Is the Universe “objective” if so it is possible, or desirable, to attempt to describe the Universe Objectively

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

39 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Scot, when people start railing on about how knowledge is subjective and we can't distinguish reality from unreality because of our inherent biases, then lately I just ask them to show me the math that they use to justify their opinion. 

I keep waiting for PM/PS to attempt to go after Mathematics.  I'd be interested to see how they claim it isn't objective.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

17 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Of course. Since we're all humans most of the time it won't matter that the truths we use and discuss are really subjective.
We just have to bear in mind that new approaches are always possible, and try to keep an open mind.

I think what I find dangerous about PM/PS is the way it is being employed by people on the fringes of political movements.  The "post-truth" era in itself is a product of PM/PS positions.  The way Trump and his supporters reject well established facts is a product of "post-truth" as a concept.  Most of us don't like how Trumpanistas employ this but should it come as a surprise that such actions would be weaponized by those with whom most of us disagree?

[OldGimletEye]

10 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

The way I understood it, post-modernism was about understanding that any notion of "truth" was relative to a given historical and social context.

What does this mean precisely?

 

13 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

 being skeptical of grand narratives allowed them to develop fresh approaches (which made them famous).

With them putting in their own grand narratives. On this I'd say post modernism fails a internal consistency check.
 

15 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I would daresay post-modernism led to two things:
- The idea that whatever is seen as "true" at any given point in history is essentially the expression of the ideas (/ideology) of the dominant group or of the majority.
 

I'd say this has been one of the most destructive aspects of post modernism. The idea that the truth relies on identity, so there are in effect many truths, none of which can be said better than the other.

If all post modernism was saying is that elites or more powerful groups often tell whoppers, I don't think it added much.  Like duh! Accordingly one wonders what was the point of it all. But, I think post modernism went way beyond just saying that the powerful often spew bullshit.

26 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Well, yes. Simply put, that's hard to argue with. However, I don't think post-modernists wanted to go as far as to say that "science" or "facts" should be dismissed, or that universalist theories should be discarded altogether ; I'd say it was about the way scientific facts could be interpreted and manipulated. And I think their caution was warranted, because even science can be used politically (think about Darwinism's role in WWII for instance).

Doesn't seem post modernism was saying much here. It would seem this could have been figured out, with out it.

 

28 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

However, that objective truth does not exist doesn't mean we can't agree on subjective truths, and on a day-to-day basis it really doesn't matter that they are subjective.

How does one go about agreeing on subjective truths or ranking subjective truths as being more correct if no objectivity exist.

It seems to me that whenever one tries to give post modernism a more reasonable veneer, you end up with the case that post modernism was just saying stuff that could have been figured out under other philosophical traditions. Which leaves one wondering what was its point, even it didn't advocate for the radical subjectivity of knowledge, which I really believe it did.

[.H.]

13 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

The way I understood it, post-modernism was about understanding that any notion of "truth" was relative to a given historical and social context. I don't think that entailed not looking for truth, or that humans couldn't agree on a form of truth, however subjective.

Not really a critique, but, well, isn't this Structuralism?  And to then lump post-Structuralists into there under the label of it all being post-Modern doesn't really get us anywhere, since then this thing is espousing both the idea and the counter-idea at the same time?

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I keep waiting for PM/PS to attempt to go after Mathematics.  I'd be interested to see how they claim it isn't objective.

I don't buy math as objective.  Not to mention, it's already been done (most likely):

From Jane McDonnell's The Pythagorean World:

Quote

One option is to abandon the need for the physicalisation of mathematics by embracing all objects as abstract objects. That is the approach taken in this book. I develop a metaphysical framework which is a version of idealism. It is a view of the universe as an abstract mind: a mind constituted by monads and their states, not a mind supervening on a physical brain with hard-wired connections. The structure contains all of mathematics, all possible forms, and physical reality condenses out by a process of self-actualization in thought.

Also:

Quote

According to Weyl, physics is about constructing the underlying relations locally in an objective way. This is what makes it inherently mathematical because it is only by using mathematics that we can abstract away from our individual viewpoint. Reality is not mind independent but it is what would be agreed upon by all cognising egos acting under the norm of objectivity. Poincaré had expressed a similar view:

But what we call objective reality is, in the last analysis, what is common to many thinking beings, and could be common to all; this common part …can only be the harmony expressed by mathematical laws. (Poincaré 1906: 14)

So, it is a sort of "objectivity" through a normative claim.  Not sure I agree, but also hard to disagree.  (Although I actually don't think McDonnell is a post-Modernist, just to make this all the less clear.)

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, .H. said:

Not really a critique, but, well, isn't this Structuralism?  And to then lump post-Structuralists into there under the label of it all being post-Modern doesn't really get us anywhere, since then this thing is espousing both the idea and the counter-idea at the same time?

I don't buy math as objective.  Not to mention, it's already been done (most likely):

From Jane McDonnell's The Pythagorean World:

Also:

So, it is a sort of "objectivity" through a normative claim.  Not sure I agree, but also hard to disagree.  (Although I actually don't think McDonnell is a post-Modernist, just to make this all the less clear.)

Okay, so to make sure I understand the point, because mathematics deals with abstraction and simplification not with reality, it has to be subjective?  Is that the position offered?

[OldGimletEye]

9 minutes ago, .H. said:

I don't buy math as objective.  Not to mention, it's already been done (most likely):

Math is like a computer. Garbage in/Garbage out. Given the right initial data a computer can be a useful tool in solving problems. In fact, some problems wouldn't be solvable with out them. It's the same with math. If you start with some bullshit premises, your going to end up with some bullshit conclusions. That said, it is a very useful tool in trying to figuring the "truth" or more precisely ranking truth claims.

And unlike post modernism, math is concise, its symbols packed with precise meaning, which makes it easier to figure out if some bullshit got slipped in, along the way.

[.H.]

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Okay, so to make sure I understand the point, because mathematics deals with abstraction and simplification not with reality, it has to be subjective?  Is that the position offered?

Well, first, I am really not at all qualified to say.  However, I think the point is that mathematics is a normative claim.  You set the rules, then you figure out what the "output" of those rules are, according to the normative interpretation and exposition of those rules.

You can't actually know if those rules are "in reality" or are just concepts over-layed onto reality.  I think.

Quote

I considered modern structuralist philosophies of physics and mathematics which seem to off er the possibility of a coherent approach through the prioritisation of structure over objects—with extreme versions, such as Tegmark’s Mathematical Universe, morphing into Pythagoreanism. However, it was concluded that structuralism cannot be the whole story because of the infinite regress of structure versus structured and the fact that mathematics needs non-mathematical objects for its definition. In a historical perspective, the link was made to fundamental problems concerning being and existence in philosophy.

Quote

I used the suggested metaphysical framework to draw out consequences for the philosophy of mathematics. I concluded that mathematics is about the structure of Being; that it is unchanging, necessary and true; and that we come to know about it by abstracting structure from the world around us and by self-reflection. Mathematical objects do not exist in a mysterious Platonic heaven totally independent of the physical world. Rather, physical reality is a mental interpretation of a subset of mathematical structure. Mathematics is applicable because it truly describes the fundamental structure of reality. No mathematics is surplus. I made a distinction between mathematics and human mathematics which is a cultural product of our society. There is one, true mathematics and our current best description of it is Woodin’s Ultimate L. Consequently, some human mathematics is fiction, but that does not mean that it is uninteresting or useless. On the contrary, it is only by pursuing all possible avenues that we will learn how to make the distinctions that will lead us towards true knowledge.

So it seems that to her, human mathematics will always fail to the Absolute Mathematics that is "ideal."  Or so it seems.  So, there is an objective mathematics, but it is inaccessible.  That doesn't mean we can't work toward it.  Or, so my flawed reading would seem to imply.  I'm not a scholar or a smart person though and this is just a random book I happened to have on hand.

[Rippounet]

1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I keep waiting for PM/PS to attempt to go after Mathematics.  I'd be interested to see how they claim it isn't objective.

Depends on the context you're using mathematics in and what you're trying to prove with them.
On top of my head, while 1+1 always equals 2, two humans together are not necessarily going to be a simple addition (of their knowledge, of their perspectives, of their genes... etc). So what seems at first sight to be an absolute truth isn't.
[that's a "joke," taken from one of novelist Bernard Werber's books]

I'd say postmodernism is just a very fancy way of saying you're trying to think outside the box and coming up with original, challenging conclusions.
I doubt it was ever meant to be an "ideology" in itself. It seems many "postmodernist" thinkers rejected the label, and I wonder if the whole thing wasn't just a catchphrase used by journalists to lump in different heterodox thinkers together.

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I think what I find dangerous about PM/PS is the way it is being employed by people on the fringes of political movements.  The "post-truth" era in itself is a product of PM/PS positions.  The way Trump and his supporters reject well established facts is a product of "post-truth" as a concept.

Certainly.
Of course, the moment post-modernists started saying "truth" is something we arbitrarily agree upon, people were going to conclude that they could "decide" what truths they wanted to believe in.
But a post-modernist would probably say that identifying even subjective "truths" still requires different people to actively seek a consensus in good faith.
If all things are equal then people need to collaborate to generate common meaning (/make sense of the world).

2 minutes ago, .H. said:

Not really a critique, but, well, isn't this Structuralism?

Indeed. Which just goes to show I'm not certain what the "post-" added to the table. A quick google search tells me I'm not the only one who is confused by this. The two are close in many ways, and yet "post-structuralism" seems to be structuralism without its deterministic elements... So it's supposed to go yet one step further in desconstruction... Something which I wouldn't exactly manage.

So maybe I'm speaking out of my ass here.

8 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

What does this mean precisely?

Tough to explain, but if I were to try to find an example...

When humans believed that the Earth was at the center of the universe this reflected anthropocentrism. Conversely, when Copernicus & all designed their heliocentric models they effectively weakened anthropocentrism as a whole.
A post-modernist might underline the fact that such a case is an example of human thought affecting our perception of reality and "truth" instead of the reverse. They'd use this to say that we should be wary of the way our existence as humans might affect knowledge as a whole.

I guess?

8 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

How does one go about agreeing on subjective truths or ranking subjective truths as being more correct if no objectivity exist.

I think that may be the point: once you adopt a postmodern perspective, agreeing on anything requires far more effort.

But as you say, "postmodernist" thinkers were themselves building "grand narratives" in a way, so perhaps postmodernism is the idea that anyone can generate a "grand narrative" of their own if they put in the effort.

8 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

With them putting in their own grand narratives. On this I'd say post modernism fails a internal consistency check.

Doesn't seem post modernism was saying much here. It would seem this could have been figured out, with out it.

It seems to me that whenever one tries to give post modernism a more reasonable veneer, you end up with the case that post modernism was just saying stuff that could have been figured out under other philosophical traditions. Which leaves one wondering what was its point, even it didn't advocate for the radical subjectivity of knowledge, which I really believe it did.

I don't think anyone should take postmodernism too seriously. I see it as an advanced form of cerebral masturbation that was to be used by intellectuals. Again, a kind of method, rather than an ideology with real-world consequences or applications.

[.H.]

5 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Math is like a computer. Garbage in/Garbage out. Given the right initial data a computer can be a useful tool in solving problems. In fact, some problems wouldn't be solvable with out them. It's the same with math. If you start with some bullshit premises, your going to end up with some bullshit conclusions. That said, it is a very useful tool in trying to figuring the "truth" or more precisely ranking truth claims.

And unlike post modernism, math is concise, its symbols packed with precise meaning, which makes it easier to figure out if some bullshit got slipped in, along the way.

I'd agree with all of that.  Of course, that is precisely why I don't much like math, because I don't buy that reality is precise or concise in-itself.  I guess maybe I am apt to take De Beauvoir's notions in The Ethics of Ambiguity too literally?  Probably because I haven't read the whole thing.  But the notion that the world isn't clear and objectively "knowable" in an exact sense leads me in the direction that, yes, no matter what, things will be ambiguous to some degree or other.

Even the notion of what "truth" is in-itself, is not clear or concise as far as I can tell.  To quote Zizek in Less Than Nothing:

Quote

The path from illusion to its critical denunciation is the very core of philoso­phy, which means that successful ("true") philosophy is no longer defined by its truthful explanation of the totality of being, but by successfully accounting for the illusions, that is, by explaining not only why illusions are illusions, but also why they are structurally necessary, unavoidable, and not just accidents.

That doesn't mean some stuff won't be bullshit.  But it does mean, to me, that we need to really consider not just what someone is saying, but why they are saying it and why we should or should not "believe" it.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

But as you say, "postmodernist" thinkers were themselves building "grand narratives" in a way, so perhaps postmodernism is the idea that anyone can generate a "grand narrative" of their own if they put in the effort.

And... is the democratization of "truth" really a good thing?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

3 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I don't think anyone should take postmodernism too seriously. I see it as an advanced form of cerebral masturbation that was to be used by intellectuals. Again, a kind of method, rather than an ideology with real-world consequences or applications.

I've said here, and many times before that PM/PS is a useful tool.  It is pushing it as the only tool that creates problems.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Rippounet said:

Tough to explain, but if I were to try to find an example...

Let me try to give an example. Supposing I say the New York Stock exchange functions like a perfectly competitive market. That maybe true, but that is likely true because they way it institutionally developed. Had it gone another way, that might be less true. So the history of how the institution matters in assessing that claim.

What I'm having trouble seeing is how post modernism brought this sort of thing to attention and nobody else could have figured this out.

[.H.]

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I've said here, and many times before that PM/PS is a useful tool.  It is pushing it as the only tool that creates problems.

Well, what's the saying?  "Everything is a nail to someone with a hammer."

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, .H. said:

Well, what's the saying?  "Everything is a nail to someone with a hammer."

Let me put it another way, why is PS/PM so popular with intellectuals on College campuses to the degree that they attack hard sciences for saying that they are hard sciences?  Do the students and professors like making reality more malleable with the mental gymnastics that comes from PM/PS and the way it attacks everything?
 

As Rippounet points out above 1+1=2 regardless of the perspective and background of the person performing the computation.  How is attacking the personal background of the person performing the computation helpful?

[Rippounet]

5 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

What I'm having trouble seeing is how post modernism brought this sort of thing to attention and nobody else could have figured this out.

Well bear in mind that this is just my take, for all we know I'm completely in the wrong here.

Mind you, the New York Stock exchange is an artificial creation (and rather recent) to begin with so it's not exactly the same kind of thing...

7 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

And... is the democratization of "truth" really a good thing?

Assuming my vision of this stuff is correct (which is far from a certainty), it's too soon to tell. In the long run this could prove vital to our species.

And I would argue (in a complete rejection of postmodernism, ironically) that this was probably always going to happen anyway.

2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Let me put it another way, why is PS/PM so popular with intellectuals on College campuses to the degree that they attack hard sciences for saying that they are hard sciences?

If they use PS/PM to reject the very idea that there are different levels of subjectivity it allows them to say whatever they want with a semblance of authority. Thus forgetting that postmodernist thinkers worked hard to build their authority.

[sologdin]

Post-Modernism/Post-Structualism (PM/PS)seem, to me, to be a modern day form of solipsism.

maybe.  that in itself is not refutation, just as designating these things as nihilism is not a refutation (that's how bourgeois law schools in the US cashiered all of the critical legal studies professors and installed numbnut law & economics people). 

i'd suggest more specifically that postmodernism is a mix of pre-socratic sophism and classical skepticism.  derrida's arguments on linguistics are like the other minds problem but set to the score of de saussure rather than to descartes (who solved it with mysticism): signifiers don't match signifieds, and none of it matches referents--but how can we know if my reading of the signifier is in accord with anyone else's, since the only way to confirm or deny is in other signifiers?  fairly irrefutable--but we end up with the same result of hume's similarly solid refutation of the epistemology of causality: we kinda just gotta carry on with our habitual ideas until they break (i think that's davidson's and quine's ultimate result in the 20th century, for the anglo-american side of this debate, too).

other folks, like foucault, deleuze & guattari, lyotard, baudrillard--they all make affirmative claims about the world and have very specific political opinions.  the political opinions seem to be leftwing at times--and all of these people come out of marxism (foucault says at some point that he just kinda assumes marxism and runs from there), though people like baudrillard and lyotard come across as ex-marxists at times (habermas argues that they fall into a nasty neoconservatism--maybe?).

i prefer to read all of the linguistic turn as a gloss on marx's eleventh thesis on feuerbach--

Quote

Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it

--but we can't change the world meaningfully until we understand it--and we only understand it through language, which is very slippery and so we're on this lengthy linguistic detour to work it out.  the bolsheviks fucked it up for everyone by being linguistically insensitive, perhaps--lenin needed a time machine first so that he could flip forward to read foucault's history of sexuality and then figure out the five year plan. 

derrida in spectres of marx eventually came to the notion that there is some sense of justice that is not subject to deconstruction, which is not at all solipsistic.  and derrida also in force of law overlaps substantially with less pomo types such as benjamin and agamben on the fundamental political question of foundational, constitutional violence.  i'm not sure what that certain sense of justice is--but we're quite a long way from insignificant solipsism in it.

[.H.]

2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Let me put it another way, why is PS/PM so popular with intellectuals on College campuses to the degree that they attack hard sciences for saying that they are hard sciences?  Do the students and professors like making reality more malleable with the mental gymnastics that comes from PM/PS and the way it attacks everything?

Well, I don't know, honestly.  I don't think post-Modern thinking must "attack" everything as an existential necessity.  People do that, for what I'd guess is a variety of social, psychological, economic and political reasons.  Just that you get a "ready-made" framework to do so with the nature of Scucutalist (or post-Structuralist) thought.

What they, of course, fail to do, is render the criticism complete, in the sense of using the same lense on themselves.  Which, of course they don't, that is psychological projectionism 101, right there, it would seem to me.

7 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

As Rippounet points out above 1+1=2 regardless of the perspective and background of the person performing the computation.  How is attacking the personal background of the person performing the computation helpful?

Well, like any process, it has it's application and it misapplication.  There isn't, as far as I can tell, a universal manner to critique anything.

It might be the case that in some instances, the background is relevant.  Also, it might not be.

For example, if a scientific study comes out and says "Sugar is 100% healthy, eat all of it you can, as often as you can."  And someone were to realize that the people doing to study are sugar company stock-holders, or were payed by sugar companies to do the research, we'd likely be pretty right to question the findings in light of this.

But, of course, this notion can be misapplied.  Why someone's background would be relevant to the sum of one and one needs to be founded on something, not just the notion of critique itself.  Likely this is what separates "real" thinkers from hacks.  Just because you might acquire a philosophy degree, doesn't mean you are "good at it" of course.

[IheartIheartTesla]

Hello everyone. (1+1) = 10 in base 2 (binary). In fact, there is no symbolic representation of 2 in base 2. I dont know what that has to do with PS/PM (probably nothing), but I suggest that even math exists in a framework. Within that framework everything is consistent and there should be no subjectivity. 

[.H.]

3 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Hello everyone. (1+1) = 10 in base 2 (binary). In fact, there is no symbolic representation of 2 in base 2. I dont know what that has to do with PS/PM (probably nothing), but I suggest that even math exists in a framework. Within that framework everything is consistent and there should be no subjectivity. 

I guess I would call that "collective subjectivity" or "objective seeming."  It's not Objective in the absolute sense, because, say everyone's brain melted, it wouldn't "exist" in-and-of itself.

For practical purposes, "objective seeming" works well enough to get things done.  Or, as Deleuze sort of says, gives us a "plane of reference" (that is, something we can refer to, or a "ground" to stand collectively on).  The thing is, what happens when we don't agree on that "ground?"

[sologdin]

PS/PM so popular with intellectuals on College campuses to the degree that they attack hard sciences for saying that they are hard sciences

do we have specific statements made by particular interlocutors? one of the standard hit piece techniques is to attribute strawpersons to an ill-defined group--it is a favorite of ayn rand.