I don;t even pretend to understand all (or even much) of the math involved in the above posts. So I decided to look for something a little more oriented to the layman and found this video.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1443386

The first few minutes are intrductory blah-blah, Next the presenter goes in to some political rhetoric which may be interesting to some. Then, about 20 minutes into the presentation he starts getting into the scientific meat. That lasts for about half an hour or so. Following that is a sort of comparison of some political rhetoric against some scientific data in an effort to show how the political factors have influenced the disemination of accurate data to the public. And he ends up with some Q&A.

For those interested strictly in the scientific data, I would recommend watching the half-hour or so from about 20:00 to about 50:00. And for some very revealing political insights, from about 50:00 to about 1:10:00.

I’d like to separate out what I see as being three separate and distinct factors relating to this question…

1) The personal belief systems of individuals regarding spirituality or godhood – e.g. “I believe I have an immortal soul” or “I believe in God”
2) The doctrines that assert specific requirements of a belief system regarding spirituality or godhood – e.g. the Bible or the Koran
3) The organizations and/or groups that are composed of individuals who share common beliefs regarding spirituality or godhood.

The questions that come to mind are…

If only one person believes in spirituality or godhood, does that constitute a religion?

If one asserts the intentions or purposes of god, does that constitute a religion,?

If a group/individual believes in “spirit”, but does not believe in “god”, does that constitute religion?

If religion is defined as being a group/organization, what common beliefs/doctrines are required in order to qualify as a religion?

I see the word “religion” thrown about, but often used to mean widely different things.

So what, exactly, is “religion”?

Jeannie makes a good point. I was thinking along the same lines.

And to make it even simpler...

I'm walking through the forest and I find a gun.

Is that gun evidence?

I'm walking through the forest and I find a dead body.

Is that body evidence?

Take that Al Gore!

I really don't feel like editing that whole post to replace "wineglass" with "wineglass projection" or "holographic image", in the appropriate places, just to avoid semantic based arguments.

So theoretically, the blind man could “objectively” determine that the sighted man could perceive things the blind man could not perceive.

But that doesn’t offer any objective evidence of the existence of the image of the wineglass.

Yes, he has objective evidence of a “fifth sense” in others. But he does not have objective evidence of the existence of the holographic image.

(double post - maybe the rabbit hole is a Klein Bottle with no bottom and you end up right where you started.)

Ditto. I'm always interested in what's at the bottom - if there is any bottom.

So I'll take both pills if you please.

As much as I would love to go out and watch this, it is raining and predicted to be overcast here for the next several days. Not to mention that it's colder than...well..it's cold out.

I once went to the Exploratorium in San Francisco where they had demonstrations of holography.

Sitting on a pedestal there appeared to be a wine glass. When I reached out to touch it, I could not. My hand passed right through it.

In other words, my sense of touch could not detect the wine glass. But my sense of sight could detect it.

Now consider this from the perspective of a blind man...

As far as he’s concerned, there is no evidence of the existence of the wine glass. He simply cannot detect it by any means.

So where does that put the notion of “objective evidence”?

In this hypothetical situation, the “objective evidence” is entirely dependent on the abilities of the observer.

In other words, unless the blind man agrees with some explanation put forth by the sighted person, there is no basis or reason for accepting the existence of the wineglass. (Note that accepting the sighted man’s explanations, must be done on pure faith alone.)

So in this situation, what would constitute “objectivity” on the part of the blind man?

Would denial of the existence of the wineglass be considered an “objective” position? (There is, after all, no evidence.)

Would acceptance of the existence of the wineglass be considered an “objective” position? (This would have to be done on pure faith alone, since there is no evidence.)

Would assuming that the existence of the wineglass was unknowable be considered an “objective” position? (This would mean that “knowability” would have to be entirely subjective – i.e. based on the capabilities of the observer.)

Or is it even possible for the blind man to be objective about the wineglass at all?


Of course we could just fall back on the reliability of the perception of the sighted person and say that the wineglass exists regardless of whether or not the blind man can perceive it. But note that that position really has no more intrinsic merit than falling back on the reliability of the blind man and saying that the wineglass doesn’t exist, regardless of whether or not the sighted man can perceive it.

At least one of us did catch it but decided that it was not important enough to make a big issue out of, since it was only being used as an illustration and was not the point of the post.

I don’t mean to “quote mine” here, by splitting up your paragraphs. But I see this last statement as being critical to the issue.

If I understand correctly, the “error” you speak of here is judged by the objective standard.

That is, the “objective” data doesn’t align with the “subjective” data. So we decide that one or the must be erroneous. And since you said “subjective error”, then it must be the “objective” standard that is being used to determine error.

Now going back to your statement “You are saying that before the data gathered can be tested “objectively” that agreement must be made on the terms and conditions that would qualify as an objective test. Is that correct?”: Yes, that is correct.

Which means that the “error”, and its “proof”, can be no more and no less a result of agreement than the standard that is used to determine them.

In other words, the only basis we have for asserting that the subjective is in error, is the agreement regarding the objective standard. Were it not for that agreement, there would be no means of determining error.

You could say it that way. But to me it puts the emphasis in the wrong place. Here’s how I would say it: “The terms/definitions and conditions surrounding the methods used requires agreement, and that agreement defines what constitutes objectivity.”

Yes, I agree that we are close to agreement on this, And yes, you got it right.

And I want to thank you for taking the time and putting forth the effort to understand.
IMHO that is a rare quality indeed.

Well you beat me to it. As I awoke this morning I was thinking that I wish I could have gone back in time and talked myself out of replying as I did. Whatever your intention - whether or not I interpreted it correctly - my reply did nothing but exacerbate the problem.

So I accept your apology and offer mine to you. I'm sorry.

And on the other hand. your misunderstanding of my philosophy, combined with that pop psychology evaluation of me personally, indicates to me that your opinions have been so intractably cemented that it is impossible for you to acknowledge that any opinion that does not agree with yours should ever be considered as having any merit.

So are we even now?

Well, let’s examine the difference between “perceiving it” and “not perceiving it” in the same terms.

If it is true that all perception exists as nothing but mental state, then the difference between “perceiving it” and “not perceiving it” is only a difference in mental state. The thing perceived doesn’t appear and disappear any more than the mental state appears and disappears.

I never intended to suggest that “nothing exists outside of a subjective ‘mental’ state”. I do not believe that “there can be no ‘others’”. And I thought that was implicit in my statements about agreement (ref: “…agreement, which necessitates two subjective viewpoints.”)

I simply differentiate between “other viewpoints” and “other objects”.

That’s not the way I see it.

There is nothing in the concept of “all methodologies must be subjective” that necessarily excludes heuristics or prediction or competently and confidently interact with the material world.

If all methodologies are subjective, then that makes heuristics and prediction and competently and confidently interacting with the material world subjective processes as well.

There appears to be some miscommunication here. As I said above, I am “granting existence” to other. Both “other viewpoints” and “other objects”. That is implicit in the requirement for agreement.

Another subject/self.

If that is so, then this is not a philosophical discussion, but a scientific one. And from that perspective, I would have to agree with everything you’ve said – and bow out of the conversation.

Not so. Never did I say that objects don’t exist or interact with our physical realm. (But that’s not even really a statement I understand very well. Objects are our physical realm and they do interact. To deny that would be to deny the agreement.)

Yes, and that methodology is agreed upon as being the definition for objectivity. It is really saying that “we agree that ‘this’ is what we will call ‘objective’ and ‘that’ is what we will call ‘subjective’”. And in the final analysis, what we call it is based on agreement.

Very good question.

I didn’t really have a particular idea in mind that I was trying to support other than something along the lines of “To each his own”.

Or maybe to align it with the thread topic, “Evidence is in the eye of the beholder.”

Actually, I wasn’t trying to “support a position” so much as “present a viewpoint” (or “frame of reference”). The very viewpoint itself is somewhat anethema to “supporting a position”. By it’s very nature it says that all positions are just as valid as all other positions because “validity” itself is dependent on a frame of reference.

And that’s not to deny that I ever get involved in “supporting a position”. It is blatantly obvious, from many of my posts in these forums, that I do. But in my own mind, that is more of an “exercise in honing my communication skills” than anything else.

Wow. That was quite a while back. I had to search out that thread to see what I said there.

I have had this viewpoint for a few decades, so I'd have to say that virtually everything I've ever said regarding philosophy in this forum has been an offshoot of my basic philosophy, which includes the ideas I presented in that post.

So yes, I have held this viewpoint for a long time. It's just that sometimes I do a better job of stringing ideas together in a way that communicates well to others.

And I really have to acknowledge several people in this forum for presenting arguments that helped me refine the details and consequences of some of my own ideas. Particularly Creative and Bushi for "keeping me honest" and Jeannie and Abra for offering alternative views that closely align with mine and which force me to think about the differences and why I hold hold to them.

Cheers to all.

Well thank you kindly sir.

Other than that little Nobel Prize thing, Fenynman's got nuthin' on me!

First off, I don't "renounce and/or ridicule the term objective". Not sure how you got that idea, but I think it may have been because of the irony comment. Well no "denouncement and/or ridicule" was intended. The intention was only to point out that objectivity itself is a subjective construct.

------------------

There is "self" and "other". "Self" is the subjective and "other" is the objective.

Now when we attempt to discuss things "objectively", we have no choice but to start with the subjective. That is, “self” observes/perceives "other". That is where it all starts.

But that perception/observation is not "other". It is at best a copy of something that came from “other”.

For example, we say we “see” a ball. But we are not actually seeing the ball, we are seeing light that is coming from the ball. We then interpret (subjective) that particular arrangement of light waves as “ball”.

So at best, the only truly objective thing we really have to work with is the light itself, not the ball.

But if we continue with that same deconstructive process, we proceed from the light waves, to the rods and cones in the eye, to the electro-chmical signals generated by those rods and cones, to … what? That’s the end of it. We get down to electro-chemical interactions and that’s the end of the line.

So from a purely objective viewpoint then, we can only conclude that the subjective does not exist.

And where does that leave “objective evidence”?

Well, the logical conclusion is that there is nothing but objective evidence and there is really nothing left to evaluate the objective evidence. So the objective evidence must be evaluating itself.

But then if “that which is being evaluated” is identical to “that which is evaluating”, then attempting to differentiate between the two is a fallacy.

Bottom line is that, if we attempt to use a purely objective approach, we end up with nothing but a circular, self-referencing system in which there is nothing to do the evaluating – i.e. no subjective at all. In other words, there is no “self” – only “other”.

So what’s the alternative?

Well we can leave it at that and give up on the whole concept of “subjective” completely.

Or we can pick some arbitrary point and say “and then a miracle occurs” and subjectivity just pops into existence by majick.

Or we can start from the “subjective” and work outward.

If we postulate that there is an “evaluator”, then all evaluations must be subjective. They cannot be anything else.

So what I’m saying is that objectivity itself is a subjective construct and the only thing that makes something “objective” is agreement, which necessitates two subjective viewpoints.

I’m not saying that “all methodologies are subjective”. I’m only saying that what we label as “objective” requires two subjective viewpoints being in agreement, as opposed to what we label “purely subjective”, which is a single subjective viewpoint with no requirement for agreement.

Now relating that to “evidence”, we can see that objective evidence requires agreement. Without that agreement, it is not “objective”. All "evidence" remains subjective unless and until agreement occurs.

And this is why I continually keep harping on the idea that no methodology is any more inherently valid than any other methodology. The most that can be said is that some methodology has more agreement than another.

And that’s not even to say that agreement can’t be considered a measure of validity either. In fact, agreement really is what determines validity in the final analysis. “Peer review” is a perfect example.

Ok, that's cool with me.

Now I am not sure what the proposition was that you gave Abra, so I'm not sure where to go from here.

I'll follow your lead.