Absolute versus Objective

[syrakusos]

In the "Meet and Greet" Topic under a recent "Hello" the writer known as General Semantics questioned whether I asserted an absolute law to cover every instance of a moral problem. Based on that, this discussion continues on just that question, the absolute versus the objective.

Absolute truths do exist.

• A is A.
  
• The sun exists.
  

The first is a rational truth. The second is empirical. However, the first is supported by empirical evidence and the second by logic. That is what objective means: rational and empirical. Objectivism (capital O) is a rational-empirical philosophy.

Context differentiates the objective from the absolute. Whether sum of the interior angles of a triangle is 180 degree or more than 180 degrees depends on whether the figure is on a plane (or very nearly so) or on a sphere (or very nearl so). And lest we go astray, I point out that "Very nearly so" has objective meaning.

As I noted in that discussion, some Objectivists are attracted to the philosophy by what they perceive as absolute truth -- invariable; context-free. Their needs to the contrary, truth is objective -- empirically known and logically consistent -- and dependent on context.

The sun exists. Even if we could not perceive the sun directly, we could show by mathematics that it must be there. This is how Neptune was discovered, by its effect on Uranus.

Does God exist? Yes, given the proper context, we can admit that God exists.

The Thomas theorem is a theory of sociology which was formulated by W. I. Thomas (1863–1947) in the year 1928:

“If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences." -- Wikipedia "Thomas Theorem"

To the extent that people who claim that God exists also claim the He rules their actions -- they seek to act according to His Law -- then, God exists. Does God objectively exist? That is a harder question to answer. So far, I have not come across a good logical proof or any empirical evidence. (Proof amd evidence are the responsibility of the person making the assertion.) Nonetheless, it is objectively true that God clearly has subjective existence.

Where Objectivists run up on the rocks is demanding absolute certainty about much in life that is objectively uncertain. Ambiguity is an objective fact. Ambiguity exists.

Ayn Rand herself had an interesting personal ability -- perhaps deep insight; perhaps just a quirk -- to identify the psychological roots of ideological statements. She later warned her admirers against "the psychology of psychologizing" but in too many cases to too little consequence. Some Objectivists, seeing that "liberals" support "environmentalism" are therefore opposed to anything related to it. They decide whether or not human action causes the Earth to warm by measurements, not of temperature, but of temperment. They want "environmentalism" to be absolutely wrong, whether or not any particular claims are objectively true.

Personally, I find ambiguities interesting, even compelling. The resolution of ambiguous situations into objective outcomes can be highly consequential, even financially profitable. The personal computer is a case in point. Yet the marketing of these clever devices would be impossible if the devices did not themselves work as they do: 0 or 1; on or off; true or false. A or non-A.

Edited May 1, 2009 by Michael E. Marotta

[tjohnson]

At the moment it is raining here, I do not perceive the sun. I assume I will perceive it again at some point in the future. I assume I would have perceived it billions of years ago had I been around then. So much is involved with that word 'exists'.

[syrakusos]

At the moment it is raining here, I do not perceive the sun.

... and yet, you refer to it by name...

Come on, GS... what next? How do you know you are not dreaming? When you say red and I say red, do we meant the same thing? Really, old man, I expected better than sophomore dormitory midnight baloney session inquiries. Is that the best that Alfred Korzybski had to offer?

You know what the sun is. You know you cannot perceive it because of the rain. Moreover, you know that it is daytime and raining, not night time and raining because of the diffuse (what?) diffuse (what??) SUN B) light? Ah!

Back to Intro to Philo with you if that is the best you can do.

[tjohnson]

Is that the best that Alfred Korzybski had to offer?

Korzybski said there is no such thing as an object in complete isolation, at the very least there must be an observer. The proof is simple, you cannot produce such an object without an observer. This simple axiom negates the idea of "existence" of things independent of observer. Any talk about objects existing "by themselves" is just a bunch of meaningless noise - it is impossible. Please convince yourself of this before going further.

[Brant Gaede]

Is that the best that Alfred Korzybski had to offer?

Korzybski said there is no such thing as an object in complete isolation, at the very least there must be an observer. The proof is simple, you cannot produce such an object without an observer. This simple axiom negates the idea of "existence" of things independent of observer. Any talk about objects existing "by themselves" is just a bunch of meaningless noise - it is impossible. Please convince yourself of this before going further.

We don't produce the object, we identify it. My head is much too small to get Jupiter into it.

Did you produce Korzybski?

--Brant

Edited May 2, 2009 by Brant Gaede

[tjohnson]

We don't produce the object, we identify it. My head is much too small to get Jupiter into it.

And you can't identify it without you, the observer.

[BaalChatzaf]

We don't produce the object, we identify it. My head is much too small to get Jupiter into it.

And you can't identify it without you, the observer.

that is a trivial tautology. I am positively underwhelmed to find this out. Nevertheless things exist which we do not (or at some time did not) know about. That is what discovery is about. Finding out the existence of things we previously did not know about. Do you believe, for one second, that we now know ALL the facts of the world? Or do you believe there are many things Out There of which we know little or nothing?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[tjohnson]

that is a trivial tautology. I am positively underwhelmed to find this out. Nevertheless things exist which we do not (or at some time did not) know about. That is what discovery is about. Finding out the existence of things we previously did not know about. Do you believe, for one second, that we now know ALL the facts of the world? Or do you believe there are many things Out There of which we know little or nothing?

My beef is with the word 'existence'. One can simply say instead that we discover things we previously did not know about without postulating independent existence to them. Our identification of objects is a process that involves some exterior stimuli and an interior processing of it. We do not "perceive reality" directly we can only abstract from it.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

GS,

If something is not there before we get there, does it miraculously spring into existence once we arrive? This seems to be a logical conclusion from your statements.

Supposing your way of thinking is true (er... whatever you use for "truth"), how do so many people experience the same things? Let's use a mega-scale for simplicity. Say, an earthquake. Someone who is not in the area arrives to find that an earthquake has occurred. Was it not there before he got there?

If not, why did so many people experience an earthquake and why did the earthquake destroy people and their things irrespective of what they felt they experienced?

Michael

[tjohnson]

If something is not there before we get there, does it miraculously spring into existence once we arrive? This seems to be a logical conclusion from your statements.

You have no direct knowledge about something before you get there, or can you see into the future?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

GS,

We can take that all the way down and say no universal laws exist without direct knowledge of them.

That means there is not really a "there" there unless we are. That we do not need to exist before we are aware that we exist.

Is that your thinking?

Let me turn it around. How do you know there can be no there there without direct knowledge of it? Do you have direct knowledge of that, or merely an inference?

Michael

[syrakusos]

You have no direct knowledge about something before you get there, or can you see into the future?

We see into the future all the time. It is 11:30 AM, Saturday. I am finishing a late breakfast now and I will go to the Post Office. Then I will come home and mow the lawn. This is the first time this year, so I expect to have to wrestle with the mower. I cannot see whether I will need to take it apart and clean it -- cloudy the future is ... Businesses forecast earnings, profits, losses, inventories, payroll, etc., etc.. We have an appointment to meet our accountant on Wednesday. You came to your computer to log in here even before you saw the login screen. Maybe there would be a failure and you could not see that in the future... but, by the same token, here in now, someone could come up behind you and go "Boo!" in the present and you wouldn't see that until it happened. In fact, someone might have looted your bank account yesterday, and you did not know it -- proving what? that we cannot see the past... or the present... or the future... ?

Let me ask you this: How do you drive your car? Do you drive on the assumption that you have no idea what the future will bring? Or do you expect, predict, and act on conditions that are not in your present moment?

[Brant Gaede]

If something is not there before we get there, does it miraculously spring into existence once we arrive? This seems to be a logical conclusion from your statements.

You have no direct knowledge about something before you get there, or can you see into the future?

There is actually no past or present. Everything is an aspect of the future. For there to be a present everything would have to stop--everything. Past and present are ideas about what happened and is happening. The future is both idea and reality.

--Brant

stop the world! I want to get off!

[tjohnson]

GS,

We can take that all the way down and say no universal laws exist without direct knowledge of them.

That means there is not really a "there" there unless we are. That we do not need to exist before we are aware that we exist.

Is that your thinking?

Let me turn it around. How do you know there can be no there there without direct knowledge of it? Do you have direct knowledge of that, or merely an inference?

Michael

I am speaking about "objects", not laws or theories. The object results from an interaction between the observer and the observed. Simply said, the "object" doesn't exist for you, when you turn away. Maybe a memory of it does but the immediate abstraction we call the object has gone. This is all it means.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

GS,

In Objectivism we say man is not omnipotent. He is not in all places at all times.

This seems to be similar to what you hold.

That's why sensations, perceptions and conceptual thought evolved, so that he can know about the parts where he is not.

This part does not seem to be similar to what you hold.

Michael

[syrakusos]

That is what objective means: rational and empirical. Objectivism (capital O) is a rational-empirical philosophy.

... Context differentiates the objective from the absolute. ... truth is objective -- empirically known and logically consistent -- and dependent on context. ... Where Objectivists run up on the rocks is demanding absolute certainty about much in life that is objectively uncertain. ...

Absolute morality is different from Objective morality. An absolute assertion is that it is never right to take a human life. (I know of no absolutists who claim that it is always right to take a human life, but that, too is an absolute statement.) An objectivist would need to know the facts in order to decide. Self-defense is one context. Some people -- not I -- claim that the law provides moral context for execution as retributive justice.

Hoebel (1967) tells of how some Eskimos dealt with one murderer. Three homicides in your vicinity is bad news for everyone else. So, the men nearest the events got together on their own and decided that it would be all right just to shoot the perpetrator in the back at the next opportunity.

Hoebel, E. Adamson. 1967. The Law of Primitive Man: A Study in Comparative Legal Dynamics. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

In a college class in ethics for law enforcement, the professor opened the class by asking if it would be moral to use a time machine to drop a piano on the child Adolph Hitler? A more rigorous question would be: When is it moral to kill a child? Many people believe that it is permissible to kill an unborn child if you discover that it is deformed, defective, a danger to the mother, or of undesired gender.

Whether any of those assertions is objectively moral -- as opposed to a subjective whim -- is to be determined by reference to a standard of morality.

Interestingly enough, even subjectivists will assert some standard of judgement. Of course, Absolutists do as well. So, except for some Dadaist or Nihilist claims, perhaps, the question is not whether to have a standard, but what standard to have.

[Brant Gaede]

GS,

Is the "object" the same thing as the "thing"?

--Brant

[Paul Mawdsley]

I like to say we each have a relative perspective of an absolute reality. We generate an objective lens-- aview from nowhere in particular-- in an attempt to gain a perspective of that absolute reality from our existentially relative position.

Existentially we occupy a unique and singular psychological, philosophical and physical point in the universe which makes our experience of that universe inescapably relative to our particular position in it. We use various means of filtering information, and controlling for the tendency of our relative lenses to skew our perspective of the universe, in order to increase objectivity and bring us closer to the absolutes of existence.

Although we can never escape our existential relativism, striving for objectivity does bring us closer to the absoluteness of reality. The methods of science and philosophy allow us to filter and control information so we can reduce the skewing influences of such aspects of our relative position as our feelings and motives, and creates a more objective picture. Ironically, no picture of the universe is complete, or completely objective, that does not account for the existence and influence of these feelings and motives.

How do we gain objectivity in the emotional realm and in the psyche in general?

Paul

[BaalChatzaf]

How do we gain objectivity in the emotional realm and in the psyche in general?

Paul

We don't.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Paul Mawdsley]

How do we gain objectivity in the emotional realm and in the psyche in general?

Paul

We don't.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Bob, you give up so easily!

[Christopher]

I like to say we each have a relative perspective of an absolute reality. We generate an objective lens-- aview from nowhere in particular-- in an attempt to gain a perspective of that absolute reality from our existentially relative position.

Existentially we occupy a unique and singular psychological, philosophical and physical point in the universe which makes our experience of that universe inescapably relative to our particular position in it. We use various means of filtering information, and controlling for the tendency of our relative lenses to skew our perspective of the universe, in order to increase objectivity and bring us closer to the absolutes of existence.

Although we can never escape our existential relativism, striving for objectivity does bring us closer to the absoluteness of reality. The methods of science and philosophy allow us to filter and control information so we can reduce the skewing influences of such aspects of our relative position as our feelings and motives, and creates a more objective picture. Ironically, no picture of the universe is complete, or completely objective, that does not account for the existence and influence of these feelings and motives.

How do we gain objectivity in the emotional realm and in the psyche in general?

Paul

Point taken. Rand contradicted Aristotle's epistemological claims that objects exist as such with various attributes. Rather, through the process of observation, identification, and conceptualization "objects" are perceived in(to) existence.

GS is right - an observer is required to assert an object exists. Without the observer, the universe is just an amalgamation, a vast sea of undifferentiated stuff. It takes consciousness to differentiate objects, to assert that a planet exists, a sun exists, etc. Without the observer, a planet is no more an independent object in the universe than is a molecule of nitrogen in the air. It exists, but it is undifferentiated.

Different observers will differentiate differently (think aliens using different perception mechanisms). Such beings might not split (differentiate) the universe as humans have into planets, molecules, etc. It doesn't mean they're wrong, it's just a function of uniquely-perceived associations.

Chris

[tjohnson]

GS is right - an observer is required to assert an object exists. Without the observer, the universe is just an amalgamation, a vast sea of undifferentiated stuff. It takes consciousness to differentiate objects, to assert that a planet exists, a sun exists, etc. Without the observer, a planet is no more an independent object in the universe than is a molecule of nitrogen in the air. It exists, but it is undifferentiated.

In general semantics "an object" is referred to as an abstraction of some order, usually a 1st order abstraction. There is a process like this;

Event->abstraction->Object->abstraction->Label->abstraction->Inference about event

As you say, much can happen in the abstraction process from the Event to the Object which can give rise to very different views of things.

[Brant Gaede]

Gs, gs, gs. I'm going to start in with go--general objectivism. In go there is no gs. In gs there is no go. "No go" is about right.

--Brant

[tjohnson]

Gs, gs, gs. I'm going to start in with go--general objectivism. In go there is no gs. In gs there is no go. "No go" is about right.

--Brant

Look, we're trying to have a class in comparative philosophy here, keep it down, OK?

[Brant Gaede]

that is a trivial tautology. I am positively underwhelmed to find this out. Nevertheless things exist which we do not (or at some time did not) know about. That is what discovery is about. Finding out the existence of things we previously did not know about. Do you believe, for one second, that we now know ALL the facts of the world? Or do you believe there are many things Out There of which we know little or nothing?

My beef is with the word 'existence'. One can simply say instead that we discover things we previously did not know about without postulating independent existence to them. Our identification of objects is a process that involves some exterior stimuli and an interior processing of it. We do not "perceive reality" directly we can only abstract from it.

If abstraction is the human way to knowledge, what does the dog and cat do? The earthworm?

--Brant