"Pure objectivity" is a myth

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lsayre
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Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

Post by lsayre »

Digging down as to a definition of "Concept":
A concept is a mental integration of two or more units which are isolated by a process of abstraction and united by a specific definition. By organizing his perceptual material into concepts, and his concepts into wider and still wider concepts, man is able to grasp and retain, to identify and integrate an unlimited amount of knowledge, a knowledge extending beyond the immediate concretes of any given, immediate moment.

In any given moment, concepts enable man to hold in the focus of his conscious awareness much more than his purely perceptual capacity would permit. The range of man’s perceptual awareness—the number of percepts he can deal with at any one time—is limited. He may be able to visualize four or five units—as, for instance, five trees. He cannot visualize a hundred trees or a distance of ten light-years. It is only his conceptual faculty that makes it possible for him to deal with knowledge of that kind.

Man retains his concepts by means of language. With the exception of proper names, every word we use is a concept that stands for an unlimited number of concretes of a certain kind. A concept is like a mathematical series of specifically defined units, going off in both directions, open at both ends and including all units of that particular kind. For instance, the concept “man” includes all men who live at present, who have ever lived or will ever live—a number of men so great that one would not be able to perceive them all visually, let alone to study them or discover anything about them.

The basic principle of concept-formation (which states that the omitted measurements must exist in some quantity, but may exist in any quantity) is the equivalent of the basic principle of algebra, which states that algebraic symbols must be given some numerical value, but may be given any value. In this sense and respect, perceptual awareness is the arithmetic, but conceptual awareness is the algebra of cognition.
Ayn Rand

Perhaps the belief in which concepts are societal needs to be revisited. Both the possession and validation of concepts appear to be a rather individual responsibility, as opposed to a societal responsibility. A collective (society) may however apply force whereby to confound this and compel an appearance that it is the arbiter of both concept possession and concept validation. But the operative word here is "force".
Last edited by lsayre on Wed Oct 05, 2022 3:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

Post by neilgodfrey »

I looked for the definition of consciousness but that was also problematic for me. An animal has consciousness. An newborn infant has consciousness. An infant without any self-awareness has a conscious relationship with a toy. Does the infant have "truth"?
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neilgodfrey
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Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

Post by neilgodfrey »

lsayre wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 3:30 am Digging down as to a definition of "Concept":
A concept is a mental integration of two or more units which are isolated by a process of abstraction and united by a specific definition. By organizing his perceptual material into concepts, and his concepts into wider and still wider concepts, man is able to grasp and retain, to identify and integrate an unlimited amount of knowledge, a knowledge extending beyond the immediate concretes of any given, immediate moment.

In any given moment, concepts enable man to hold in the focus of his conscious awareness much more than his purely perceptual capacity would permit. The range of man’s perceptual awareness—the number of percepts he can deal with at any one time—is limited. He may be able to visualize four or five units—as, for instance, five trees. He cannot visualize a hundred trees or a distance of ten light-years. It is only his conceptual faculty that makes it possible for him to deal with knowledge of that kind.

Man retains his concepts by means of language. With the exception of proper names, every word we use is a concept that stands for an unlimited number of concretes of a certain kind. A concept is like a mathematical series of specifically defined units, going off in both directions, open at both ends and including all units of that particular kind. For instance, the concept “man” includes all men who live at present, who have ever lived or will ever live—a number of men so great that one would not be able to perceive them all visually, let alone to study them or discover anything about them.

The basic principle of concept-formation (which states that the omitted measurements must exist in some quantity, but may exist in any quantity) is the equivalent of the basic principle of algebra, which states that algebraic symbols must be given some numerical value, but may be given any value. In this sense and respect, perceptual awareness is the arithmetic, but conceptual awareness is the algebra of cognition.
Can you explain that in your own words?
lsayre
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Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

Post by lsayre »

I can validate it within my own consciousness as opposed to having a non-validation of 'concept' forced upon me by society. I'm neither an intrinsicist nor a subjectivist. Society inherently demands subjects, and subjects are inherently demanded to sacrifice to the behest of society. I'm more of an individualist. I give great credit to Adam Smith's "invisible hand", whereby each individual, in doing their best to survive individually, as if by an invisible hand simultaneously benefits all of mankind. Thus my belief is that a proper society does not begin at the top (and thereby act like it belongs there indefinitely) but rather evolves from the bottom.

I have developed a slogan that reflects upon this view of "society", and I often apply it as my "tag line":
"Democracy rests solely upon the validity (or non-validity) of the presumption that collective wisdom arises from a pool of individual ignorance. A Republic rests squarely upon objective law, and fundamentally upon those laws which restrict the scope and actions of government."

Might I add that wherever there is societally demanded "sacrifice" there are those who appoint themselves to collect the sacrificial offerings. This is my conception of what actually arises from a pool of individual ignorance. And thus I oppose ignorance.

In my view: error = sin = ignorance (in any order)

And therefore a sacrificial society at any level (evolving as it does from a pool of ignorance) is sinful. As is "force" (sans when it is used defensively).
Last edited by lsayre on Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:10 am, edited 3 times in total.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

Post by neilgodfrey »

The point about "pure objectivity" being a myth is that there can be no absolutely one true and only way of interpreting events.

There are economic interpretations, feminist interpretations, nationalist interpretations, first nations interpretations, etc. etc.

I think some of the confusion might in some cases arise because we have different views of what history is.

On what date was the Battle of Hastings fought? That's not really doing history but simply checking a fact of chronology.

Did Julius Caesar invade Britain? Again -- the answer might be a historical fact but it doesn't tell us very much.

There are different kinds of histories.

Some histories are masses of factual or statistical data.

But most histories that interest us are narratives. They tell stories. And one person's story will generally differ from another's simply because they experience events and interpret events differently. A trade union history of Australia will be very different from a business organization's history.

Here many of us are curious about Christian origins. Now that starts to get very complicated.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

Post by neilgodfrey »

lsayre wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 3:52 am I can validate it within my own consciousness as opposed to having a non-validation of 'concept' forced upon me by society.
So you cannot explain it? Can you give clear real-life examples to help us understand the difference?
lsayre wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 3:52 am Society inherently demands subjects, and subjects are inherently demanded to sacrifice to the behest of society.
That statement is loaded with subjective values that others will not agree with at all. There is a very different -- and I would say more healthy and constructive way -- to view society. Anthropology has a lot to teach us.
lsayre wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 3:52 am I have developed a slogan that reflects upon this view of "society", and I often apply it as my "tag line":
"Democracy rests solely upon the validity (or non-validity) of the presumption that collective wisdom arises from a pool of individual ignorance. A Republic rests squarely upon objective law, and fundamentally upon those laws which restrict the scope and actions of government."
That's a very negative and, I would say, unreal, view of democracy. First of all you will need to define what you mean by democracy.

I studied the Federalist Papers years back. The Republic rests on property rights, not objective law. I used to think that the expressions of warning that the majority might threaten the interests of the minority was about protecting the little man, the religious non-conformist in particular. Ha. No, it was about protecting the property owners against the masses. -- To make them safe from "democracy".
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neilgodfrey
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Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

Post by neilgodfrey »

But your Ayn Rand view of the world is not an appropriate topic for this forum. It belongs somewhere else, yes?

My thread was an attempt to clarify what we are doing when we are thinking about historical research.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

Post by neilgodfrey »

Thinking further on where I think you are coming from.....

I am currently reading a book on the ancient gnostics and all their complex theories and a very broad similarity with the various philosophical approaches to the world today hit me: those gnostics inherited the basic approach initiated by Plato and they sought to interpret the world through the basic structures of thought that they read or heard about in Plato's works.

You/others who follow the basic principles of the Ayn Rand philosophy are likewise following an inherited system of thought, a set of constructs that appeal to you and makes sense of your world and experiences.

But that comes back to the point of this thread. Your view is not -- contrary to what you said earlier -- related to "objective truth". I can see the Republic you speak of as based instead on class war and property rights over human rights.

You define democracy as having to do with the collective ignorance of the people. But an alternative definition could be the collective experience and knowledges of the people. Why opt for "ignorance" when any group is made up of people with experiences and knowledges and skills of different kinds?

What I am saying is that your view is not an objective truth but it one concept that is posing as a rival to other concepts. Your interpretations of the world, of history, will be different from mine. Not because you have objective truth, though.
Chrissy Hansen
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Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

Post by Chrissy Hansen »

I think it is rather telling that Isayre tries to explain consciousness through their own subjective experiences and intuitions in that post, which really just proves the point about how what we do is subjective. Also the constant deference to Ayn Rand tells me that whatever "objectivity" is to Isayre is distinctly rightwing in its flavor.

Huller similarly just has this rightwing idea of "objectivity" informed by political and social conservatism. It has to be properly "manly", and "unemotional" and can't be "crybaby". He is antagonistic of "gender neutral" language, constantly goes on tirades that are off-topic, etc.

It seems like between Neil and I, we have just triggered a group of people enveloped in the anti-critical theory, anti-SJW, rightwinger crowd, trying to pass off their political agendas as "objectivity", and throughout this whole conversation both Isayre and Huller fail to even define what "objectivity" is to begin with, save to only reference various subjective concepts and biases (like Huller's hero worship of academics, masculinity, and this virtue signaling about "truth" even though Huller can't define "truth" either).

Ironically, in trying to defend the idea of objectivity, they have revealed so much of their personal political and social ideas that their "objectivity" emerges as just a reification of their political and social biases. Which, kinda just goes to prove your point, Neil. Their inability to define truth, objectivity, etc. and instead only to call back to traditional, masculine, and pretty much capitalistic ideas of "objectivity" just tells us all we need to know about them and their self-revealing lack of objectivity.
lsayre
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Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

Post by lsayre »

Neil, objective law and property rights are joined at the hip.

As to rights:
The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.

Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action: it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values.
And as to life:
There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence—and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not: it depends on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. It is only the concept of “Life” that makes the concept of “Value” possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.
Ayn Rand

I will leave this thread with these as my departing statements...
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