Freedomain Radio

 Is reality completely subjective, or do we all subjectively perceive an objective reality?

For example, two people could smell a mowed lawn.  One might baulk at the smell while another might enjoy it.  In this instance, both persons are experiencing the same stimulus and phenomenon, but are perceiving it in their own individual way. 

jeen-l-pic:

 Is reality completely subjective, or do we all subjectively perceive an objective reality?

For example, two people could smell a mowed lawn.  One might baulk at the smell while another might enjoy it.  In this instance, both persons are experiencing the same stimulus and phenomenon, but are perceiving it in their own individual way. 

In this case, it would make sense to define "perception." You seem to be using it in two ways here. The first seems to do with sense data, and the second seems to do with preference. Which one is meant?

In this example, whether the two people each like the smell of the mown grass, the grass has still been mown. Reality is independent of their preference. And the senses are valid to take in and process reality - just by definition here.

Am not sure what you're getting at.

Another way of looking at this is to think of the word 'color' - it can either mean 'the color you are seeing', which is to some degree subjective -- or, it can mean 'wavelength', which is objective...

Smelling the mowed lawn is not necessarily an experience of reality, but an experience of nature and/or the natural world.  Philosophers do these crazy things.  There are definitions of (1) reality, (2) nature, (3) existence, and (4) truth --  and all of them differ!

When I took philosophy, the professor asked us to raise our hands if we think "God exists".  Then he told us, "you know God cannot exist, that is impossible.....  the important question is whether God is real."

It turns out, correct me if I'm wrong, if reality is completely subjective, then there is no such thing as reality.    What you are asking is whether nature is subjective, either on the whole, or just in our perception of it.   But there is a third option besides complete subjectivity, and mere subjective perception:  There is the possibility that nature is entirely objective, and that error is possibly the nature of the beast.  In scientific naturalism, all sensory inputs are "objectively true", but sometimes they are misinterpreted by our brains due to limited capacity, quantum jitter, or other yet-undiscovered causes.  Our experience of smelling the lawn can be an objective result.  We differ in our experience because we are prone to limited (theoretically measurable) amounts of innate deviation.  Even differences in perception need not be subjective.

RestoringGuy:

Smelling the mowed lawn is not necessarily an experience of reality, but an experience of nature and/or the natural world.  Philosophers do these crazy things.  There are definitions of (1) reality, (2) nature, (3) existence, and (4) truth --  and all of them differ!

I do not see how you can separate "nature" from "reality" in this circumstance. The lawn either exists in reality or it does not. "Nature" is not a special sort of reality. If the lawn does not exist in reality, one cannot reasonably be said to be smelling the mown lawn.

 Is reality completely subjective, or do we all subjectively perceive an objective reality?

Neither of the above.

Reality is objective and obeys persistent causal laws, many of which we have discovered. The cause and effect that rules billard balls striking one another also rules your senses. All sensations and feelings are correct, in so far as they follow the law of cause and effect. And nothing further of them is required or desired. They are the messanger not the message.

It is a fact that we humans do not have the same sensor nets as bees and rabbits and dogs and bats and dolphins and hawks. We also lack, by biological nature, amazing inorganic sensor nets such as radar. Indeed, from one person to another there is variation in our sensory nets. But none of this undermines the fact that our senses and our feelings are the perfect equal and opposite reactions to the stimulus of objective reality.

These objective sensations then pass over into perceptions. This is primarily a mental task but also a biological one because while we can train ourselves through habit to like and dislike sensations it is also true that we are born in the first place to prefer some things. We like sweet things, we dislike smoke in our eyes and being yelled at. But all of this is subject to rehabituation, one can learn to turn pleasure into pain and pain into pleasure. You cannot control senses this way, the cause and effect signals will still go on, but your perceptions are subject to habit and rehabituation. Some changes should be made, others (like aversion to being burned) should be left as nature intended. The determination of what to change and what not is proscribed by rational goals. The result is a perception framework that is objective in fact, explained either by evolutionary or personal history or by deliberate action.

Therefore, in no sense is reality subjective and nor are our perceptions subjective.

I noticed you included a second person in your example of the mowed lawn, you don't even need that. All you need is you. You can never perceive the same object the exact same way twice. Yet you still navigate the world like obstacles exist, so much for subjectivity.

Charlotte:

I do not see how you can separate "nature" from "reality" in this circumstance. The lawn either exists in reality or it does not. "Nature" is not a special sort of reality. If the lawn does not exist in reality, one cannot reasonably be said to be smelling the mown lawn.

I used to think so!  But there is reality which can be confirmed by logic, and not observation.  For instance, the Pythagorean Theorem is real.  Yet the actual triangles, as described in mathematics, cannot exist in nature.  But they are still real, because they are "unchanging forms".  This stuff goes back to Plato.  Reality is absolute, whereas nature changes with the passage of time. 

I am not skilled in advanced philosophy, but I know philosophers keep reality and nature distinctly defined, even if the two share some common properties and/or entities.  Fortunately in the sciences we do not use the word "reality".  Such a concept is even more abstract than string theory.  We live with a wealth of truth and fantasy, and often inconsistent use of terminology makes it impossible to distinguish.

RestoringGuy:

 

Charlotte:

I do not see how you can separate "nature" from "reality" in this circumstance. The lawn either exists in reality or it does not. "Nature" is not a special sort of reality. If the lawn does not exist in reality, one cannot reasonably be said to be smelling the mown lawn.

I used to think so!  But there is reality which can be confirmed by logic, and not observation.  For instance, the Pythagorean Theorem is real.  Yet the actual triangles, as described in mathematics, cannot exist in nature.  But they are still real, because they are "unchanging forms".  This stuff goes back to Plato.  Reality is absolute, whereas nature changes with the passage of time. 

I am not skilled in advanced philosophy, but I know philosophers keep reality and nature distinctly defined, even if the two share some common properties and/or entities.  Fortunately in the sciences we do not use the word "reality".  Such a concept is even more abstract than string theory.  We live with a wealth of truth and fantasy, and often inconsistent use of terminology makes it impossible to distinguish.

You just blew my mind.  So that's where we find the pythagorean theorm, in reality, but not in nature.  So nature, in this model, is a subset of reality?  You make it sound (with the "share some common entities") like this in not the case.  What is in nature that is not in reality?  How do the two relate to existence?  If you don't want to type it all out, please point me to your resource (in the meantime, I will google "nature reality existence", but my hopes are not high).

Jad:

You just blew my mind.  So that's where we find the pythagorean theorm, in reality, but not in nature.  So nature, in this model, is a subset of reality?  You make it sound (with the "share some common entities") like this in not the case.  What is in nature that is not in reality?  How do the two relate to existence?  If you don't want to type it all out, please point me to your resource (in the meantime, I will google "nature reality existence", but my hopes are not high).

Nature might be a subset of reality -- or it might not -- depending on which worldview.   I will explain as best as my scientific mind can.  There are two basic entities which we can measure:  (1) nature, and (2) human perception.   Truth in each can be determined by various means, and I do not know the epistemological details.  But I know there are four possible conditions:

A)  Both nature and human perception are real

B)  Nature is real, but human perception is not real

C)  Human perception is real, but nature is not  (this is the humanistic worldview)

D)   Both nature and human perception are not real.

Position D, of course, is relativism.  It can withstand little scrutiny (truth vanishes, so does our means of asserting the truth of position D).  Position C is the perspective held by most philosophers in academia.  Their view is that nature, in its changing forms, is basically an illusion.  Human perception, on the other hand, is forever.  Position A is sometimes said to be "theistic", because it requires some intelligence to sychronize the two facets of reality.  And position B seems to connect more closely with science and objectivism.  There are some good authors of each of these positions, if you would like to read them.   None of this "limits" what reality can contain, it could contain things beyond these two components -- like mathematical truths for example, which can be confirmed by deduction and independent derivations.