| Theory |
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An Emperor of the Subjective May 21, 2004 by RedStar2000 |
This is a brief collection of posts against the philosophical speculation that reality is and must inherently be "subjective".
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Actually, religion can be defined as having 'faith' in something, as opposed to science where everything, including your own existence, is a factor of 'probability'.
Well, it's true in a sense that science assigns "probability" to descriptions of nature...but those numbers are based on evidence, not just "beliefs".
The probability that the earth is an oblate spheroid is 1 (certainty) -- it's been measured.
On the basis of existing (lack of) evidence, the probability that the supernatural exists is 0 -- impossible!
Those are not "beliefs", much less "religious beliefs". They are simple statements of fact.
The evidence in support of the Marxist hypothesis of proletarian revolution is, to be frank, pretty fragmentary. Assigning a number would be arbitrary and probably useless; would it help matters if we could say that proletarian revolution has a probability of 0.97? Or hurt matters, if it was only 0.03?
We want a revolution because we want to abolish wage-slavery and get rid of the parasites that oppress and exploit us. That's a desire that is in our self-interest.
We don't need a number to justify that.
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...for those claiming that Jesus "couldn't be a communist because communism wasn't *defined* back then" - do you seriously imagine that communists in two thousand years time will have the same definition of 'communism' as you do?
Who knows? But we do have a contemporary definition...and by that definition, "Jesus" doesn't "measure up" or even get close.
The people who plague this board with "Jesus was a communist" crapola simply don't have a clue about what modern communist ideas really are.
Neither did "Jesus".
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First posted at Che-Lives on May 8, 2004
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However evidence is once again depending upon your beliefs - flat earthers have evidence of there being a flat earth, at least in their minds --- just because you probably hold the majority opinion (in which camp I put myself also), does not mean you are more 'scientific' in your beliefs, nor less religious.
Objective reality does not depend on the numbers of people who perceive it accurately; the earth would not be flat even if it were the universal human conviction that such was the case.
Nor does it depend on word-play.
You are simply inserting the word "belief" (with its religious connotations) into every positive or negative statement about anything.
That's horseshit!
Why? Because it provides you with a "rationale" for concluding that since "everything" is a "belief" "therefore" all beliefs are "equal".
That's horseshit "piled high and deep"!
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Have you never heard of the term "secular religion"?
At tedious length. One of the standard godsucker "arguments" is that Marxism is "a secular religion" or science is "a secular religion".
More word-play. More horseshit!
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But once again it comes down to faith - you have *faith* that those instruments measuring the earth are accurate; you have faith that your mind is working correctly and you are not hallucinating that evidence.
Or that we're not all "brains in vats".
Or any other fantasy that you might wish to make up.
The human imagination is fertile; it can create an enormous number of "reasons" to avoid facing objective reality.
The reasons are always bad!
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See - 'facts' are open to interpretation, and reinterpretation - at least in science.
Yes, indeed they are. But they remain facts. There's no way to "re-interpret" a claim of "resurrection of the dead" into a fact.
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...hey, it's a free world for all religious beliefs.
Not for much longer.
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I would say that part of my religious belief is to remove the burden of oppression and wage-slavery, and that such is in everyone's best self-interest...however I recognise that that belief is *religious* in nature, at least in my belief structure it is...
But then you have to acknowledge the "right" of others to have opposing "religious belief structures" -- the Christian belief that "slaves must obey their masters", for example.
If "everything" is a matter of "belief", who are you to say which one is "right"?
There "is no right or wrong" about "belief", right?
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Actually, it is very hard to say [what] Jesus did or did not say, and what was written that he did or did not say, and who did or did not write those 'gospels'...so much so that all we *can* do if we require to be scientific is to say that [it] is conjecture on our part.
Well, that depends. There is a large body of biblical scholarship that attempts to "pin down" a lot of that stuff...with a probability of being accurate that is greater than zero and less than one.
One can, if one wishes, take a position of "total agnosticism" on such efforts, of course.
Ultimately, no one except a small number of scholars will really care.
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Perhaps the 'real' Jesus was Marx in a previous incarnation...
Probability: 0
There's no reliable evidence that there's any such thing as "reincarnation".
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Your beliefs are as equally true to you as others beliefs are to them. And very importantly - vice versa.
That which is subjectively true is "therefore" objectively true.
More horseshit!
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Many indeed highlight the early Christian communities by referring [to] them as specifically "early communism", or "primitive communism"...
Yes, another godsucker clichι based on a few scraps from the "Acts of the Apostles".
But the fact of the matter is that only one such "community" is specifically described as "having all things in common" -- the Jerusalem church -- and we know that church was wiped out in 70CE. Although Saul of Tarsus ("St. Paul") both visited and described a sizable number of "Christian communities" throughout the Roman world, he never refers to any of them as "having all things in common". Quite the contrary; the early Christian communities apparently included both masters and their slaves...and there was never any injunction given to Christian masters that they had any moral obligation to free their Christian slaves. Instead, Christian slaves were specifically enjoined to serve and obey their masters...even non-Christian masters.
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We have so far collected no evidence of life in the Delta-Pavonis solar systems - does that 'prove' it doesn't exist?
The question is a "new one"...so it's far too early to say, one way or the other.
The assertions of the superstitious (in varying forms) have been around for all of recorded history...and never have they come up with anything worth a shit in the way of real evidence.
They've had 60 or 70 centuries to "deliver the goods" and come up empty.
It's time to close the book.
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What do you *mean* by the term "supernatural"?
I use it in the normal "common sense" meaning of the word -- an "invisible" realm inhabited by "powerful entities" that for unknowable "reasons" "interact" with the real world...usually altering or suspending (temporarily) the operation of natural laws; also in the sense of a "final dwelling place" for human consciousness after the death of the material body.
You know, the usual crapola.
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First posted at Che-Lives on May 9, 2004
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Hmm.. I thought communism was about freedom...
Freedom is an abstraction. You always have to ask yourself freedom for who? To do what?
Remember Ronald Reagan's famous aphorism "America shall always be a country where we have the freedom to get rich"?
Well, no, it will not "always be".
Likewise, if "freedom of superstition" ranks "high" in your "belief structure", then communism is not for you. You'd hate it! It would seem to you like an "intolerable tyranny"...and it would be. What you hold to be "sacred" would be an object of public ridicule and contempt.
Accordingly, I extend the same invitation to you (and all godsuckers): abandon superstition or move on over to Opposing Ideologies...because, in reality, you are opposed to communism.
Communism means freedom from superstition.
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First posted at Che-Lives on May 9, 2004
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You appear to hold the notion that the universe exists outside the perception of those immersed in it - this is another of those outdated notions from Victorian times...
And worse, not only is it "out there" but it's knowable.
How "Victorian" of me! *Laughs*
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If you don't want to read and understand difficult (sorry - bourgeois) quantum theory...
At this point, no one "understands" quantum theory...it just seems to be the way things are at the sub-atomic level. There are at least eight different "schools" of thought which attempt to "explain" what's really going on; mathematically, they are all equivalent.
Still, that's not going to help you as much as you think it will; the "observer effect" can only be detected at the macro-level through enormously sophisticated experiments.
If you "believe" that the moon would not exist if there were no humans or other organisms with eyes to perceive it...
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You are assuming I regard all beliefs as subjective, and therefore equal?
It is logically consistent with your expressed views...in fact, I see no way that you could possibly argue otherwise.
Even if you "believed" that some "beliefs" were "better" than others (on what grounds?), someone else could easily respond with a contrary view: his "beliefs" are "better" than yours. A third party could then respond in the same way...and none of you could ever resolve the conflict by appeal to the real world.
The real world is "only what you think it is"...and may even be "completely illusory".
By your (absurd) standards, why couldn't we all be "brains in vats"? Or "dreams" in the "mind" of "God"? *Laughs*
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Are you sure you're in the right century?
Why would someone who is utterly divorced from time and space altogether be curious about that kind of trivia? Don't we all "exist" in whatever century that we subjective "believe" that we exist in?
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There is no such thing as "objective reality", there is a reality that incorporates subject and object.
That's what you "believe" and "therefore" it "must be true".
No.
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Thank you for reminding me why I so dislike marxism.
I don't think you need any reminders.
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Just because beliefs are subjective does NOT make all beliefs equal in value.
No, your "beliefs" are "better". Why? Because they're yours!
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I can't be bothered to take this one [reincarnation]. But you're wrong, BTW.
That's ok. Catch me in my "next life". *Laughs*
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As many highly respected scientists have pointed out, a far enough advanced technology will seem like 'superstition' to lesser advanced societies, i.e., radio transmissions, flight, guns - all seem impossible to stone age civilisations.
Quite. It was Arthur C. Clarke who actually said it: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
So do you wish to maintain that what people have regarded as "supernatural" was (is?) really the "work" of highly advanced "space aliens" visiting our primitive planet?
I sort of thought you might be a UFO-nut as well. Going to bring up Atlantis or Mu next?
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redstar is a marxist - NOT a communist.
Curious. That would imply that Marx himself was "NOT a communist", wouldn't it?
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Wealth does not have to be defined alongside others poverty.
When you are "Emperor of the Subjective", you can "define" things any way you like.
The real world is irrelevant...and may not even exist at all.
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I would never support a theory that didn't have freedom at its core - freedom for *all*, not just vanguards, or proletarians.
Yes, freedom for slaves and freedom for slave-masters.
But wait! To a slave-master, his most important freedom is the freedom to own slaves.
Your "belief" in "freedom for all" makes no sense in the real world...not that you would care or even notice.
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Can it be said that "redstar", or "I", truly exists?
Redstar exists. In your case, what possible difference would it make?
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First posted at Che-Lives on May 19, 2004
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As quantum mechanics has taught us, observer and observed cannot be separated, and the result of observations will depend on their interaction.
Left something out, didn't you?
Come on...think!
At the quantum (sub-atomic) level!
Large atoms have actually been photographed. They look "fuzzy". That's not because they're "out of focus", that "fuzziness" is the remnant of quantum uncertainty.
Long before you reach anything large enough to even see with the naked eye, the uncertainties cancel each other out and the object behaves independently of the observer.
There have been some very elaborate experiments to demonstrate the observer effect at the macro level...but in the normal course of events, we never notice it. It's too unimaginably tiny to make any difference.
We can observe objective phenomena "as if" it were completely independent of us and get the right answer. Or at least an answer that's close enough to being right as to make no measurable difference.
Your example of "meta-cybernetics" is really irrelevant. Who would contest the proposition that someone constructing a model of a system would bring their own preconceptions to the construction of that model? Or that those preconceptions might interfere with the construction of a correct model?
But if you want to argue that the system being observed independently alters itself as a consequence of the observer's preconceptions so as to "fit" the model "better"...that is "first order" metaphysical nonsense.
The macro-system is not sentient...it has no way of "knowing" that it's being observed unless the observer physically interferes with it.
Only at the "quantum level" can you change things by (apparently) just looking at them.
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This is for redstar and other marxist materialist objectivists. Read and weep, ye Victorian fanatics, read and weep.
My eyes remain dry.
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First posted at Che-Lives on May 22, 2004
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Could God in fact exist within one's individual mind, and not that of an objective reality?
Could elves exist within one's individual mind and not that of an objective reality?
You can imagine the existence of anything you like...but you cannot expect anyone to take your imagination seriously unless there is objective evidence to support your contention.
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Throughout history mankind has hosted the belief in God or gods. Who are we to deny history? Who are we to deny the observed desire for answers, comfort, and morals?
We are communists...who insist that history be explained in a rational fashion, that answers be proven to be true, that comfort be real and not fake, and that morals make sense.
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Should we deny each human individual thought, perception, and interpretation?
That's something that literally cannot be denied to any individual. What can be withheld is agreement or approval of what comes out of each individual's mouth.
And we do that, of course, all the time.
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Do we, as humans, have a dying need for an answer? Do we have a need for a truth? Do we have a desire to attain all knowledge, and therefore not live in such a blank?
You puffed this up quite a bit...but yes, knowing is better than not knowing.
But you really have to know...not just "believe".
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Do we not seek comfort, and knowing that in the end everything is "better"?
We do before we grow up, that's true. And a great many people never manage to do that -- grow up, that is. Class society has a marked tendency to "infantilize" people.
One of the discoveries of maturity is that the universe is not "made" for our pleasure, convenience, or comfort.
Those who wish to believe otherwise are simply deluding themselves...being childish.
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I believe that mankind has a fear of the unknowing, and in this fear we reach for comfort. Religion provides us with this comfort.
Fear of the unknown is a de facto admission that the universe is indifferent to our fate.
But the "comfort" that religion "provides" is fake! It is ignorance in the costume of "knowledge".
When real knowledge becomes an option, religion retreats in confusion and dismay...or calls for the executioner!
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Take the term God, and place it on an individual level. A level that each
individual is entitled to believe in themselves.
Why bother? A "god" for each "individual person" can provide no "comfort" at all...only a great big all-powerful GOD! "can rearrange the universe" so that everything "turns out for the best".
A puny little individual "god" probably can't even change water into wine.
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Thought is the only proof of existence. So why can thought not represent the existence of another thought?
Because while the ability to think is sufficient to prove that you exist, that's all it can prove.
It can't prove anything else by itself; it has to confront objective reality in some fashion to verify any thoughts it may have about anything else besides its own existence.
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Therefore how can we deny the thought of yet another individual?
We can't...until s/he speaks to us of what s/he has thought. When s/he does that, then we can compare that thought to objective reality and see if it "makes sense" or not.
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Knowing this, how can anyone deny the interpretation of another individual?
Effortlessly.
Me: I think you should be my slave!
You: Go fuck yourself, asshole!
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Therefore, who is anyone to deny the belief in another's God?
Anyone capable of rational thought can do it easily. Objective reality has failed to reveal any evidence of supernatural entities. Therefore, there are no gods...and if someone insists that there are, they have only revealed their incapacity (or unwillingness) to apply rational thought to the matter.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
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First posted at Che-Lives on May 26, 2004
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Do you consider yourself in any way a subjectivist?
Certainly not in the sense of any coherent "world-view".
I wouldn't deny that there is, unavoidably, a "subjective" aspect to everything that we think...but I don't think we should give it any kind of "priority".
On the contrary, whenever we can, we should "check" our subjective impressions against objective reality...and see how we do.
A "good match" means that what we think is no longer subjective...it's real. A poor match suggests the opposite...we were wrong.
And, as you know, I hate being wrong.
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First posted at Che-Lives on May 26, 2004
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How can we deny the history of mankind? How can we deny the history of billions upon billions of individuals that have believed in such a wide range of "Gods". Whether it be ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Aztecs, native tribes of any region in any point of time, et cetera. How can we, especially you, deny that throughout time we as humans have hosted the belief in the supernatural?
But what conclusion can be reasonably drawn from this history?
That the supernatural exists "because" people have "always" thought so?
Or that the material conditions of humanity -- including its restless search for explanations of those conditions -- have always led humans to postulate supernatural explanations for lack of anything better?
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Whether organized religion crumbles, I believe that a thought of such as "God" will exist throughout man.
Well, it's clearly dying in the most advanced countries and one can only assume that trend will continue as well as "kick in" as other countries advance.
In my opinion, religion will be a "dead issue" by 2500 or sooner and may even be regarded as a distasteful subject that one does not bring up in polite company...like cannibalism or the state of one's bowels.
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And most surely many individuals do agree, as do many individuals agree upon subjectivism. I have never denied the sharing of beliefs, or agreement, even being subjective. This is allowed, however this does not refute that each individual interprets things for themselves.
I suspect an impasse is looming. Yes, we all make individual interpretations of reality...but some "make more sense" than others. The person who sincerely believes that the earth is flat is confounded with actual photographs that show otherwise. All he can do is claim that the photographs are "fakes".
Which I think is inevitable in the consistently subjectivist approach; when objective reality refutes a subjective opinion, the subjectivist must begin inventing increasingly complex fantasies to explain the discrepancy.
When it became clear that the age of the earth was far greater than the Christian "Bible" maintained, some clergymen suggested that "God" had "faked the evidence" in order to "test our faith".
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So while you may know that we physically die, someone may not believe that our thought dies with it.
It doesn't matter what they might "believe". All of the available evidence supports the hypothesis that conscious thought is a product of electro-chemical changes in a complex form of matter (the brain).
When that brain dies, the electro-chemical changes cease to take place.
Therefore, our thought dies along with our brain.
Someone can refuse to accept that evidence, of course. But it won't keep them "alive" after they've died.
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Really, how do we know anything other than what our individual mind has perceived it to be?
A thought does need a physical brain to think it...but that says nothing about the objective validity of that thought.
If you ingest an appropriate dose of LSD, for example, you "see" a very different world than you do normally. Has the world changed? Or has your subjective perception been altered in a dysfunctional way?
If you are stricken with blindness, has the sun gone out?
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If I feel comfortable in this world, why then would I deny that it was not designed for comfort?
You might not...until something crappy happened to you.
Something crappy always happens. No one leads "a charmed life".
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However does the individual not have the right to believe otherwise?
But do I not "have a right" to contest that belief? In fact, if I think it's a really bad belief, do I not have the right to take up arms against it?
If someone "believes" that they have the right to enslave me, do I not have the right to kill them?
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Really this individual god represents a slight form of insanity if you'd like to call it, however [it] is still an individual thought.
To the extent that we use the word "insanity" to describe a severe departure from objective reality, I think religion qualifies.
A consistent subjectivist would, I think, deny the very existence of insanity. Individual perception and thought is "all there is" and no individual can objectively be preferred to any other.
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Can you prove thought is an objective reality?
Sure. We have brain scans of people when they are asked to think about particular things...and the electro-chemical actions are actually (if crudely) visible.
There's still a long way to go, no question about it.
But we're on our way.
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Can you physically compare a thought?
I can't nor can anyone now. But ask around in a century or so.
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Thought is incomparable to anything in this physical world. If you disagree, show me this thought.
If we did a brain-scan of you while you were typing your post, you'd be able to see the physical signs of your thought while you were thinking.
Not the thoughts themselves, but the physical events that were taking place creating your thoughts.
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Therefore what makes another individual wrong?
Objective reality. The person who "survives on horoscopes" will come to grief because there's no objective reality behind astrology.
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So while we think Fascism is insane, immoral, and outright ignorant; most fascists do not.
Who's right? Whose interpretation of reality is better?
The subjectivist cannot answer that question.
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However subjectivism is the acceptance of the individual, and each individual as an individual, each individual thought as such, et cetera.
But what obligates me to accept that position? How is it useful to me...or even healthy?
The Nazi wouldn't care if I "accepted" his "individual right" to be a Nazi. He would still kill me unless I agreed to be a Nazi myself.
I have nothing to gain by acceptance of subjectivism and a lot to lose.
Like my life.
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So another may not believe that an objective reality exists, and this person is entitled to that belief.
Why? That dummy's disbelief in objective reality may only endanger himself...and that's ok. But suppose he endangers me? Or merely inconveniences me? Or just annoys me?
Why should I put up with it...or him?
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It is selfish to deny another of an equal belief.
So I'm selfish...big deal.
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First posted at Che-Lives on May 27, 2004
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quote:
If someone is blind, which is currently the case for millions, the sun has not gone out for you or I. However above this, one would have to prove the existence of a sun before proving that any such sun has gone "out".
I think the impasse that I saw coming has arrived.
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This is why one must forget proclaiming that subjectivism is the final "truth", as this is contradicting the theory of subjectivism.
The import is that we can know nothing but that we exist (if that!).
The point has been made by others that "radical skepticism", if carried far enough, "bites its own tail".
I think you've reached that point.
I suspect that in your daily life you do not actually live by the philosophy you've advanced in these posts -- you "provisionally" accept the existence of objective reality just in order to survive.
The only practical consequence of your views then becomes a kind of "universal tolerance" for all other views...because no one can really know what is true or not. Or if what you perceive as reality really even exists or not.
It does call into question your presence here, on this board. On what rational grounds could you take an interest in radical politics, or any politics?
None of it can be shown, in your eyes, to be true...or even real. As you put it, "it is all in the mind".
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Being subjectivist does not mean that I must disagree with every objective reality.
But there's no reason why you couldn't. It may be more convenient for you to pretend to accept the conventions of accepted behavior...but there's no objective reality that compels you to do so.
Even your appeal to "history" to "justify" religion is illegitimate...by the subjectivist premise, history could just as well be a bunch of fiction that humans have made up to amuse one another.
Someone on the board whose knowledge of philosophy is greater than mine (and there are several of you!) can correct me if I'm wrong about this: the path of subjectivism ends in solipsism.
Not much of a place to live...and even visiting is rather unpleasant.
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First posted at Che-Lives on May 29, 2004
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