VogoLannd wrote:As I understand it, the word objective is defined as an attribute which signifies incontestable reality towards the idea or thing that it is attached to. This means that if I claim X to be objective then X is a reality beyond my perspective and other perspectives cannot alter this X. The problem with ascribing anything objective to X is that all my faculties of evaluation are subjective in essence. I will use language and an apple as examples to demonstrate the impossibility of transforming our subjective beliefs into objective facts.
How is it that anything is properly labeled in language? or more specifically why is an apple regarded as an apple? Some may claim that the word apple is derived from the word aplaz which is from an older proto-Germanic language but then I retort why was an apple labeled aplaz? let's regress to the zero level, before any language existed as a precedent, how is it that humanity labeled the apple? here I claim as in everything else the chasm between human subjectivity and the true essence of the thing being observed is impossible to breech. When humans utter the word apple it is a sound and nothing more and when humans write the word apple it is a scribbling which is felt to be appropriate to the utterance. Neither the sound nor the scribbling brings us any closer to the essence of the thing in question. Would it be any more or less accurate to label an apple a schmaple or a durkato? And what if we were to draw two bent lines with an exclamation point at the end? How is this any less accurate than the word apple? What transpires at the origin of an object's labeling is devoid of any truth, what actually occurs is the conjuration of a belief. The man labeling the object with his particular version of the word apple is fostering a conviction that X from now on shall be called Y but there is no basis in objective reality for this connection! No incontestable proof whatsoever!
Congratulations! You just realized that a language is a set of arbitrary labels for things. The word for an apple might as well be durkato, the only important thing there is that you and whoever you're talking to both understand the label to refer to the same thing, or reasonably similar at the very least. The value of course is that I can inform someone of an event using an agreed set of labels without having to show him what took place.
However, I fail to see how this is a particularly deep insight of any sort.
What is this if not faith? For faith is defined as a firm belief in something for which there is no proof. Mankind observes phenomena, cannot possibly fathom it's objective essence, and yet a word is assigned to it with no actual insight gained. Now we see the abyss hidden beneath everything we've ever held to be true. There is no idea more genuine or favorable than another if truth is factored into our evaluations. Neither scientist nor priest has a more accurate grasp on reality since both are human and in possession of subjective faculties. The proud claim to truth of the scientific community is no less an article of faith than the Christian belief in the Holy Bible as the word of God.
And here comes the non-sequituur bullshit.
Scientific community has a solid claim to truth because unlike pretty much any religion there is, science makes true predictions about events and allows us to make things using these predictions.
An apple falls to the ground regardless if you call it apple or jablko or even durkato, and it is science, not religion that allows you to gauge how fast it will fall and how big a hole it will gouge in the soil underneath the tree, even what nutrition will your body gain from eating it.
And the beautiful bit? All of that takes place no matter if you believe in the theoretics of it, or not. You might be convinced the density of aluminium is 2.7 kg per cubic metre (through a simple decimal point shift error), but it won't allow you to lift a car with a single hand.
Faiths on the other hand offer no useful insight whatsoever.
There is no truth, there are only perspectives based solely on faith. Therefore,as far as humanity is concerned, all is faith. One should never be dissuaded from their beliefs because others claim they are "inaccurate" or "not based on fact" for this type of criticism emanates from an absurd and impossible demand to be assured of the truth behind an idea before holding it as one's own and acting upon it. If such a criteria was to be existentially forced on our species then all vestiges of language, philosophy, art, time, music, religion, science, politics, etc would be promptly removed from human history. Truth is an absurdity that man ought to throw overboard.
Heavily influenced by Nietzsche's Perspectivism. I would appreciate any thoughts or constructive criticism.
And more idiocy that doesn't survive contact with reality, because out of so many claims of equal value of ideas, you can't knot a whip from turds, or sate your thirst with saltwater, no matter how elegant a theory claiming so would sound.
Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2012 5:14 pm