174 lines
9.7 KiB
Markdown
174 lines
9.7 KiB
Markdown
---
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layout: post
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title: "On Inherent Subjectivity of Some Things"
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subtitle: "An Alternative Definition of Objectivity for Rigid Scientists"
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date: 2021-10-30 12:57:46
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permalink: alternative-objectivity-and-inherent-subjectivity/
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categories: philosophy
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author: Mahdi
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---
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As a computer scientist and someone who loves
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[mathematics](/mathematical-induction-proving-tiling-methods) and
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[abstractions](/typoclassopedia-exercise-solutions), I was obsessed with the
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idea of rationality, that is, an _objective_ and absolute rationality, however I
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ended up in a philosophy course that showed me the opposite.
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I somehow stumbled upon Eliezer Yudkowsky's [Rationality: From AI to
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Zombies](https://www.readthesequences.com/) about 4 years ago, and it took me
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two years to go through it all but I was absolutely fascinated by this book. I
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_knew_ how to be rational now, and I could _prove_ it using mathematics, what
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else could I ask for!
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The book basically looks at the world as a probabilistic system, and everything
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that happens can be assigned probabilities, and using mathematical theorems such
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as Bayes Theorem, we can predict outcomes of certain actions and then decide
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between them. There is a lot of focus on [cognitive
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biases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases) as well. I was
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particularly very interested about these biases, and so I set out to learn more
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about them, and that's how I found my current course: [Cognitive Science at
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University College Dublin](https://cogsci.ucd.ie).
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So I enter this course with this mindset: we can objectively analyse the world
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around us using probability and statistics (mathematics), but we are limited by
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our cognitive biases, so I want to learn about these cognitive biases: where do
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they come from, how can they be resisted to allow us to act more rationally and
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so on. These questions would mainly fall under the umbrella of psychology...
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However... I found myself to be more and more interested in the philosophy side
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of this course than the psychology side, hell I even started to not like the
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psychology side anymore, but fall in love with the philosophy. This is where I
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found the opposite of what I had come for: an alternative definition of
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objectivity, and an inherent subjectivity of some things. This is mainly
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inspired by Thomas Nagel's What Is It Like To Be A Bat {% cite nagel1974like %}.
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What is Objectivity Anyway?
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---------------------------
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This is probably the main question here. What is objectivity? I don't think
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dictionary definitions are particularly authoritative when it comes to
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philosophy discussions, but I found this dictionary definition interesting to
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open the topic with:
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> the quality or character of being objective : lack of favoritism toward one
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side or another : freedom from bias. {% cite objectivity-merriam-webster %}
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This definition itself has ambiguous phrases such as "freedom from bias", what
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does that mean? When can we say that we are free from bias? Let's look at how
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bias is defined in the same dictionary:
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> an inclination of temperament or outlook {% cite bias-merriam-webster %}
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But... is it really possible to have no inclination at all in our temperament
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and outlook? Let's look at the definition of subjective, that will help us here:
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> relating to the way a person experiences things in his or her own mind {% cite
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subjective-merriam-webster %}
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Is it possible for us to have a view of something without it being part of our
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experience? It seems not. All that we do, all our views and expressions and our
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interactions are part of our experience as a person, and it relates to us on an
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intimate level, which means that everything that we do as individuals is
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subjective. In that sense, it seems impossible for any individual to be
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objective, since they will always have some form of inclination about
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everything.
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What does this leave us with then when we ask what is objectivity? A better
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definition of objectivity in my opinion is one given by Thomas Nagel:
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> It may be more accurate to think of objectivity as a direction in which the
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understanding can travel. [...] The process of reduction is a move in the
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direction of greater objectivity, toward a more accurate view of the real nature
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of things. This is accomplished by reducing our dependence on individual or
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species-specific points of view toward the object of investigation. We describe
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it not in terms of the impressions it makes on our senses, but in terms of its
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more general effects and of properties detectable by means other than the human
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senses. {% cite nagel1974like %}
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In this sense, there is no black-and-white distinction between subjectivity and
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objectivity, but rather it is a spectrum, a line on which we can walk from
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subjectivity towards objectivity.
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We start with our individual perceptions as the most objective view and
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description, we then move towards descriptions that allow us to agree with other
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(human) beings, and finally we move towards descriptions that can be verified
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and agreed upon by other apparatus, although it is important to understand that
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even the apparatus that we may use to describe things are not necessarily free
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from bias, since they are created by biased individuals and groups. By now you
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may notice that if a measuring device is made to be agreeable between a large
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group of people, it is already more objective than a device made by a single
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individual! However, absolute objectivity, which we may call "a view from
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nowhere" may not be attainable by us, because we will always be viewing things
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from our own perspectives, even if it is a large, collective perspective that we
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agree on, it is not a view from nowhere.
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Inherently Subjective Things
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----------------------------
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With our definition of objectivity in place, now let's see: is there something
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that we cannot move towards objectivity about? Yes. That is our personal
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experiences.
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See, if there is an attempt to give a more objective description of _my_
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personal experience, there will need to be either an agreement among a group of
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beings about this description of my personal experience, or there should be an
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apparatus that we can agree on that measures my personal experience. However, my
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personal experience is personal exactly because it is completely dependent and
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originated from my perspective alone, and no one else's; and as soon as you try
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to move towards objectivity by trying to describe this experience in a way that
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moves away from my person-specific and species-specific standpoint, towards a
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more agreeable and general description that even non-human beings or apparatus
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can agree with, you lose the initial personal experience in the process, so you
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end up with a non-personal description of the experience which misses the point
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of the actual subjective experience I have.
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So, you can come up with _some_ description of my experience, but you can't
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actually describe the subjective experience of being me as it really is. The
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walk towards objectivity requires you to drop the subjectivity of my experience,
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and hence, some inherently subjective things such as our personal experiences
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can't be objectified.
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This is how Nagel puts it (I think this may be a bit hard to read without
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reading the whole paper):
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> Experience itself, however, does not seem to fit the pattern. The idea of
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moving from appearance to reality seems to make no sense here. What is the
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analogue in this case to pursuing a more objective understanding of the same
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phenomena by abandoning the initial subjective viewpoint toward them in favor of
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another that is more objective but concerns the same thing? Certainly it appears
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unlikely that we will get closer to the real nature of human experience by
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leaving behind the particularity of our human point of view and striving for a
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description in terms accessible to beings that could not imagine what it was
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like to be us. If the subjective character of experience is fully comprehensible
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only from one point of view, then any shift to greater objectivity that is, less
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attachment to a specific viewpoint does not take us nearer to the real nature of
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the phenomenon: it takes us farther away from it. {% cite nagel1974like %}
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So What? (Or: Why is This Important?)
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----------------------
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This realisation means that objectifying people's subjective experiences is not
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possible, we will never be able to decipher someone's subjective experience of
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something. This does not mean we should not try to _understand_ people, rather,
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it means we should always consider that our understanding of someone's
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subjective experience will never be objective, it will always be merely our
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perspective of it. When it comes to people's personal experiences, we can't be
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sure that we are right, the way we are confident we are right after measuring a
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distance using our agreed-upon metric ruler; when it comes to subjective
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experiences it's always only a crude approximation. "In the end one experiences
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only oneself." {% cite nietzsche2008thus %}
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This video was sent to me by a friend today, and it is great timing, because it
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is very relevant:
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<iframe class="centered" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/oRG2jlQWCsY" title="Good Will Hunting | 'Your Move Chief' (HD) - Matt Damon, Robin Williams | MIRAMAX" frameborder="0" allow="picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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References
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----------
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{% bibliography --cited %}
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