• mcdoodle
    1.1k
    I think your mutual misunderstanding here is excellent evidence that neither of you is part of the other's mind.
  • Seattlite
    1

    "objectivity" requires consensus.
    Subjective describes one's inner experience, objective describes a shared experience - things a group of people all experience and agree on.
    While it is true that our interpretation of all external events is subjectively experienced, when others also report the same experience it becomes objective.
    If I were to experience something (voices or images) that referred to external events, but others that should have also experienced the same event did not - then I would assume it was just subjective (a hallucination or delusion), even though it may have seemed objective.
    So "objectivity"requires consensus.
    That does not mean objectivity by defnition reflects ultimately reality - but it is a good starting point for progress through emperical, scentific/critical thinking.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    I'd say that there's a difference between what you personally take as necessary to believe that something is objective (which isn't the same thing I require, by the way) and what it is for something to be objective. The latter doesn't at all require consensus. The former, for you, might require consensus.
  • intrapersona
    579
    "objectivity" requires consensus.
    Subjective describes one's inner experience, objective describes a shared experience - things a group of people all experience and agree on.
    While it is true that our interpretation of all external events is subjectively experienced, when others also report the same experience it becomes objective.
    If I were to experience something (voices or images) that referred to external events, but others that should have also experienced the same event did not - then I would assume it was just subjective (a hallucination or delusion), even though it may have seemed objective.
    So "objectivity"requires consensus.
    That does not mean objectivity by defnition reflects ultimately reality - but it is a good starting point for progress through emperical, scentific/critical thinking.
    Seattlite

    This is not true unfortunately. Have you heard of the hard problem? It says that if everyone on earth except you were actually zombies but displayed all the signs of being thinking beings no different from how you perceive them now then you can't tell the difference. Likewise, whatever OTHER people say to you is true about states in the world (IE that table is brown) then it is still only the subjective perception of someone elses voice telling you that the table is brown. How can you know for certain that another person exists in order to prove objectivity? You can't.

    This is the sum of your argument. You are trying to posit that because other people exist in the world, that they must be objective also and therefore consensus of them validates an objective world. That is circular reasoning as you are trying to prove something by something that isn't proved yet (namely whether other people even exists or whether they are just a sensory impression and nothing more).
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