolutely essential.

One aspect of this which I find interesting is "favoritism". My sense is that our minds are disposed towards identifying a favorite among a range of arbitrarily different things for the sake of quick decision making. Imagine trying to determine the best, most rational flavor of ice cream, for instance. What valueless thought processes would eat up ones time while everyone else had already finished theirs. I could readily imagine survival value in having a way to avoid being mentally trapped by arbitrary decisions especially those with high standards of truth.

sealchan · Mar 28, 2019

Nowhere Man said:
Sometimes I think people confuse whats subjective and whats speculation.

I think speculation is a method of intuition, experience and reason while subjectivity defines a limited scope of the applicability of a "truth". Ones speculations may be influenced by many truths with varying degrees of objectivity/subjectivity.

wellwisher · Mar 29, 2019

Subjective evidence is subject to choice. My favorite ice cream is a choice that I make; it applies to me.

Objective evidence is not based on any choice we make. It exists by itself and therefore is subject to independent third party verification. I cannot choose for the fire to be cold, in the same away, I can choose my favorite ice cream. The hot fire will be concluded by everyone who deals in reality. On the other hand, I can choose to say the fire is cold, as a means to look strong and tough, as I touch the flame with my hand.

If you look at the choices we make; subjective choices like our favorite ice cream, it is interesting to go back in time and try to remember when this choice was new and was first made. The first time we ever ate our favorite ice cream, may have been as a child. This particular event is often in the context of a happy time, such as a birthday party, where shared ice cream with our favorite people. Or it was simply a choice that allowed us to be unique among our siblings. I liked ketchup and my sister like mustard and we would criticize the choice of each other, in a sibling rivalry. The rivalry helped to shape this choice. Now I like both.

There is a state in the middle between subjective choice and objective fact, that can be called pseudo-objective. For example, to begin, I chose a particular flavor of ice cream as being the best. This was molded from childhood. From there, I start an ice cream shop in town, and use advertising and marketing, to lobby and influence others, to make this same choice, as their best ice cream.

After a few months, it may appear like my favorite ice cream is now an objective fact since it is now appears verifiable by the majority of people in town. This is still a choice and it is still subjective, since this conclusion was not drawn directly from the evidence, but resulted from preliminary choice manipulation.

As a good example, the Trump-Russia collusion narrative was considered objective by more than half people he USA for the past two years. Hillary won the popular vote. This was due to continuous media manipulation for people to make this their choice. It was not due to individual investigation and each person drawing this conclusion independently. The Mueller report was more objective and made it clear this was pseudo-objective.

Pseudo-objective can also be a function of collective belief, even in science. I we all believed the earth was flat, this erroneous foundation premise will still impact how we will interpret the evidence making us a pseudo-independent investigator. It would be hard to draw a conclusion apart from a foundation premise, since this foundation of thought forces you in a logic circle.

If you do not complete the circular logic, not only will you get no prestige, but you may get a negative prestige affect to discredit your conclusion as subjective. A modern example is manmade global warming. Depending on which foundation science your prefer, will funnel your objectivity into a collective circular logic choice.

True objectivity requires we first take a deep look at the foundation premises; break logic choice loops that are being sold as objectivity. If you wish to move up the ladder and sit at the big table of prestige, you better complete the expected loop that molds collective choice. so everyone can appear objective; consensus of science means pseudo-objective.

sealchan · Mar 29, 2019

wellwisher said:
Subjective evidence is subject to choice. My favorite ice cream is a choice that I make; it applies to me.

Objective evidence is not based on any choice we make. It exists by itself and therefore is subject to independent third party verification. I cannot choose for the fire to be cold, in the same away, I can choose my favorite ice cream. The hot fire will be concluded by everyone who deals in reality. On the other hand, I can choose to say the fire is cold, as a means to look strong and tough, as I touch the flame with my hand.

If you look at the choices we make; subjective choices like our favorite ice cream, it is interesting to go back in time and try to remember when this choice was new and was first made. The first time we ever ate our favorite ice cream, may have been as a child. This particular event is often in the context of a happy time, such as a birthday party, where shared ice cream with our favorite people. Or it was simply a choice that allowed us to be unique among our siblings. I liked ketchup and my sister like mustard and we would criticize the choice of each other, in a sibling rivalry. The rivalry helped to shape this choice. Now I like both.

There is a state in the middle between subjective choice and objective fact, that can be called pseudo-objective. For example, to begin, I chose a particular flavor of ice cream as being the best. This was molded from childhood. From there, I start an ice cream shop in town, and use advertising and marketing, to lobby and influence others, to make this same choice, as their best ice cream.

After a few months, it may appear like my favorite ice cream is now an objective fact since it is now appears verifiable by the majority of people in town. This is still a choice and it is still subjective, since this conclusion was not drawn directly from the evidence, but resulted from preliminary choice manipulation.

As a good example, the Trump-Russia collusion narrative was considered objective by more than half people he USA for the past two years. Hillary won the popular vote. This was due to continuous media manipulation for people to make this their choice. It was not due to individual investigation and each person drawing this conclusion independently. The Mueller report was more objective and made it clear this was pseudo-objective.

Pseudo-objective can also be a function of collective belief, even in science. I we all believed the earth was flat, this erroneous foundation premise will still impact how we will interpret the evidence making us a pseudo-independent investigator. It would be hard to draw a conclusion apart from a foundation premise, since this foundation of thought forces you in a logic circle.

If you do not complete the circular logic, not only will you get no prestige, but you may get a negative prestige affect to discredit your conclusion as subjective. A modern example is manmade global warming. Depending on which foundation science your prefer, will funnel your objectivity into a collective circular logic choice.

True objectivity requires we first take a deep look at the foundation premises; break logic choice loops that are being sold as objectivity. If you wish to move up the ladder and sit at the big table of prestige, you better complete the expected loop that molds collective choice. so everyone can appear objective; consensus of science means pseudo-objective.

This nicely summarizes (though uses examples in a way I wouldn't) the broader picture that I have...in my own words...

All truth exists in a context of a community that has a way of more-or-less agreeably determining truth. In that context there are situations in which the subjectivity of the group leads to meaningful bonding and experience and there are experiences which threaten the objectivity of the group by virtue of those experiences (evidences) interfering with the cohesion of the group around their truth.

In this view subjectivity tends to bind while objectivity tends to fragment. The long term survival of a group then depends on two things...its ability to master its environment, its ability to adapt to its environment.

I agree that under every way of knowing is a methodology that relies on deeply held but mainly unquestioned assumptions. I see these as rooted in myth. Even our modern society has their myths although they are more abstract and subtle that those we might scoff at from the pasts. But myths aren't "lies", they are deeply held and brain-friendly ideas with an ability, within themselves to adapt since they are also open-ended. They are painted with metaphors and defy logical and experimental analysis. Someone with some objective distance from a group may be able to see this "blind spot" because they are not so invested in that group's hegemony.

Now my claim is this...there is no perfectly objective frame of reference for human beings to know truth just as there is no perfect frame of reference to measure time and space. Therefore, we must participate in this play of various "ways of knowing" and buy into one or another of them to make our way in the world in the broadest sense. However, these various ways of knowing always do intersect even if they are not fully reducible into each other. There is some real sense of a greater frame of reference for truth although we cannot directly master it.

My answer to this "dilemma" (feature?) is that we should each cultivate more than one way of knowing. We must become members of two truth societies so that we don't loose touch with this "higher" plane of truth even if we cannot "demonstrate" it within any given culture of knowledge. My sense of my faith, Christianity, is that this is the path that Jesus shows us...to walk two "ways of knowing" and allow one's self to experience the tension between those two ways even if it leads to personal suffering (metaphoric crucifixion) and being rejected by either or both communities.

So this is the state of truth as I see it in the Universe, a more political beast than we might care for. Participation within a single community of truth offers us the deep satisfaction of "loosing ourselves" in a mono-modal way of life. All questions are answered by one final authority and like having a favorite flavor of ice cream, we avoid so much useless thinking with respect to getting our immediate and even long term needs met.

But some in every group, perhaps even most, find their "truth suit" to be a bit tight and uncomfortable in places. Some choose to try to remedy this and find success within their group. Some find themselves drifting further and further out on the fringes until they feel isolated. Some find another group or form another group that suits their needs more fully. Some find themselves perched precariously between groups. Each of these "basins of attraction" suggest that our personal sense of truth finds safe harbors but moves in a wider reality which offers many harbors. Our personal subjective experience has everything to say about which harbor we find ourselves in. Realizing this allows us to see that others from other groups are subject to the same subjective considerations and allows one to "make room" for those whose ideas differ from one's own.

wellwisher · Mar 30, 2019

sealchan said:
Now my claim is this...there is no perfectly objective frame of reference for human beings to know truth just as there is no perfect frame of reference to measure time and space. Therefore, we must participate in this play of various "ways of knowing" and buy into one or another of them to make our way in the world in the broadest sense. However, these various ways of knowing always do intersect even if they are not fully reducible into each other. There is some real sense of a greater frame of reference for truth although we cannot directly master it.

The idea of no preferred reference is an erroneous foundation premise that is popular in physics. One way to infer this is an illusion, is connected to one of the few laws of physics called the Conservation of Energy. Relative reference violates energy conservation.

As an example, picture one person sitting on a train ,and a second person sitting at the station. Each will see the other in relative motion, with each having the same relative velocity. That much is fine. However, if you do an energy balance, the train will see not only the second man and station in motion, but it will also see the rest of the visible horizon in motion. The motion of all this earthen material on the moving horizon, would require way more energy, than the energy needed to get the train to move. Relative reference is a physics illusion that is being used as a foundation premise. This creates subjective science based on prestige.

The reason for this illusion is connected to how we observe, define and measure the universe. This is done exclusively with energy emissions and the red shift of energy emissions. All the various electromagnetic spectrum telescopes, use energy at various wavelengths. Energy is a function of wavelength and frequency or distance and time.

Relative reference, based on motion, is connected to Special Relativity. Einstein defined this with three variables; distance, time and mass and not just two or distance and time. Observation does not directly measure mass, but infers mass this from energy, distance and time. The result is an illusion called relative reference.

Relative reference is a practical limitation of measurement, not a limitation of reality. For example, in the case of the train example, the scale of this experiment is small enough to directly measure the mass of the train as well as the landscape, allowing us to do an accurate energy balance. We are not limited to visual evidence, like in deep space. A direct measurement of mass is not possible in distant space, since mass cannot be directly measured, except up close.

What is called Dark Matter and Dark Energy are addendum needed to help close the energy balance. This need is based on observational conflicts that have appeared in the original relative reference observations.

The analogy is using the train and station example. If we were on the train and saw the landscape move, due to relative motion, and we calculated the energy expected, we would get a number that is way too high for reality. But since we believe in the foundation premise of relative reference, we would accept the result or face ridicule. Eventually, other observations would appear that contradict this number. We would need to add negative energy, such as negative dark energy and negative dark matter, to subtract energy, until we get down to only the train's energy. This way the relative reference foundation premise is maintained, even though the maintaining of the false premise will lead to other types of subjective problems in science.

There is a better foundation premise that sets up a rational foundation for objective data. Einstein also said that the speed of light is the same in all references. The speed of light is the one universal reference that is not relative, but is always absolute. The trick is to make the speed of light the ground state. All references can generate this exact same speed of light reference. If we all call it zero on a universal scale; ground state, reference becomes absolute.

atanu · Mar 30, 2019

sealchan said:
I think that it would be helpful to discuss how it is and is not applicable that a person can make a decision based not on provable knowledge but on subjective knowledge which is knowledge which pertains to one or more people but cannot be proven to be universal.

I propose that there are many classes of subjective knowledge and in each class there is an objective component if we assume sincerity (not lying):

Personal preference
Personal preference is a truth that is true for someone due to unconscious or experiential influences. One example is a person's favorite flavor of ice cream. Certainly this is true for the individual but not provably true for anyone else. It is, in fact, a trivially accepted unique characteristic of the person's psychological and physical configuration which is itself a complex of complex, adaptive systems. My personal preferences are granted as individual facts because we all recognize that we develop such things differently.

Unique characteristic/combination of characteristics
Besides one's name and, perhaps, one's inertial frame of reference, we may each have unique characteristics which influence our choice of truths and actions. My home recently lost power due to a snow storm and heavy damage to power lines. Once power was restored I still did not have internet access in my home from my DSL service. However, my neighbor, who shares his router with us in such cases, his DSL was working even though it is with the same company. Apparently as an older customer on "older technology" his system is quicker to be restored than mine. I was able to continue working from home while four additional days went by before my own service was restored. His house happens to be situated very close to mine and close to the property boundary between us. My desk happens to be in front of a window which faces his house...etc...due to a number of fortunate circumstances I was able to resume working from home approximately four days earlier than any other DSL customer on the newer technology in my area. The truth of my experience was largely dictated by a number of unique circumstances about the location of my home, its connectivity and the relationship I had with my neighbor. Each of these elements are objective facts but their combination provides me with a rather uncommon experience for someone in my particular circumstances.

Historical development
Who my parents are, the language I speak, the culture I was raised in whether religious, economic or political are all particular facts about my own circumstance but which give me a different, subjective perspective on our shared reality. If I wore glasses as a child and was shy and did well in school, that led to a different reality for me as far as my experience of public school and my overall attitude post-graduation. Who my parents are, what schools I attended are objective facts but how these truths played into the complexities of the influences on me as I grew up are very subjective. The objective fact of who my parents are is a trivial item of knowledge when compared with the years long impact on ME of their raising me. There is generally understood to be room for someone's history to qualify their perspective and in the absence of resources or experiences other's haven't had, one would expect to have different viewpoints due to historical influences. We can, in a democracy, understand that we can all meet "in the middle" in order to negotiate our individual needs for freedom and respect.

Mythic assumptions
Lurking underneath the truths that a culture holds to be self-evident are mysterious ideas which take on a level of importance that doubting them will not allow or operating without objective proof of their integrity will be overlooked. Such ideas as individual human rights, free will, consciousness, God, the superiority of rationality, the progress of technology, the soul, inter-personal love...are all ideas which are poorly defined even if they are felt to be essential and familiar. They are the axioms of a society and their importance masks their mystery and controversy. The philosophers of such a society wonder at how society can continue on without resolution to these controversies, but continue on none-the-less it does.

Gaps in objective knowledge
Gaps in objective knowledge are enormous and continuous. What is discontinuous, like the holes in Swiss cheese, are proven truths. While science is ever more rapidly mending this, the fact of day to day experience is that there is information that is simply not accessible for various reasons, but were we to have it, it might improve our knowledge and choice of actions. The nature of science is that currently there are many specific questions worthy of effort to be answered and as such this worthiness means that important personal decisions will not be able to receive the benefit of scientific knowledge. There may be knowledge that one may need but for various reasons economic or cultural or otherwise, one is not aware of. Given that most of the signficant decision we make require knowledge of other's states of mind or historical influences or other incidental factors, we cannot practically nor in many cases theoretically determine the best course of action based on a collation of all relevant objective data. Chaos theory and complexity science may also offer that it is impossible to achieve a precision in the initial state of a system in such a way to get anything more than an approximation of its outcome rendering the future a qualified deterministic system with no reasonable means for an individual to reach a decision in a reasonable amount of time. To compensate for this we often rely on our subjective knowledge (personal preferences, mythic assumptions, etc.) to help us to make our decisions.

Each of the classes is overlapping and meant to serve as considerations of how it is we actually make use of our knowledge to assemble our beliefs and make our decisions big and small.

Any thoughts, feedback, additional classes, etc...welcome.

And, of course, any thoughts on if any of this is relevant to a discussion of truth between two individuals whose systemic context will inevitably leave them with different perspectives on our more-or-less shared reality are especially welcome.

I think the ‘Historical Development’ includes all other classes. BTW, as per eastern philosophies, history is not limited to the current birth-death instance.

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