Sorry, I Just Don't Get It.

[beefeater33]

I would also like to add that I am enjoying this thread immensely and hopefully in good humor. I enjoy having my beliefs challenged, it sharpens the mind.

Trout- I couldn't agree more. Well said............

I'm generally a man with firm beliefs, and I get the Objectivity/Subjectivity thing. Its really simple if one doesn't bend the rules, and just follow the strict definition.

I still stand by my statement of "Everything is art.............or nothing is"...........

It seems simple to me, and I like simple........... :roll:

 

[seacaptain]

Each person doesn't get to decide for himself what "pipe" means.

If that were true, the pipe that inspired this thread would not exist.

You're missing the point. I can call a urinal a pipe. That doesn't make it a pipe. For something to be a pipe, it has to meet certain objective criteria.
Some things are pipes, some things are not pipes.

 

[warren]

A urinal without a pipe is just a cold mass of porcelain. But, a urinal with a pipe? Now that's a urinal!

 

[seacaptain]

Each individual doesn't get to decide for himself what Art Deco means.

Actually they do. There may be a general consensus of when Art Deco began, when it ended, and what stylistic details comprise it, but after that it's a free-for-all. It's a bell curve of opinion, not fact. And as Warren pointed out, the further one's opinion is from the middle of the curve, the more one is labeled as uneducated, stupid, etc. What each individual doesn't get to decide is at what temperature water boils at sea level. Never confuse general consensus with fact.

You're confusing objectivity with fact. My argument is that we can reach objective criteria to define something. I'm not confusing that with "fact".
In other words, we can say a pipe must contain a stummel, a stem, a draught hole, etc, or it's not a pipe. A stem isn't a scientific fact, but it is an objective criteria. I'm arguing that we can reach an objective definition of anything, and we should. Otherwise we're left with each individual deciding for himself what anything means, which in turn renders everything meaningless.
It's interesting to see how entrenched post modern thought has become over the last 50 years. It's also instructive to note the inherent inconsistencies in the idea that we can each determine for ourselves what anything means, but yet no one actually lives that way. If someone ordered a shirt from a catalog and received pants instead, the vendor doesn't get to say "well, this is a shirt to us" and get away with it. We all live and interact every single day by objective criteria. It's truly odd that anyone would argue that objective criteria doesn't exist and we can each decide for ourselves what anything means.

 

[seacaptain]

What a work means and defining the object as art are not the same thing.

I didn't say it was. What I said is that I believe we can have an objective definition(s) of "art".
As far as what a work means, that too has an objective definition. The person who created it knows what it means and it doesn't mean anything else. Again, there's a world of difference in asking "What does it mean?" and "What does it mean to me?" My argument is that the first question is objective and exists apart from the second question.

And, Please explain why it becomes meaningless?

I'm not convinced that you understand the discussion.

You're still not understanding my point. If we can each look at a tree and decide for ourselves what that object is, then the objective concept of a tree becomes meaningless.
Or, take the Art Deco example. If I walk into an art gallery and proclaim each and every exhibit as "Art Deco", and everyone agrees that if it's "Art Deco" to me, then it is, then the term Art Deco has become meaningless.
A tree or Art Deco or anything, has to have an objective meaning outside of ourselves, or it becomes meaningless.

 

[warren]

Of course there are certain definitions we all live with and accept. Well, most of us live with. That's why we have courts. Many definitions are changed by the courts over time. Even politicians get together now and then to agree to change a long defined term or action. That being said, please let us not get sidetracked into debating recent court cases and the ever amusing antics of the politicians and stay, however tenuously, with the basic thread.
This is too entertaining a thread to let devolve into the taboo areas as defined and enforced by the owner and mods.

 

[seacaptain]

Of course there are certain definitions we all live with and accept. Well, most of us live with. That's why we have courts. Many definitions are changed by the courts over time. Even politicians get together now and then to agree to change a long defined term or action.

True but using your example above (and not getting into specific political issues), the Constitution means something objectively. It means what the writers intended it to mean when they wrote it. I realize court cases have come and gone to "interpret" it in various ways.
My argument though is, that regardless of that, it still has an objective meaning apart from how someone else may "interpret" it. The Constitution means something objectively. If we think it means whatever we say it means today, then it becomes meaningless.
Sadly, that's where were at though in our post modern world. Most people argue, and agree, that the Constitution, Art, or whatever, only means what we say it means today. Tomorrow the exact same thing may mean something else. Or it may mean different things to different people, all of which are equally valid in a post modern world. We have lost our objectivity, and in fact celebrate that loss as progress.

 

[brian64]

Perception is greater than reality. Which implies that there in fact exists a reality outside of, and independent of, our perceptions.

 

[edgreen]

It sounds to me like some want to have a rubric for every action and every word. I had enough of creating those things trying to assess in an objective manner. As I get older I'm liking gray areas and uncertainity in language and letting my very subjective self loose a whole, whole lot. Thanks for this very amazing discussion.

 

[daimyo]

Oh goody, the discussion turned political.
There is no verification of our perception. Every single thing a human perceives is through his or her own ego, subconscious, limited senses and the mind's still unknown effect on these data feeds. When another person agrees with us that is even delivered through our brains, ego, conscious. That is why you can say one thing to a person and they can hear something completely different. We know nothing of reality except imagining and postulating that it exists for we have never perceived anything except through our biased perception. The only confirmation we receive is internal. The factual world we hold so close is anything but. We can only speak to how things appear for a human and whether other humans share this experience. For instance the color pink does not exist but all humans who do not suffer some vision impairment will perceive pink to exist.
The day after the constitution was written you could not get 100 educated people to agree 100% on it's intent when applied to specifics not laid out in painfully exacting detail. The people who wrote our constitution did not all perceive it exactly the same as this is an impossibility. It was not the work of one man but an amalgam of idea all held in much more complex than you are admitting, individual minds. Even if it was the product of a single mind and that mind had considered every current and future possibility and how the document would hold them, he would still have to be here and alive to expound on those ruminations. Countless issues we face today were not even conceived let alone addressed by these men. You can ask 4 band members what a song means and you will get four different answers. You can ask coauthors for their take on things and get different answers. The concrete world you insist on is in your mind as are all things you perceive. Constitutional scholars who have dedicated a good 40-50 years of intense study to the document do not always agree with what it means in certain terms or aspects. Yet it sounds like you think you know what it means both objectively and definitively. There is no evidence to suggest that is within the realm of possibility and seems much more like politically motivated egotism.

 

[seacaptain]

There is no verification of our perception. Every single thing a human perceives is through his or her own ego, subconscious, limited senses and the mind's still unknown effect on these data feeds. When another person agrees with us that is even delivered through our brains, ego, conscious. That is why you can say one thing to a person and they can hear something completely different. We know nothing of reality except imagining and postulating that it exists for we have never perceived anything except through our biased perception. The only confirmation we receive is internal.

That's a pretty good definition of Existentialism. It goes hand-in-hand with post modernism.

Yet it sounds like you think you know what it means both objectively and definitively. There is no evidence to suggest that is within the realm of possibility and seems much more like politically motivated egotism.

No. The difference is that I'm asking "What does it mean". Almost everyone else is asking "What does it mean to me?" or in a political sense "How can I interpret the meaning to get the result I want?"
The post modern world never asks "What does it mean?" because, as you have illustrated the post modern view so well, post modernists don't believe an objective meaning even exists. We each get to determine our own meaning and everyone's opinion is just as valid as anyone else's, as long as you agree with the post modern construct. Everyone gets to believe their own "truth". Or, to bring the discussion full circle, we each get to determine what "art" is for ourselves. Again, to quote beefeater, then everything becomes art, or nothing is. It's meaningless without an objective point of reference outside ourselves.

 

[daimyo]

Your objective point of reference isn't actual or objective. Again, you cannot produce an objective view of the totality of the constitution that even two constitutional scholars can agree 100% on. So where is this reference point that exists for all? Yes if you go far back enough in history people many people did think only in black and white, many still do. However both science and society have time and time again proven that to be a false dichotomy. Our perception is not as clear or as absolute as we once thought. You malign existentialism but provide no compelling argument or evidence for absolutism.

 

[brian64]

Thank goodness we at least have the objective language of numbers. 2+2=4. When we can no longer agree on that, run for the hills.

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

The color pink can be measured, It may not be represented by a single wavelength, but it can be objectively known.

When someone hears something other than what we say, that is called "miscommunication", and is a failure on the part of the speaker or the listener.

It's just so easy to fail at communicating that people get quite relaxed about it.
We can all subjectively experience what it's like walking off a cliff, but the observable results that other people see will be very consistent.

 

[daimyo]

The color pink can only be measured by our created metric and ocular input and not through other means of detection, it is through this that we discovered without human eyes there would be no pink. The world would look nothing like what you now see if you perceived it in any other way that how you currently do.

but the observable results that other people see will be very consistent.

Only to other humans, we have no idea what consciousness is. We can perceive as a group the life form ceases to function and it is indeed this group consensus that gives form to the fabric of existentialism and absolutism in reality. But group consensus is both easily manipulated and demonstrably incorrect in literally millions of examples. We have no perception of this event past our five senses, group confirmation nor what it would appear as to be using differing senses and mental function. Often breakthroughs in science are made by those who are wired differently and do not conform to this group consensus. We do not even have a decent handle on how certain humans perceive and experience the world around us.
Against the idea of absolutism and retaining the example of the founding fathers, they all thought nothing of owning slaves. According to moral absolutism they should have, being intelligent beings who can experience empathy, been able to figure out that slavery is wrong ans always was since after all, nothing ever changes our morals. But they did not because their morals were not informed by an absolute, their morals stem from the society and people who raised them, who in turn were taught that many immoral things were indeed moral or at least the way things were and therefore something to not rail against. Existentialism does not lead to individual notions in the macro but a socially informed change of ideas that has always happened and still is. Absolutism is disproved by the widely varying moralities any given society experience regardless of the backing social authority or religion the society operates under. The actively applied social morals of Rome 2000 years ago are nothing like the actively applied social morals of today and indeed, differing churches cannot even agree on these things absolutely. It is an understanding that not everything simply falls into black and white that lead to the abolishment of slavery (or at least an attempt) and the cessation of women being a form of property. Applied existentialism is not the same as a pure philosophical existentialism and that was my earlier point about not overly applying the later in real world circumstances. Just as Russia did not represent a pure socialist ideal and out current government (both sides) likely isn't actually representative of your thoughts and political leanings. I most certainly hold that killing is immoral but were I born an Aztek it is almost certain I would have not included necessary human sacrifice in this ideal. Just as many who think killing is wrong support it under certain circumstances.
I'm going to go smoke a pipe and read some Lovecraft.

 

[daimyo]

without human eyes there would be no pink.

I will grant that other species may also perceive it but we know very little about how other animals experience things. We know certain animals can sense magnetic north and we can build a device to show us magnetic north but we do not, and possibly never will, know what it is like for those animals to feel magnetic north. There may exist infinite sensory input that we simple cannot perceive and even if we possessed the ability to create technology to perceive it for us, would become colored by our interpretation. Also, how do you go looking for something you have no concept of to find if it is there?

 

[seacaptain]

Your objective point of reference isn't actual or objective. Again, you cannot produce an objective view of the totality of the constitution that even two constitutional scholars can agree 100% on. So where is this reference point that exists for all? Yes if you go far back enough in history people many people did think only in black and white, many still do. However both science and society have time and time again proven that to be a false dichotomy. Our perception is not as clear or as absolute as we once thought. You malign existentialism but provide no compelling argument or evidence for absolutism.

Right. I get it. You're a post modernist. I'm not.
If you want a reference point for the Constitution, start with the Constitution and what it actually says. From there, read what the framers actually said they meant by what it says.
I guarantee you that will narrow your window down considerably as to the possible meaning.
But, there's probably no point is wasting our time debating that. The Constitution, art, whatever, has long been subjected to post modern thought to the point that they're hardly recognizable anymore. Heck, even our definitions for something as simple as male and female have been filtered through post modern thought to the point where we are quickly losing objective meanings of those definitions as well.
Post Modernism has triumphed. A urinal is art, The Constitution says we can kill the unborn, and men can be women.
It's a brave new world.

 

[daimyo]

If you want a reference point for the Constitution, start with the Constitution and what it actually says. From there, read what the framers actually said they meant by what it says.

I have, several times over and yet I bet there would still be things we disagree about. Interesting how that can happen, isn't it?

 

[seacaptain]

Thank goodness we at least have the objective language of numbers. 2+2=4. When we can no longer agree on that, run for the hills.

We've been there for quite some time now. Welcome to post modernism. Better start running.
http://oilf.blogspot.com/2009/09/postmodern-math-does-2-2-always-4.html
http://peoplesworld.org/when-does-2-2-not-equal-4/

 

[seacaptain]

I have, several times over and yet I bet there would still be things we disagree about. Interesting how that can happen, isn't it?

Whether we disagree or not has nothing to do with whether or not an objective meaning exists.