I’ve been thinking about truth and reality and the existence or nonexistence of objectivity. Here’s my conclusion (this may not be groundbreaking or novel or anything, but that’s not to point- it’s what I have settled on). Objective reality almost certainly exists. It’s out there, and we live in it. However, from the human perspective it is purely theoretical, and for the purposes of our day-to-day lives, it is almost meaningless.
From the moment a stimulus enters your body via your senses until the moment that it leaves in the form of a response, the information is constantly being corrupted by faulty perception, being filtered through lenses of experience, worldview, culture, point of view, coping mechanisms, random neuron firings, insanity, and who knows what else. There’s no point inside the system that is objective itself- the main processor is the brain, and the brain is the very culprit when it comes to putting a spin on reality- and so at no point is it even possible for a human being to perceive the world in a completely objective way. Ever.
Certainly there is some level of consensus to reality, like if there was a fire, we’d pretty much all see it, feel the heat, maybe be scared of it, and we’d all probably burn and die if we were consumed by it. That seems to be pretty objective (with maybe an unusual exception here and there), but that’s not what I’m talking about. The difference is that we’re all perceiving the objectively identical fire from a different standpoint, both internally and externally. We’re all ascribing different shades of meaning to it.
Objective reality probably exists, but we are completely incapable of accessing it because the only means we have of accessing reality by its very nature distorts reality as it accesses it.
What does this mean as far as religion goes? It means that as I search for truth, the best I’m going to get is a subjective kind of truth, because even if objective truth exists, I have no way of apprehending it.
Why do people insist on objectivity, when everything we know about the human experience suggests that for all intents and purposes there’s no such thing? Why do religious people in particular so often insist on the existence of knowable absolute truth? I wonder if it has something to do with controlling other people. I mean, if reality is largely subjective, then “sharing your religion” pretty much stops at “sharing.” But if you can insist on Absolute Truth, then you are justified in being a little more belligerent. It’s probably not fair to assign that kind of motive to so many people, though. The more likely explanation is that many people simply aren’t comfortable with a lack of meaningful absolute truth. It seems counterintuitive and it messes with one’s head.
For me, though, it means that I am looking for what is true for me. Part of me still thinks that sounds lame after a lifetime of being an Absolute-Truth-Insistent Mormon, but at the same time, it only makes sense. The only way I can sense and process and interpret reality is through my body and my mind, and those both have an inherent problem in that they severely warp anything they perceive. So absolute truth may exist, but it’s impossible to find it out. Therefore, the search for absolute truth, especially when dealing with things like “meaning” that stray from generally consensual aspects of reality, is a relatively futile one.
Sailing to Byzantium 
Keep hope alive, my friend.
When Paul said that he “sees through a glass darkly” we think that the subjectivity of which you speak here is what he meant. And there is hope in this view of seeing though a glass, though imperfect and subjective, is nevertheless seeing. And what we see is a universe that is independent of us but of which we are also a part — there’s some hope that in being a part of something there is also some significant level of synchronicity in how we perceive it; that if our way of perceiving is through the senses that are a part of the universe we must to some degree being seeing something objective about the universe … as limited and distorted as it may be.
And there’s hope for humanity that despite the vast degree of relatively subtle variations in our perceptions, in the end we share virtually all that we experience in common.
I think there is enough hope in this to get us through despite our severe shortsightedness.
Now that’s some hefty stuff to think about. Well put.
The Kabbalists recognize the problem of subjectivity and believe they have a solution. I’m not sure I buy into it, but they seem to be speaking your language, in a way.
mel, I largely share your hope that we have enough to go on, but I don’t hope that we will ever have a perfect grasp of the objective world.
It’s funny how many absoulte statements you made while telling us that we can’t make absolute statements. Such as
“so at no point is it even possible for a human being to perceive the world in a completely objective way. Ever.”
“Objective reality probably exists, but we are completely incapable of accessing it”
If we can’t know anything objectively, how did you so definitively come to those conclusions? I think where you and I are diverging on this thought is in this sentence:
“The difference is that we’re all perceiving the objectively identical fire from a different standpoint, both internally and externally. We’re all ascribing different shades of meaning to it.”
Just because we can’t know EVERYTHING about something objective, doesn’t mean we can’t know anything meaningful about it. We may not know every angle and every event leading up to a car crash, but we certainly can know that a car crash happened. And we can even come to a strong conclusion about why and how it happened. Just because there are subjective experiences in the car crash doesn’t necessarily mean that there is nothing objective about it.
It just doesn’t follow that the existence of subjective perspectives mean that there is nothing that can be known objectively. It just means you can’t know EVERY subjective perspective.
Dando, I think you’re vastly overreading what I’m saying in order to find a way to work in the “absolute relativism is contradictory” card.
Anyway, if I make objective-sounding statements, it must follow from my reason that even they are subject to a subjectivity bias. I can live with that.
I think we’re splitting hairs semantically, though. While everything we perceive is going to be filtered through the lens of subjectivity, there are plenty of things that we can generally agree on, and if we want to sort of “round off” to objectivity, we can surely do so.
However, that mostly goes for the “what” and the “how” as opposed ot the “why.” In the realm of meaning, I think it’s tougher. We may agree that there was a fire, and if you want to label that “objectivity” you can do so and I won’t be able to put up much more than a semantic argument.
But I think it’s disingenuous to try to claim that human experience is limited to or even mostly in the realm of the external and the physical. We ascribe personal meaning to basically everything- in fact, we seem to be incapable of experiencing anything at all without interpreting it. Our bodies and minds are hard-wired to do that. Therefore while there may have objectively been a fire, the experience of that fire is completely subjective. And the experience of the fire is the only way we can interact with it at all.
Jonathan wrote: “I don’t hope that we will ever have a perfect grasp of the objective world.”
Yeah, neither do I. But a mutual appreciation of and striving for the best possible human approximation of objective truth … here I have hope.