RE: subjective reality

From: John M <jamikes.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2005 12:45:02 -0700 (PDT)

Lee and Bruno,
I will interject a few remarks
John M

--- Lee Corbin <lcorbin.domain.name.hidden> wrote:

> Bruno writes
>
> > Le 07-août-05, à 21:24, John M a écrit :
>
> > > Reality is supposed to be something independent
> from
> > > our personal manipulations
> >
> > Strictly speaking I do not agree. Some satellites
> of Earth are human
> > made, and local "physical reality" can depends, at
> least locally, on
> > us.
[JM]:
I had this controversy with people who spoke about MIR
(=Mind Independent Reality) When I fought for "the
mind IS part of that reality, so nothing can be
independent of reality, only our knowledge base is
subjective and ever growing in the epistemic
enrichment. The discussions were published on the Karl
Jaspers Forum.
>
> Sure, but maybe John didn't really mean that. After
> all, any
> action I take affects the physical world.
>
> > > Once we 'subject' it to our personal 'mind' and
> its
> > > own distortions it is "subjective", not
> objective anymore.
> > > So it looks like "subjective reality" is an
> oxymoron.
> >
> > I'm afraid you do some category error.
>
> Oh, come on. It's clear that he just wants to use
> words in
> this way :-)
[JM]:
I think I did not differentiate between reality and
our perception of reality. I take "our perception" as
a "subjective mindset" ABOUT a really unknowable
reality
>
> > "subjectivity" is not anything you want to be
> true. The simplest
> > example is "Mister X suffered from headache (that
> day)". It could
> > be a subjective reality, for Mister X,
> independently of our current
> > ability to verify that fact.
[JM]:
I take the 'subjective' in a general meaning: whatever
is assignable and adjusted to the "subject" (us) .
Objective on the other side pertains to the 'object'
to which we have no direct access except for our
information (I would leave alone Mr X's headache).
I see a hard-to-adjust dichotomy in calling Mr. X's
subjective headache (not the 'causal background Lee
mentioned) an (objective?) reality.
>
> That is one way to speak, and an efficient one for
> daily use,
> but in a careful discussion, it's more productive to
> focus on
> the objective facts of the situation: Mister X
> complains of a
> headache, and there are undoubtedly physical
> processes going
> on in his brain that account for this.
>
> (True, we can also extend sympathy by believing it
> to be utterly
> true that he is experiencing pain, but I think that
> John and I
> (and many) are simply not comfortable with
> introducing a "reality",
> namely, "subjective reality" to cover this simple
> situation.)
>
> Lee
Thanks
John
>
>
Received on Mon Aug 08 2005 - 15:47:40 PDT