h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My 'belief' - if I can call it that - is that I think all god myths have value and lots of what can be learned from them end up being quite real things. I'm also being taught about 'god in mathematics' on another thread - which may also be true. I don't keep my personal god in a church or within any constructs - I am always willing and interested to learn more about this. You see, I also don't believe that I know all there is to know about my personal concept of god. If that concept wants to expand itself when I learn new stuff, then I'm all for it. Me and Fred - we go way back. We're not afraid of learning new stuff together.

az

Jem:

PC:

Jem:

OK, the unabridged version. I would doubt that any one person could or would hold both views to be correct. But one view might be considered right by one person, and the other by another. Because there is - nor can therebe, I suspect - no conclusive proof or disproof of either view, neither can be considered 'wrong', can it? Thus we can say that both are right, in the sense that neither one is wrong.

Fnord:

It isn't a definition. It's a statement.

Fnord:

Yes, it is true independent of the person(s) who believe it, as I said.



You lost me there, I'm afraid.



Now we're getting silly, don't you think?

Az:

Oh yes, *all* of them, I would say!

Nogin:

Ah well, as I said earlier, once you confuse subjective and objective truths, you're on a slippery slope. IMO, to represent a subjective truth (basically, an unsubstantiiated opinion) as an objective truth (a so-called 'fact') should be punishable by death. It is one of the easiest ways to cloud an issue, and prevent any kind of rational conclusion from being drawn.

BtM:

Not so. Once you accept the deliberate misrepresentation of an objective truth as a subjective one - or vice versa - *then* any amount of nonsense becomes valid. Your invisibility ploy was to claim that your visibility - a verifiable objective truth - was in fact a matter of opinion, and that just claiming not to be visible would make it true. Lax logic at the least.

Phew! I've finished ... for now.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Aha! Daylight!

So, P-c, a subjective truth is one which is believed to be a 'truth' but which cannot be proven or disproven. In this category you would fit all religion because the existence of God cannot be proven or disproven.

Do I get the impression that you also believe that the existence of God will never be proven or disproven?

Isn't 'proven or disproven' a long winded phrase? I should have used 'verified' perhaps. Ah well.

F

How can anyone 'verify' God, except within their own subjective beliefs of this concept'

Well, they can't, that's how.

az

It seems like every time there is a batch of new members, that the subjectivity vs objectivity debate pops up. I can vaguely recall a similar discussion when I set foot in here and it crops up regularly.

It's useful though, as it keeps us all on common philosophical ground.

We can't know an objective truth. Our interactions with our environments are entirely subjective, hence we cannot objectively know or verify anything.

Since subjectivity is entirely dependent on one's perspective, any mention of the phrase "subjective truth" should be prefaced with "in my opinion this is a". But this has nothing to do with proof, as you personally may accept something as true without proof.

The closest we can get to objectivity is through the practice of science, where consensus determines an ever changing framework of theories that provide a workable abstract model of the "real" world. That these theories are constantly found to be inaccurate and require further refinement or even completely rewriting, just goes to show how pathetically inadequate our consensus understanding really is.

Whether we can verify god is an entirely different matter, although I think that we might have come close to verifying that god can exist.

What do you think P-C? Have we verified the possibility of god?

hi Madent,

>>It seems like every time there is a batch of new members, that the subjectivity vs objectivity debate pops up. I can vaguely recall a similar discussion when I set foot in here and it crops up regularly<<

Well, since this thread is basically a circular discussion (there are no final answers) then it makes sense that the same topics get recycled. So? Perhaps with each 'new batch of members' you might also get a 'new batch of ideas'. You never know.

az

Fair comment, az. New ideas are what I came here for

Madent,

Don't get me wrong - I didn't say that for myself (big-mouthed girly that I am ) but maybe for others that might have taken your comment badly and then felt like 'it's all been said before so what else can I possibly add?'

Anyhow, nice to hear you are open to new ideas. Me too!

az

Hmmm, not sure. "Gentle Giant are the best 70s band around." is a subjective truth. "God exists, and is a significant part of my life." is too. So is "You can only make a proper cup of tea at sea level."

I don't think it's the proof/disproof thing that defines subjective truths as much as the personal element. If it can be true or right for me, but not for you, then it's probably a subjective truth. If any direct and 'objective' evidence for/against it exists, it probably isn't. Subjective truths are often associated with value judgements.

Bear in mind these - "subjective truth" and "objective truth" - are awkward phrases, whose meaning is not universally accepted. I use them, even though (in another context) I would contend that objectivity is impossible for a human. Nevertheless, I acknowledge that "objective truth" is readily understood (once defined), so I use it.



I do, but I've been wrong before!

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Madent:

Well since we are agreed that there is no *proof* that God doesn't exist, we must accept that there is a possibility of God existing. But does that tell us much? Probably not.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

All it does is get us back to square one. At least it makes people at both sides of the argument feel better!

PC Neither individually can be considered wrong, but if they are mutually exclusive then it must be the case that one of them is wrong. That we have no means of deciding which is quite irrelevant.

They can certainly both be meaningful to their respective holders, of course. But in what sense can life after death, in whatever form, (or indeed its absence) be *just* subjectively true, other than as some form of metaphor? And if it's a metaphor we need to know what it's a metaphor for if we are to pass any sort of comment on its truth.

Noggin

P-c: "Once you accept the deliberate misrepresentation of an objective truth as a subjective one - or vice versa - *then* any amount of nonsense becomes valid. Your invisibility ploy was to claim that your visibility - a verifiable objective truth - was in fact a matter of opinion, and that just claiming not to be visible would make it true. Lax logic at the least."

"God exists" would also be a misrepresentation of an objective truth as a subjective one. If he really exists, then he exists independently of the believer, and if so, his existence should be provable through objective means.

Lax logic, granted. I'm just doing that annoying thing I do where I reflect the argument of the other side.

PC

Noggin:

Noggin! - you're sharper than that! If an individual tried to hold both those views at the same time, I'm sure that the contradiction would cause them problems. Nothing that some strong mind-expanding substance wouldn't ameliorate, but....

However, the 'normal' state of affairs is that I believe one of these views, and you believe the other. In this case we are both right: your belief really *is* true for you, and mine for me. Subjective truths are PERSON-DEPENDENT! Thus there is no contradiction.

If you insist on 'right' and 'wrong', in the logical, scientific sense, then you'd better consider all so-called subjective truths to be wrong, if only because they aren't (usually) true for everyone.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

<...in what sense can life after death, in whatever form, (or indeed its absence) be *just* subjectively true, other than as some form of metaphor?>

Before death, where we are now (most of us! ), life after death cannot be confirmed or denied. [I suppose it *could* be, if we received cast-iron evidence of communication from someone dead, but it hasn't happened so far....] Thus, for the living, life after death is something you believe in, or not.

There is an obvious situation where life after death would and could no longer be just a subjective truth, as you clearly realise. But we aren't in that situation.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Still can't go with that, PC. I think it plays too fast and loose with the idea of truth.

Now I could go with one belief being *right* for one person, and another *right* for someone else, and with the argument that the true/false distinction is not the most appropriate in this situation.

But that two mutually exclusive propositions can both be *true* is still logically false. And some standards must be maintained if meaningful discourse is to be possible.

Noggin

"It seems like every time there is a batch of new members, that the subjectivity vs objectivity debate pops up. I can vaguely recall a similar discussion when I set foot in here and it crops up regularly."

I don't think you can avoid talking about objectivity and subjectivity if you're going to be talking about God, that's probably why it always pops up. That and P-c of course, who likes to talk about it.

"Well since we are agreed that there is no *proof* that God doesn't exist, we must accept that there is a possibility of God existing."

This doesn't follow (unless you define possible to mean not disprovable).

"But that two mutually exclusive propositions can both be *true* is still logically false. And some standards must be maintained if meaningful discourse is to be possible."

Here's a new angle on the distinction between objectivity and subjectivity. The problem is analogous to translation. We're all aware of the difficulty in translating from one language to another language, but in a sense the same thing is going on when two different people read the same sentence in the same language. Each understands it in their own way. This doesn't usually cause a problem because everyday statements are translatable. For extraordinary statements like "God exists" two people's understanding of that statement may not be intertranslatable. This is not to say that they have two different definitions of God though - they may not have any definition of God at all.

I think we normally understand definitions in the wrong way - we think that definitions define something, but often definitions actually model a pre-existing conception. We often discard a definition if the consequences of that definition clash with our internal conception of the thing being defined.

I don't want to define subjectivity and objectivity in terms of translatability, I just want to point out that the distinction between objective and subjective may be similar to the distinction between translatable and untranslatable. Translatability is a relation between a statement and two different languages - similarly there is a relation between a statement and two different people, the relation is whether or not they understand it in the same way. So, instead of thinking of only two possibilities - objectivity and subjectivity - we should be thinking of a whole network of translations between people. This also helps to make sense of the notion of degrees of objectivity, in terms of degrees of translatability since obviously some statements can be more or less accurately rendered in a different language.

<...that two mutually exclusive propositions can both be *true* is still logically false.>

Yes, it is. Luckily, the concept of subjective truth, as we have defined it, is alogical (if that's a word ).

I understand your annoyance at the dilution of the concept of Truth, whose general meaning is that of objective truth. But, if you dig a little deeper, the concept of subjective truth is there, often referred to as a 'matter of opinion', or some similar description.

The distinction between objective and subjective truths is that between subjective and objective. The former is a personal thing, something intimately related to the person or persons concerned. The latter is quite the opposite: impersonal, and not at all dependent upon people. In fact, it is specifically independent of people.

It would be handy to have a term for subjective truth, even if we have to eschew the T-word. Humph!

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

We have one: delusion.

Hi,

I have come new to this thread and am completely, utterly and totally confused!!!

So, what is it actually all about then???

Does God exist??? is there life after death??? or the finer points of
objectivity, subjectivity or even double negatives??? hmmmmmm......

If someone would be so kind as to clarify I would be very greatful!!!





Jane