Skepticism and The Normal

[pv+]

I greatly look forward to addressing my astute observations posted here lately.

More illiterate, pompous drivel!
Re Angeline Jolie, the discussion regarding "objective" beauty is infantile in the extreme, and to assert such "objectivity" displays a staggering ignorance of different cultural (and personal) values and priorities.
Frankly Bubblefish you know nothing about anything, and that astute observation is objectively demonstrated by your pathetic attempts at "intellectual" discourse in this drivellingly vacuous thread.
It isn't that no-one understands, as you are frequently implying in your hectoring chatter. Everyone understands you and your motives only too well, and your snippy insulting remarks peppered all over your posts. Everyone can understand perfectly, from your effluent Internet output, that you are a narcissistic, self-aggrandizing, moronic dullard.
It has always been clear to me, if not to the moderators of this forum, that your particular forté and preferred form of entertainment is baiting and trolling. Trolling is the only reason you bother to post here.

 

[Gnu Ordure]

hi moby,

I'm not doing a very good job of explaining myself, for which I apologize.

I can tell you don't fully understand what I'm saying, if only because you're supporting your position by making points that I've already made in support of my position !

For example, everything you said about Shakira and Marlilyn and the impermanence of cultural ideals ("Fifty years ago Marilyn Monroe would have been a much more appropriate response. If you were a Latin American abducted by aliens you may be more inclined to say Shakira"), I agree with you 100%. But, as I had previously said : "This "ideal" is still not 'objective' though, because it varies from culture to culture, and within a single culture over time".

So we seem to have our wires crossed.

Can I try again to explain what I mean ?

I'm positing 3 realities, objective, consensus, and subjective.

All these realities contain truths, which vary according to their verifiability.

1. Continuing to take beauty as our example, what can we truthfully say about beauty in the world of objective reality ?

Nothing with any certainty - not because beauty is a human construct, but because we can't be certain that anything is true in objective reality.

I could find a philosopher to support me on that, but I'd rather quote flim-flam, because he seems to be respected around here and he also seems to know what he's talking about:

flim-flam said : "I am sure about nothing with regard to objective reality."

I agree with him.

In terms of objective reality, nothing can be said for certain about beauty.


2. Continuing to take beauty as our example, what can we truthfully say about beauty in the world of subjective reality ?

We can say that we're all certain of our own opinion.

As flimflam said : "I can be absolutely sure about my existence"

Again, I agree with him, although I would also include surety about my experience and my thoughts as well, fair enough ? My experience and thoughts constitute the reality of my existence.

So, if I happen to think/experience that Edith Ordure is beautiful, that is as you say Moby, my prerogative, and it cannot be denied or 'disproved" - it is certain. No opinion poll could alter the fact that I experience her as beautiful.

And equally, there is no test that could verify my experience. No-one else can see her the way I do, there is no mind-reading technology; you have to take my word for it.

So, in exactly the same way that "I think therefore I am" is unverifiable, so is "I think Edith is beautiful". And for me, both statements are still equally true.


3. Continuing to take beauty as our example, what can we truthfully say about beauty in the world of consensus reality ?

We can say that beauty is more than a matter of subjective opinion.

How ? Because asking the subjective opinion of 10,000 people produces a quantifiable ideal which is meaningful, and real, and verifiable (along the lines of pixelpunk's criteria).

ie Consensus creates its own reality.

Therefore in subjective reality, somebody disagreeing with me that Edith is beautiful proves nothing...

... but in consensus world, it can be stated as a fact that "AJ is closer to the ideal of beauty (in this time and place) than Edith", which could be morely simply phrased as "AJ is more beautiful than Edith". And I, my personal feelings notwithstanding, would have to admit that this was "true".

Consensus creates facts.

And moby, you kind of acknowledge the existence of this consensus reality in your choice of alternative ideals; when looking for an example from the fifties, you didn't choose someone personal (eg your high-school teacher), you went for Marilyn. And we all understand what you mean - she was closest to the ideal of beauty at that time.

Summary soundbite:

Consensus reality creates the fact that AJ is closer to the ideal of beauty (in this specific culture, at this specific time), than Mrs Ordure.



DrKitten, I wrote the above with your post in mind as well, I hope I've addressed your points.

But when you say :

"Consensus belief is a good way of doing public opinion surveys. But when public opinion in 1870 held that space and time were independent and not related to the motion of the observer, they were simply wrong"

... I think you are both right and wrong. The relationship between space and time in 1870 was not decided by public opinion, but by the scientists of the era.

But you are right that these scientists were proceeding by consensus. That's how science works. Science is part of consensus reality.

Let me ask flimflam.

Flimflam, if as you say, "I am sure about nothing with regard to objective reality", in what category of reality do you place the facts produced by science ?

For example, the fact that the earth goes round the sun ?

You concede you're not sure it's true in objective reality; I assume you don't agree that it's a matter of individual opinion ? ie it's not purely subjective ?

So if not objective reality, and not subjective reality, then what ?

I respectfully suggest that it belongs in the consensus category.



The point is that science does not produce facts.

Science can only produce falsifiable hypotheses that have not yet been falsified.

That's as certain as it gets.


Can I quote a bit of wikipedia here, not to "prove" I'm right, obviously, but just to reassure myself that I'm not talking complete bollocks ?

On the first page of the entry on "Scientific Method", under the sub-heading 'Falsifiability'', it says :

All hypotheses and theories are in principle subject to disproof. Thus, there is a point at which there might be a consensus about a particular hypothesis or theory, yet it must in principle remain tentative

Key-words there : 'all hypotheses', 'consensus' and 'tentative'.


That's the point I'm trying to make.. There is a level of reality that is more than merely subjective, which operates through consensus, but which is tentative, and therefore falls short of objectivity.

And this level of reality includes every "fact" that has ever been produced by science, and the "fact" that AJ is more beautiful than EO.



Sorry if I've go on a bit.

Gnu.





(Ps edit + = moby/DrK : forgive me if I'm wrong, but re-reading your posts just now I got the impression that you thought that I'd come up with this concept of consensus reality myself - perhaps because DrK described the theory as "irresponsible" (which I admit I don't understand - why 'irresponsible' ?)

Well. it's not just me being irresponsible, Dr, the theory goes back 50 years or so, and the wiki article on "Consensus Reality" provides the links and background).

 

[pixelpunk]

Z,

Second, here's where the argument goes from this statement: by WHICH human beings? ALL human beings? Then can you prove that EVERY human being has the same standards for these seven stats?

I’d say the more the better, so let’s take ALL human beings as our group. Now, the point is not that everyone has the same opinion, but that through the seven criterions we can create a mathematical model which predicts what score AJ gets on the beauty-ugly-scale…

Or by SOME human beings, which means these stats are considered SUBJECTIVELY?

…and then we let everyone rate AJ subjectively, which gives us data we can compare to the output of our model.

For examply, you mention youth. We know there are people attracted to prepubescent girls only, and other attracted to the elderly. Whence the objective standard in youth? And how youthful? Teen? Early twenties? Early thirties?

Youth is just a variable for our predictive model.

These may be the objective criterion, but they are still evaluated subjectively.

Yes, and then we objectify these subjective evaluations and compare them to the criterions.

 

[pixelpunk]

Professor Yaffle,

Nobody is denying that we use objective features in making our consideration of what is beautiful. We find certain objective characteristics beautiful because evolution has selected those individuals who find certain people beautiful (through increased fitness) and because of cultural norms that we learn are associated with the word beauty. None of it is because beauty is out there in the world, seperate from our view of the object in question.

Nicely put.

BF however goes on to assert that the beauty is inherent in the objective characteristics themselves.

I’m not sure if that’s his position. I read him as follows:

There is the subjective AND the objective realm to consider and especially the dynamic between the two. When he states that beauty is objective, he’s not denying the subjective but rather references the realm/reality where the statement is made.

 

[Gnu Ordure]

Yes, and then we objectify these subjective evaluations and compare them to the criterions

Exactly, pixelpunk.

That's how I see consensus reality operating.

Bit of feedback, however. In consensus reality, the plural of criterion is criteria.

Personally, I'm very happy for you to invent an entirely new word, criterions, to express your meaning, and in my subjective reality, I think I know what you mean by it (you mean 'criteria'', right ?).

But I know from long-time lurking that this site is chock full of pedants, and they already give BF a torrid time for not being able to spell, so I really, really recommend that you incorporate 'criteria' into your personal vocabulary as soon as you can...


hope you're not offended by this unsolicited advice,


Gnu.

 

[Z]

Z,



I’d say the more the better, so let’s take ALL human beings as our group. Now, the point is not that everyone has the same opinion, but that through the seven criterions we can create a mathematical model which predicts what score AJ gets on the beauty-ugly-scale…

Which would still not 'objectify' beauty. Objective does NOT equal mass subjective or mass intersubjective.

If no person existed, would a sunrise be beautiful?

…and then we let everyone rate AJ subjectively, which gives us data we can compare to the output of our model.

Which still proves beauty is subjective.

Youth is just a variable for our predictive model.

If it were objective, it wouldn't be a variable.

Yes, and then we objectify these subjective evaluations and compare them to the criterions.

And get a consensus of subjective opinions. Which is NOT what objectivity is.

 

[Z]

Exactly, pixelpunk.

That's how I see consensus reality operating.

Bit of feedback, however. In consensus reality, the plural of criterion is criteria.

Personally, I'm very happy for you to invent an entirely new word, criterions, to express your meaning, and in my subjective reality, I think I know what you mean by it (you mean 'criteria'', right ?).

But I know from long-time lurking that this site is chock full of pedants, and they already give BF a torrid time for not being able to spell, so I really, really recommend that you incorporate 'criteria' into your personal vocabulary as soon as you can...


hope you're not offended by this unsolicited advice,


Gnu.

What he is saying, is that there are objective standards of beauty. Objective standards of beauty can been measured, and there are some subjective influences, but absolutely someone like AJ has objective beauty that can always be seen if you know what to look for. And any culture that thinks otherwise is just ignorant. He speaks particularly of symmetry - that symmetry is always objectively beautiful. But not just symmetry - since we can show how a block is more symmetrical than AJ's face. He uses 'perfect' symmetry - which quickly devolves into a metaphysical, mystical concept, which in turn can only be judged subjectively. But.. oops.. it has to be objective, right?

Sooo.... anyone who doesn't find AJ beautiful is just wrong, because her beauty is objective.

That's what he's saying.

 

[Gnu Ordure]

z,

I said it before. I'll say it again :

I'm not defending what bubb may have said.

(though I was trying to explain some of it)

so please, address my argument re consensus reality on its merits, rather than whether it agrees or disagrees with bubb's position...






I may be wrong, z, but you seem to have got the idea that the purpose of my involvement here is to support bubb.....

I assure you this is not the case. I mainly engage in chat-room discussions like this not to persuade anyone of a particular point of view, but in a futile attempt to make connections that might fill the aching void at the center of my solitary existence.

whoops.

have I over-shared ?


gnu.

 

[Z]

Well, Gnu, I was trying to stay on topic. I really have no interest in your concept of 'consensus reality', as all you're doing is describing a type of subjectivity - of the subjective POV of objective factors, perhaps - and so all you're doing is further categorizing subjective into new branches. Intersubjective experience is not 'more than subjective'. It remains subjective, especially in cases where it is nonuniversal. Subjective experience of objective phenomenae tend to be universal in nature, enough so that we can categorize such experience as 'objective'. But subjective experience, as applied to concepts such as 'beauty' and 'morality', can only ever be categorized as subjective, no matter how many subjects we involve - because there can exist (without mental aberration) any number of subjects who disagree.

AJ is not beautiful. I can say that because I honestly do not find her beautiful. Hence, her beauty is subjective. (I did once find her beautiful, but now she's too thin and has ugly hands)

Audrey Hepburn was beautiful - once. I doubt she is now.

 

[jimbob]

I agreee with Z; there are features that are near universal that make for unattractiveness, and some which *thend to* model for several types of attractiveness (based on total "breeding potentail") but this is not beauty.

AJ has two eyes, and I doubt that three-eyed humans would generally be considered beautiful, except by their parents.

Does that mean that the number of eyes, which is objectively verifiable, is vital for any objective measure of beauty?

No, it just means that people tend to share some common aesthetics, for good evolutionary reasons.

Many people support various football clubs, does that mean that within the group, the support of the club is anything other than a subjective experience?

No.

If it was certain that everyone who could ever exist would give something an identical aesthetic score, then one could argue for objectivity, but "AJ looks attractive to many people" doesn't equal that.

 

[drkitten]

I'm positing 3 realities, objective, consensus, and subjective.

... And you are WRONG.

I'm positing six realities. Objective, subjective, liquorice-flavoured, upside-down, yellow, and Iranian. And all that illustrates is that I'm totally bonkers, because positing "liquorice-flavoured reality" doesn't actually mean that it exists.

Because asking the subjective opinion of 10,000 people produces a quantifiable ideal which is meaningful, and real, and verifiable (along the lines of pixelpunk's criteria).

ie Consensus creates its own reality.

No. Consensus doesn't create its own reality. The existence of a consensus is a part of objective reality, but that doesn't make the consensus "its own reality."

Therefore in subjective reality, somebody disagreeing with me that Edith is beautiful proves nothing...

... but in consensus world, it can be stated as a fact that "AJ is closer to the ideal of beauty (in this time and place) than Edith", which could be morely simply phrased as "AJ is more beautiful than Edith".

No, and no.

DrKitten, I wrote the above with your post in mind as well, I hope I've addressed your points.

Only in the sense that you've made a lot of unsupported incorrect assertions.

But when you say :

... I think you are both right and wrong. The relationship between space and time in 1870 was not decided by public opinion, but by the scientists of the era.

It was not. The scientists of the era were indeed working on the relationship between space and time -- and they got it utterly and completely wrong. That's part of the demonstration that consensus reality does not exist. The "consensus" among scientists in 1870 would have been that time and space are completely separate and not observer-dependent, a statement that we now know to be completely wrong.

But you are right that these scientists were proceeding by consensus.

Absolutely.

That's how science works.

Yup.

And that's how we know that the statement that

Science is part of consensus reality.

is entirely wrong. Because if there were a consensus reality, then reality would have reflected the consensus of the scientists. And, as we now know, it did not.

 

[flimflam_machine]

Gnu et al.

I wasn't planning on contributing to this debate since, interesting though it is, I'm not sure it's really on-topic.

Firstly, I have to admit that I'm hugely uncomfortable with the use of the word "reality" to describe anything except the objective reality that we (mostly) agree exists independent of our consciousness. To quote Philip K. Dick (RIP): "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." To use terms like "subjective reality" and "consensus reality" worries me because it seems to be putting these concepts on a par with objective reality, and this creates many problems as the inestimable DrKitten has just pointed out. So I prefer "subjective experience" and plain old "consensus". Statements like this...

Again, I agree with him, although I would also include surety about my experience and my thoughts as well, fair enough ? My experience and thoughts constitute the reality of my existence.

...I find concerning, because they seem to me to overinflate the importance of subjective experience. Your experience and thoughts constitute your experience and thoughts, the "reality" of your existence remains the same unless by reality you mean "the sum of my experiences" in which case the statement is tautological.

My belief (and, I'd hazard, the belief of most people around here) runs roughly as follows: there exists an objective reality independent of my consciousness; my subjective experience is a representation of that reality; that representation is limited by my perceptual imperfections and coloured by my expectations of reality; my thoughts and beliefs do not directly change objective reality, but can change objective reality indirectly in that they direct my actions.

With that in mind I'm not sure that the idea of consensus reality adds a great deal other than as a "social yardstick". We are taught that objective reality has certain characteristics and we are brought up within a structure of social norms. This may seriously influence our subjective experience but only in that it changes objective reality by people making statements in objective reality that are then subjectively experienced.

I think that you are reading too much into this statement:

Yes, and then we objectify these subjective evaluations and compare them to the criterions

I'm not entirely sure what is meant by "objectify" since at first glance it seems to suggest an impossible process. If all that is meant is "quantify" then that doesn't actually add anything. Someone may report their subjective experience, the report itself (talking or writing) is an event in objective reality, but that doesn't make the experience itself objective. All in all, I agree with Z, what you have as a result is a collection of subjective evaluations, not objective anything.

Let me ask flimflam.

Flimflam, if as you say, "I am sure about nothing with regard to objective reality", in what category of reality do you place the facts produced by science ?

For example, the fact that the earth goes round the sun ?

Firstly I need to restate what I said to Bubb about levels of certainty that are so separate that they can't even be considered together. That I am not sure about anything in objective reality does not mean that I doubt specific things in objective reality; it means that I doubt everything in objective reality. This doubt is based upon the question of whether my subjective experience is in any way a reliable representation of objective reality. I cannot be sure that it is, so I must even-handedly reject everything that my subjective experience leads me to believe is real with the exception of my own existence. This includes all the observations that I can personally make to see that the earth goes round the sun, and everything that anyone has ever told me that leads me to believe that the earth goes round the sun.

However, as jimbob and I have said, if you make the assumption (which all but the extremely bizarre do, even if only tacitly) that your experience is a reliable representation of objective reality, then you can consider further statements. But in making that assumption you have lost a whole order of certainty because it is only an assumption, and, as is the nature of assumptions, it is something of which I am unsure.

You concede you're not sure it's true in objective reality; I assume you don't agree that it's a matter of individual opinion ? ie it's not purely subjective ?

So if not objective reality, and not subjective reality, then what ?

I respectfully suggest that it belongs in the consensus category.

Whether the earth goes round the sun or not depends only on the state of objective reality. Whether I, or any number of people, are sure whether that actually is the state of objective reality does not change that; it is certainly not a matter of opinion/subjective experience. So I think that you are wrong to say that it is not objective reality.

From what I can see here, consensus reality seems to be more of a sociological concept than a philosophical one. If the vast majority of people agree on something, it is because not to do so would be contrary to the best evidence available at that time in the context of the current predominant philosophical framework. Looking back on the past, the evidence available may have been sparse and the philosophical framework appear horribly skewed. Perhaps it's even related to the concept of a "superego".

So, in exactly the same way that "I think therefore I am" is unverifiable, so is "I think Edith is beautiful". And for me, both statements are still equally true.

"I think therefore I am" is completely verifiable, but it could be considered unfalsifiable because it is tautologically true. "You think therefore you are" may be completely unverifiable.

 

[zooterkin]

Just to chime in, I agree that the idea of 'consensus reality' is not really helpful, particularly in this thread. I tried to make the point myself a few pages back, but not as eloquently as the recent posts.

Unless you can quantify beauty (look up 'quantify' if necessary), in a way that is agreed by all, it's not objective. You might get a beauty rating of Angelina Jolie by asking people to rate her on a scale of 0-10, and get an average. But that's just an average of subjective ratings. (And of course you would claim that anyone who rated her less than a certain value would be lying.)

 

[sinnikal]

Well call me a cynic and slap my sides like a pantomime horse but I smell something fishy going on in our friends absence
I wonder what the consensus is on that.

 

[flimflam_machine]

You're a cynic sinnikal, *slap*. But if you are, I am too, since the thought had occurred to me. Two newbies discusssing something that sounds decidedly Bubb-like, and Gnu says that he is not defending Bubb's ideas, merely trying to explain them. What makes him think that (i) we don't understand them and, (ii) that he is better placed to understand them than us? Plus pixelpunk's talk of the "dynamic" between the subjective and objective.

On the other hand, they can both spell and use apostrophes, although Gnu's capitalisation is a bit sporadic. If this is simply Bubb indulging in a bit of masturbatory self-aggrandisement perhaps he has actually started to spellcheck and re-read his posts before submission, which would at least explain the vastly lower post count. Perhaps if we see a change of opinion for either Gnu or PP it would be a hopeful sign.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

I doubt it is BF himself, but he may have enlisted help from his follower(s?) at his BS987 site?

 

[Professor Yaffle]

By the way, I think we had this discussion a lot of pages ago (albeit more briefly) when we discussed things like "orange juice tastes better than bleach" and epistomological versus metaphysical objectivity. Or did I just do that in my head?

 

[flimflam_machine]

Nope Prof. Yaff, you're not making it up; we did do this. Do multiple consistent subjective judgements = objective?

I think the general view was "no", but some sources argue otherwise.

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

So, has BF shown Randi to have nefarious motives or that Steorn is on the up-and-up?

 

[JonnyFive]

Nope Prof. Yaff, you're not making it up; we did do this. Do multiple consistent subjective judgements = objective?

I think the general view was "no", but some sources argue otherwise.

By "some sources" I'll assume you mean "Bubblefish."