27 lines
2.4 KiB
Markdown
27 lines
2.4 KiB
Markdown
---
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layout: post
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title: "An Alternative Definition of Objectivity for Rigid Scientists"
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subtitle: "On Inherent Subjectivity of Some Things"
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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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https://postcognitivism.wordpress.com/2021/04/06/the-great-escape-can-we-transcend-our-own-conceptual-frameworks/
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https://gatelessgateblog.wordpress.com/
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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0388000121000802
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Distinctions and Common Ground in Collective Epistemology
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As a computer scientist and someone who loves [mathematics](/mathematical-induction-proving-tiling-methods) and [abstractions](/typoclassopedia-exercise-solutions), I was obsessed with the idea of rationality, that is, an _objective_ and absolute rationality.
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I somehow stumbled upon Eliezer Yudkowsky's [Rationality: From AI to Zombies](https://www.readthesequences.com/) about 4 years ago, and it took me two years to go through it all but I was absolutely fascinated by this book. I _knew_ how to be rational now, and I could _prove_ it using mathematics, what else could I ask for!
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The book basically looks at the world as a probabilistic system, and everything that happens can be assigned probabilities, and using mathematical theorems such as Bayes Theorem, we can predict outcomes of certain actions and then decide between them. There is a lot of focus on [cognitive biases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases) as well. I was particularly very interested about these biases, and so I set out to learn more about them, and that's how I found my current course: [Cognitive Science at 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 around us using probability and statistics (mathematics), but we are limited by our cognitive biases, so I want to learn about these cognitive biases: where do they come from, how can they be resisted to allow us to act more rationally and 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 of this course than the psychology side, hell I even started to not like the psychology side anymore, but fall in love with the philosophy. This is where I found the opposite of what I had come for: an alternative definition of objectivity, and an inherent subjectivity of some things.
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