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What is objective?
- Thread starter David T
- Start date
Being objective is separating the objective from your subjective processes, and being able to discern between them.
Mistaking the subjective for the objective--such as believing a rope that reminds you of a snake is an actual snake--is very much the definition of delusion.
So, being objective is a safeguard against delusion.
Mistaking the subjective for the objective--such as believing a rope that reminds you of a snake is an actual snake--is very much the definition of delusion.
So, being objective is a safeguard against delusion.
Skwim
Veteran Member
Objectivity is a central philosophical concept, related to reality and truth, which has been variously defined by sources. Generally, objectivity means the state or quality of being true even outside of a subject's individual biases, interpretations, feelings, and imaginings. A proposition is generally considered objectively true (to have objective truth) when its truth conditions are met without biases caused by feelings, ideas, opinions, etc., of a sentient subject. A second, broader meaning of the term refers to the ability in any context to judge fairly, without partiality or external influence. This second meaning of objectivity is sometimes used synonymously with neutrality.
Source: Wikipedia
Source: Wikipedia
.
Essentially it simply means "of or about the object." It's a manner of speaking and thinking about things that casts them in a light to be a thing in themselves, a light that is a reflection of truth.
godnotgod
Thou art That
Everything is the subjective. That one can make something the objective creates a subject/object split that is only a mental construct. In reality, no separation exists between you and anything in the Universe, as everything that you are is 100% a part of the Universe. Your consciousness does not end at some point and the object begins. If you think it does, can you demonstrate at which point this occurs?
The definitions should be changed to personal/impersonal to denote the illusory 'I' as being a personal view, and consciousness without 'I' as impersonal view, and therefore, universal view.
The definitions should be changed to personal/impersonal to denote the illusory 'I' as being a personal view, and consciousness without 'I' as impersonal view, and therefore, universal view.
godnotgod
Thou art That
Objects are not 'things in themselves', as all such objects co-arise simultaneously together and are interconnected with everything else, which means that no such objects possess an inherent self-nature as a separate 'thing'. For example, a rock, is empty of any 'rock nature'.
As for 'material' objects, Quantum Physics has now revealed that all particles are none other than standing waves, created by fluctuations within the fields in which they are found. IOW, there is no 'material' reality. All such material reality is virtual reality, 'a superposition of possibilities'. So the old Newtonian applecart of 'truth' has now been completely overturned.
The 'manner of speaking and thinking' about what we perceive as 'objects' and 'things' is only a mental construct that we mistake for reality.
Of course, the Hindus have told us that this so-called 'material' world is maya and lila for over 4000 years.
Jonathan Ainsley Bain
Logical Positivist
Kant realized that all knowledge has 3 components:
The subject (knower)
The object (that which is known)
and the phenomenon of knowing which unites the other two.
Phenomenology then uses the concept of combined inter-subjective knowledge.
So multiple persons (subjects) will come to realize that (for example) the law of gravity
has objective existence beyond the subjects themselves.
Thus the word noumenon is used to describe something that has existence in-and-of-itself.
It does not require a subject to know it as phenomenon in order for it to exist.
Though of course, we cannot be utterly certain that such noumena actually exist
because we always are subjects with a subjective perspective.
But it is functional to assume noumenon exist: that is truly entirely objective facts devoid of a subject.
A clear example is mathematics. Its laws are so perfect that they for all intents and purposes
they keep the planets in orbit around the Sun. If they did not exist, or for one split second faltered...
Yes I think Kant had the generally right idea with a whole lot of words..
An easy enough idea difficult to pin down and interestingly huge divergent views of a multiplicity of perceived objective perspectives. That's the curious part to me.
I would agree with you that everything is subjectively processed. This allows for existence outside of your mind. (If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Yes! imo)
It is an important mental construct to make in order to protect against delusion.
The ability to form and understand conceptual thought takes place within the subjective mind. Without this, you lose your sentience.
If your consciousness ended at the object, you would not be able to be aware of and/or conscious of the object.
I wouldn't go so far as to call the impersonal view as "universal." A view can be free from subjective overlay (impersonal,) but that does not imply that the view is by any means "holistically complete." (Have to be careful in treading in this area.) I do agree that an impersonal view can be a valid descriptor of our shared reality.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I think it's cohesion by which molecules and atoms arrange making it "solid" and therefore subject to our senses. Being that things build up and break down, that objectivity remains dynamic.
godnotgod
Thou art That
If the view is not personal, then by default, it can only be universal by nature. What I mean by universal is not that everyone is aware of the same thing at the same time, but that what you see and what I see are one and the same reality, and that is because the consciousness we share is no longer sculpted into personal a view. For example, you and I both see and understand, without having discussed the subject with one another, the statement by the Third Zen Patriarch:
"Do not seek the truth; only cease to form opinions"
...and that is because we are both looking at the content without contaminating it with a personally colored view. It is not 'I' or 'you' that is looking, but universal consciousness that is looking.
godnotgod
Thou art That
There are pressure waves, but no sound. For sound to occur, a receptor such as an ear must be present to detect the sound, and a processor, such as a brain, is required to interpret what the receptor detected. But even then, there is only the registration of the pressure waves. What is finally needed is consciousness.
Therefore all objects are included in consciousness. Beyond that, many researchers are now saying that all materiality is created by consciousness. However, Hindus have told us this for centuries: "Brahman is the world", and "The Universe is The Absolute, as seen through the glass of Time, Space and Causation"
All experience is subjective, and thus it is logically impossible to be certain that an objective reality exists. We might have good reasons to believe one exists, but we cannot be certain of it. Consequently, to posit that there exists an objective reality is metaphysical speculation.
We do, however, seem to have a common reality we all share, whether it is real or virtual.
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Semantics. (Do you like that pun?)
Sorry, that bruise on your skin shaped like wrench that appeared while you were unconscious obviously doesn't exist, since no one was conscious to witness it happening.
godnotgod
Thou art That
Semantics. (Do you like that pun?)
Sorry, that bruise on your skin shaped like wrench that appeared while you were unconscious obviously doesn't exist, since no one was conscious to witness it happening.
There is no such agent of consciousness; there is only consciousness itself, permeating all of existence through and through. The consciousness with which you view the external physical world is not the consciousness of 'I'; it is universal consciousness sculpted to appear as 'I'. It is this sculpted consciousness that thinks itself a separate observer of the observation. I meant it when I said that there is a universal consciousness at the base of existence. It is the fundamental reality. Only the sculpted consciousness we call 'I' and 'thou' is illusory. IOW, there is no 'experiencer of the experience'; there is only the experience itself.
Certainly you are familiar with the Heart Sutra, which says that:
'all phenomena, including ourselves, are empty of inherent self-nature'.
and...
"form is emptiness;
emptiness if form"
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All phenomena arise and cease due to dependent co-arising, are impermanent, and are therefore empty of self-nature. Or as the Taoists would say, "the only constant is change."
Being objective (back to the OP) is about becoming disenchanted with these things:
From the Phena Sutta: Foam
"Now suppose that a magician or magician's apprentice were to display a magic trick at a major intersection, and a man with good eyesight were to see it, observe it, & appropriately examine it. To him — seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it — it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in a magic trick? In the same way, a monk sees, observes, & appropriately examines any consciousness that is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near. To him — seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it — it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in consciousness?
"Seeing thus, the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones grows disenchanted with form, disenchanted with feeling, disenchanted with perception, disenchanted with fabrications, disenchanted with consciousness. Disenchanted, he grows dispassionate. Through dispassion, he's released. With release there's the knowledge, 'Released.' He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'"
That is what the Blessed One said. Having said that, the One Well-Gone, the Teacher, said further:
"Now suppose that a magician or magician's apprentice were to display a magic trick at a major intersection, and a man with good eyesight were to see it, observe it, & appropriately examine it. To him — seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it — it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in a magic trick? In the same way, a monk sees, observes, & appropriately examines any consciousness that is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near. To him — seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it — it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in consciousness?
"Seeing thus, the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones grows disenchanted with form, disenchanted with feeling, disenchanted with perception, disenchanted with fabrications, disenchanted with consciousness. Disenchanted, he grows dispassionate. Through dispassion, he's released. With release there's the knowledge, 'Released.' He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'"
That is what the Blessed One said. Having said that, the One Well-Gone, the Teacher, said further:
Form is like a glob of foam;
feeling, a bubble;
perception, a mirage;
fabrications, a banana tree;
consciousness, a magic trick — this has been taught by the Kinsman of the Sun.
However you observe them, appropriately examine them, they're empty, void to whoever sees them appropriately.
feeling, a bubble;
perception, a mirage;
fabrications, a banana tree;
consciousness, a magic trick — this has been taught by the Kinsman of the Sun.
However you observe them, appropriately examine them, they're empty, void to whoever sees them appropriately.
godnotgod
Thou art That
Yes, all of that is the case. You have just described Sunyata, which itself is empty of self-nature.
But it is because all things are empty that they can be filled. Out of Nothing comes Everything.
The part about 'disenchantment with consciousness' I believe is a reference to personal consciousness, which essentially is 'mind'. One becomes disenchanted with mind because it is rooted in the past, and thus, Identification, and so is dead.* The yogi Patanjaii tells us that:
'yoga (ie; divine union) is the cessation of all of the activities of the mind'
This is the same as 'there is nothing further for this world'
Release refers to release from the illusion of the personal self, 'I'; Identification.
* "Myth does not supply us with facts in the sense, therefore, that it gives us no useful hypotheses for predicting the future - the use of prediction being to continue, to keep on "living". Because, for so many centuries, the theologians have confused eternal life with everlasting life, and salvation with temporal immortality, our culture is utterly hypnotized into the notion that mere continuity, survival, is a good if not the supreme good. Hence we value practical facts above all other knowledge because, above all else, we need to earn our living, to adapt ourselves to events, to master the operations of nature, to provide for the future, to benefit posterity - to what ? Obviously, to keep on going on, to keep on consuming and accumulating, longer and longer, more and more. Convinced that, in this fashion, we are practical, that we are getting somewhere, we do not notice that we are covering the same ground again and again not because we love the ground so much that we want to return to it, but, on the contrary, because we want to move away from it, to that grass on the other side of the fence which is always greener.
Yet pleasure and pain are relative, and the grass on the other side soon feels like the grass on this side. To retain the sensation of getting somewhere we must soon find yet another pasture and another fence over which to cast our envious glances. It is
thus that we feel alive only in terms of the sensation of moving from the less to more - that is to say, by running around faster and faster. The principal reason for this practical madness is that we are not alive at all. We are dead with an immortal continuing death, which is perhaps what the myth means by everlasting, eternally recurring damnation. And we are dead because each man recognizes himself simply and solely as his past. His 'I', his continuity and identity, is nothing but an abstraction from his memory, since what I know of myself is always what I was. But this is only tracks and echoes, from which the life has vanished. If the only self which I know is a thing dead and done, a was, a 'has-been', and I am ever reluctant to admit that I am dead, my only recourse is to work and struggle to give this 'has-been a semblance of life - to make it continue, move, get somewhere. But because it is dead, and has all the fixity and permanence of an unchangeable fact, this 'I' can only go on being what it was. Like a machine, it can only repeat itself ad nauseum, however fast it may be run."
from: 'Myth and Ritual in Christianity', by Alan Watts