Subjectivism

[Inevitable Droid]

I'm a subjectivist, which I define as one who denies the existence of meaning, purpose, value, or standards of conduct on the objective plane, but upholds their existence on the subjective plane, and affirms their full weight and substance on that plane, whence all four have their origin, their motive force, their natural habitat, and their ongoing evolution.

Anyone else out there with the same perspective?

For convenience I'll coin the term shouldmust, a noun, which I'll define as any single instantiation, or the sum of all instantiations, of meaning, purpose, value, or standards of conduct.  

It's obvious, I think, that if all subjectivity vanished from the universe, all shouldmust would simultaneously vanish.  I suspect an important reason why some entertain the God hypothesis is because they see it as a way of placing shouldmust out on the objective plane, presumably because they somehow view God as an instantiation of objectivity.  Even if I were willing to entertain the God hypothesis, I would remain a subjectivist, since the only way God could establish shouldmust would be if God were a subject.

Some who propose an objective basis for shouldmust will try to hang their proposal on some natural law or process, such as natural selection.  They will argue, for example, that natural selection brought our species, and thus ourselves, into reality, and so natural selection deserves to be honored as the fount of shouldmust.  My response is always the same, regardless what natural law or process has been proposed as the fount.  If I haven't already been told, I first ask why the thing deserves to be honored.  Receiving an answer, I begin enumerating all the other natural laws or processes that can claim the same dignity.  For example, natural selection is put forward because it brought our species into existence.  Well, mutation can claim the same dignity.  Why not claim mutation as the fount of shouldmust?  Cell division can likewise claim the same dignity, as can, originally, asexual reproduction, and then, later, sexual reproduction.  I would spin some poetic calls to action on the basis of mutational shouldmust, reproductive shouldmust, and sexual shouldmust.  Then I would ask on what basis we prefer natural selection over these other three?  If the answer proposed is some objective fact about natural selection, I start the process all over again.  If I haven't already been told, I first ask why that objective fact deserves to be honored as the foundation of shouldmust.  Receiving an answer, I begin enumerating all the other objective facts about laws or processes, such that, those objective facts can claim the same dignity as the one proposed.  The only way this ever ends is out of fatigue or boredom on my part or the other person's, or if, finally, the other person concedes that nothing can unassailably establish shouldmust but the honest and unapologetic pronouncement, "It is so for me, because I say so."

Why recoil from that?  "It is so for me, because I say so."  Why be uncomfortable with that, or wary, or embarrassed?  I think the only reasons would be (1) the desire to be able to win debates or (2) the desire to be able to win converts to one's own camp or (3) the conviction that subjectivity can't be trusted if others do it or even perhaps if I do it - that only objectivity is trustworthy.

I have to stop here and get ready for work.

[The Magic Pudding]

"It is so for me, because I say so."

I agree.
I can abide a little individual or cultural variation, but too much and I become a wrathful pudding.

[Persimmon Hamster]

I've been carefully reading many of your posts about subjectivism.  What continues to occur to me is that subjects are locked in a game of pinball with one another; as soon as subjectivity drives a subject to act in some way, the action translates into a causal force on the objective plane which will then impinge new order upon all subjects.  Thus an action which a subject may evaluate as preferable in one instant may well evaluate as the opposite in the next.  How does/can a subject aware of this complex relationship best evaluate potential actions?

[Inevitable Droid]

Thus an action which a subject may evaluate as preferable in one instant may well evaluate as the opposite in the next.  How does/can a subject aware of this complex relationship best evaluate potential actions?

I'll sketch out the beginnings of an answer, which will then impinge on your subjectivity, you pinball, you.

We all have to operate in a temporal milieu where the past is known but untouchable, while the future is touchable but unknown, and the present is our point of power, wherein we wield our ability to know the past and touch the future.  The most effective attitude toward the past is that of student, and toward the future, that of engineer.  The goal of the student is to learn the principles that explain the processes under study.  The goal of the engineer is to apply the principles that will enable, preserve, modify, or terminate processes in the future.  Both the student and the engineer, then, are involved with principles.  The answer to your question above, then, is, "Be principled."

I suggest to the subjectivist that six areas of study would be frutiful, those being (1) justice; (2) utility; (3) reasonableness; (4) social appropriateness; (5) sanity; and (6) authenticity.  But don't study these as if they existed on the plane of objectivity.  They don't.  Their natural habitat is the plane of subjectivity, where they were born, and have their motive force, and undergo their evolution.  This means the student must be self-taught.  Autodidactism is necessary and, thankfully, sufficient.  Your own judgment must anoint the principles you will make your own, and the good news is, your judgment is up to the task, indeed it was born for the task.  Just don't lie to yourself.  Self-deceit is kryptonite for your judgment.  So long as you are unflinchingly honest with yourself, the principles you consecrate will serve you as intended, and the future you engineer will at least have its original impulse in truth - your truth.  What your truth sets in motion will at least be yours.  As the future unfolds and becomes the past, you-the-engineer will become again you-the-student, and you will apply your judgment to interpreting what you wrought, so as to learn from it, and refine your truth, that your next feat of engineering might be even truer, and even more yours.

[dloubet]

What separates subjectivity from objectivity? If, as I believe, we are robots made of meat without anything that could reasonably be called free will, then all our subjective experience and value judgements are the result of an objective causal chain. We are forced to assign the values we assign to things by brute circumstance.

Since the entire causal chain is a series of objective events, where does this subjectivity sneak in? If it's just the experience of being conscious, then that's great, but it doesn't really accomplish anything given that there's no reason to assume that creatures without experience of consciousness couldn't be forced by circumstance to make the same value judgments.

So what is subjectivity, and what is it's utility?

[Inevitable Droid]

What separates subjectivity from objectivity?

I'll belatedly define some terms.

I'll define the psyche as the sum of processes undertaken by the brain, excluding those that run the machinery of the body, and excluding those that maintain the brain's database.  I'll define subjectivity and objectivity as perspectives available to the psyche, with objectivity being the perspective that excludes all emotion and all appetite, and subjectivity being the perspective that incorporates all emotion and all appetite.  

If, as I believe, we are robots made of meat without anything that could reasonably be called free will, then all our subjective experience and value judgements are the result of an objective causal chain. We are forced to assign the values we assign to things by brute circumstance.

Now that I've (belatedly) defined objectivity as a perspective available to the psyche, I would have to delete the word objective from your quote above before I could agree with it, since you aren't using that word to describe a perspective of the psyche.  However, once that word is deleted, I can agree with your quoted statements, albeit only to the extent that the psyche isn't a function of quantum mechanical phenomena, which include quantum leaps, which are spontaneous changes independent of direct triggering mechanisms.  Neuroscience has recently taken seriously the proposition that the psyche may in fact be a function of quantum mechanical phenomena.  Investigations along these lines are still preliminary.

Since the entire causal chain is a series of objective events, where does this subjectivity sneak in?

My belated definition of the term objectivity has, after the fact, rendered your question indecipherable without rewording, but I will reword it.  "Is subjectivity, being the perspective of the psyche that incorporates all emotion and all appetite, rendered illusory or at least irrelevant by the possibility that all emotion and all appetite might be the results of plodding Newtonian causality, easily mappable strings of actions and their equal and opposite reactions?"  I would answer, no.  Emotions and appetites are phenomena that occur in the brain and are studied by neuroscientists.  There's no reason we can't talk about them as being real or as being relevant to a given discussion.  

If it's just the experience of being conscious, then that's great, but it doesn't really accomplish anything given that there's no reason to assume that creatures without experience of consciousness couldn't be forced by circumstance to make the same value judgments.

For example, robots could be programmed with emotion subroutines and appetite subroutines that are continually running and continually processing input, while the robots presumably remain devoid of all sentience.  Such robots could likewise be programmed with two modes of computation, one that excludes the outputs of the emotion and appetite subroutines, call it objectivity mode, and another, call it subjectivity mode, which incorporates the outputs of the emotion and appetite subroutines.  Given the foregoing, the human roboticists could study the differing behavior of their robots when one or the other of the two modes is dominant, and there's every reason to anticipate that there would in fact be differing behaviors.  I conclude, therefore, that subjectivity, as I've belatedly defined it, is worth talking about, even if all emotion and all appetite are the results of plodding Newtonian causality, easily mappable strings of actions and their equal and opposite reactions.
 

So what is subjectivity, and what is it's utility?

The utility is whatever utility emotion and appetite have.  Presumably they facilitate survival, since their impact on behavior is so great, burning so much energy, commandeering so much time, and directing so much attention, that if they didn't facilitate survival, surely they would have been selected against.
 
My thesis, then, can be restated rather succinctly as follows: Shouldmust is a function of emotion and/or appetite plus ratiocination.  For example, robots can be said to exhibit shouldmust to the extent they have emotion and/or appetite subroutines running in their architecture, as some in fact do, for example the creations of Cynthia Breazeal and her teams.  Cynthia is a hero of mine.  Here is a link to her web page: http://iwaswondering.org/cynthia_homepage.html

A rock, lacking emotion or appetite, cannot be said to exhibit shouldmust, nor can a glass of water, or a cloud, or a flame, or an automobile, for all of these lack emotion or appetite.

[dloubet]

I'll define subjectivity and objectivity as perspectives available to the psyche, with objectivity being the perspective that excludes all emotion and all appetite, and subjectivity being the perspective that incorporates all emotion and all appetite.

So objectivity is a dispassionate evaluation, and subjectivity is all emo.  ;-)

Yet we can objectively evaluate subjective states, in ourselves and others. I suppose we can even subjectively evaluate our objective evaluations.

Neuroscience has recently taken seriously the proposition that the psyche may in fact be a function of quantum mechanical phenomena. Investigations along these lines are still preliminary.

Well, that's pretty much irrelevant to the issue of free will. Random does not equal freedom. Being a slave to a roll of the dice is no better than being a slave to a deterministic causal chain.

I would answer, no. Emotions and appetites are phenomena that occur in the brain and are studied by neuroscientists. There's no reason we can't talk about them as being real or as being relevant to a given discussion.

I agree with this.

There are phenomenon in the brain we have agreed to call emotions and desires, but these phenomenon are still intrinsically molecules doing what molecules do.

One strange question is the issue of ownership. Since all our mental activity is the result of a causal chain beyond our control, on what basis do we claim ownership of those mental activities? Sure, they happened in our brain, but we had nothing to do with them. I might as well claim the mental activity of the guy next to me as my own since I had as much to do with his thoughts and feelings as the ones in my own head.

[Inevitable Droid]

So objectivity is a dispassionate evaluation, and subjectivity is all emo.  ;-)

Yet we can objectively evaluate subjective states, in ourselves and others. I suppose we can even subjectively evaluate our objective evaluations.

Yes, yes, and yes.

Neuroscience has recently taken seriously the proposition that the psyche may in fact be a function of quantum mechanical phenomena. Investigations along these lines are still preliminary.

Well, that's pretty much irrelevant to the issue of free will. Random does not equal freedom. Being a slave to a roll of the dice is no better than being a slave to a deterministic causal chain.

At this point I need to ask you to define self as you would use the term.  I have been assuming self and body to be two different words for precisely the same reality.  My body is me.  I am my body.  Thus if my body does something, then it is I who have done it.  If my brain does something, then my body has done it, and I have done it, since my brain is a sub-system of my body, and my body is me.  

I also need to ask you to define free will as you would use the term.  I would define free will as the ability to behave independently of external causality.  The adjective external is key to that sentence.  If the only causality I am absolutely dependent on is internal, I can claim free will for myself, as I define the term.  I also think it's important for me to say how I do not define free will.  I do not define it as having no definite behavioral tendencies.  Thus the fact that someone could predict my behavior via statistical analysis doesn't deny me the right to claim free will for myself.  I do not define free will as independence from all causality and all probability, for causality and probability are part and parcel of all that is.  One could argue that being subject to causality and probability is precisely what it means to exist.  I do not define free will in such a way as to require a thing to not exist before free will could be attributed to it.

One strange question is the issue of ownership. Since all our mental activity is the result of a causal chain beyond our control, on what basis do we claim ownership of those mental activities? Sure, they happened in our brain, but we had nothing to do with them. I might as well claim the mental activity of the guy next to me as my own since I had as much to do with his thoughts and feelings as the ones in my own head.

Before I can respond fully to that, I need to hear your definition of self.  By my definition; I.e., the self is the body; if my brain does something, then it is I who have done it.

[dloubet]

At this point I need to ask you to define self as you would use the term. I have been assuming self and body to be two different words for precisely the same reality. My body is me. I am my body. Thus if my body does something, then it is I who have done it. If my brain does something, then my body has done it, and I have done it, since my brain is a sub-system of my body, and my body is me.

I strongly suspect something more than just a body is necessary for selfhood. If I look at a dead body, I see no self there. The self is gone even though the body and brain remain. Clearly self also incorporates consciousness and those two perspectives you're always on about.  ;-)  

But the word I also suggests ownership of a sort. An I that claims credit or responsibility for the things the body does. But surely you don't claim responsibility for your heart beating, or your pancreas producing insulin. So you can't really pump your fist and claim you did it!

I would define free will as the ability to behave independently of external causality. The adjective external is key to that sentence. If the only causality I am absolutely dependent on is internal, I can claim free will for myself, as I define the term.

I would say no. All your internal cause and effect is ultimately the result of external causality.

Plus, the term free will is usually brought up as a means of assigning responsibility for one's actions. But if all your internal goings on are a direct result of external sources beyond one's control, where's the responsibility?

In other words, circumstance forces a nature upon us, and although we had no hand in determining that nature, we are held responsible for acting according to that nature. It's like holding dice responsible for the number they roll.

[Inevitable Droid]

I strongly suspect something more than just a body is necessary for selfhood. If I look at a dead body, I see no self there. The self is gone even though the body and brain remain. Clearly self also incorporates consciousness and those two perspectives you're always on about.  ;-)  

OK.  I use words differently.  Here's how I would talk about death.  The self is dead, the body is dead, the psyche is inactive.  I wouldn't say the psyche is gone or absent, because I would never have said previously that the psyche was here or present, because I don't think of the psyche as an object, but rather, as processes that are running; I.e., as multiple parallel series of events.  I would always be willing to replace the word psyche with the compound gerund perceiving/thinking/feeling/lusting/deciding.

But the word I also suggests ownership of a sort. An I that claims credit or responsibility for the things the body does. But surely you don't claim responsibility for your heart beating, or your pancreas producing insulin. So you can't really pump your fist and claim you did it!

Here too I use words differently.  My purpose is to avoid positing the existence of a thing that doesn't need to be posited except to satisfy a clumsy use of words.  I am my body.  I pump my fist.  It is I who pumped my fist and I who claim credit.  I digest my dinner.  It is I who digest my dinner and I who claim credit.  I do some things with psyche and some things without psyche.  The things I do with psyche are done by me, and the things I do without psyche are likewise done by me.  My brain runs perceiving/thinking/feeling/lusting/deciding processes but it also runs other processes engaged in directing the processes of other organ systems, and still other processes engaged in maintaining the brain's database, these latter two sets of processes being excluded from psyche but still functions of the brain, with the brain being a sub-system of the body and thus a sub=system of me.  By no other discipline than a careful use of words, I eliminate the need to posit some supernatural entity called soul or atman or other similar name.  I won't posit a soul or atman until neuroscience isolates behaviors of the body that have no correlation in the brain.  So far, no such behaviors have been isolated.

I would define free will as the ability to behave independently of external causality. The adjective external is key to that sentence. If the only causality I am absolutely dependent on is internal, I can claim free will for myself, as I define the term.

I would say no. All your internal cause and effect is ultimately the result of external causality.

I didn't appear from nowhere out of nothing, this is true.  My existence had a cause, namely, sperm and egg uniting, which likewise had a cause, coitus.  All discrete entities that exist, were caused.  Let me ask you, is there any way, in your view, that a thing could be caused, and be subject to causality, and have tendencies, and be subject to probability, yet have free will?  If not, then in effect you're defining free will as non-existence, and making it logically impossible, since that which exists cannot have non-existence as an attribute.  Why do that?  By doing it, you've left free will as something trivial to talk about.  I can't simultaneously exist and be non-existent.  So what?

Still, your comments have caused me to revise my own definition of free will, which I would now define as, "the capacity to make decisions that aren't entirely dependent on external causes that are active at this present moment."  I therefore grant free will to a robot, which makes decisions, and those decisions are responsive to, and thus somewhat dependent on, external causes that are active at this present moment, but aren't entirely dependent on those external causes, as there is also a dependency on the robot's software processes currently running, and those software processes are internal.  Apparently you will reject such a use of the term free will because the robot isn't responsible for its software processes and therefore isn't responsible for its decisions.  I will therefore define two kinds of free will, the kind with responsibility and the kind without it.  The day may come when robots will be able to decide to modify their own software, and will be able to carry out such a decision.  On that day, robots will become responsible for the current state of their own software, and will embark on the adventure of responsible free will.  To say they haven't will be to say that responsibility must be utterly independent of all causality, and thus will render responsibility as a synonym for non-existence, leaving it as something trivial to talk about, since of course a discrete entity cannot exist and simultaneously have an attribute of non-existence.  I reject that, and suggest instead that we define responsibility as, "the capacity to decide, and the capacity to carry out the decision, to modify one's own decision-making parameters."  Thus humans and perhaps one day robots will be able to be described as responsible.

In other words, circumstance forces a nature upon us, and although we had no hand in determining that nature, we are held responsible for acting according to that nature. It's like holding dice responsible for the number they roll.

The alternative is to hold nothing and no one responsible for anything, ever, rendering all morality and all law moot.  That outcome is unacceptable to me, so I reject the thought process that leads up to it, and hold to my foregoing definition of responsibility.

[meta]

There is no free will. It's an illusion, along with "the self."

Reality is algorithmic causal process that is deterministic from all the events that every occurred in the universe since it began 13.72 years ago.

There is no certainty, but only probability, and degrees of that, fact being very high probability.

There IS objectivity, and that is determined by what works well for us: pragmatism, which is the principle of science.   Subjectivity is corrected by objectivity, through peer-review of either a group of people or scholars and scientists.  Subjectivity persists but is corraled by science, which finds truth through what works in experimentation and falsification.

The fact that we live and our species is still here, having evolved over millions of years, proves objectivity.

Richard.

[Inevitable Droid]

There is no free will. It's an illusion, along with "the self."

I experimented with thinking like that.  Denying myself the alleged illusion of free will, I denied myself the capacity to take responsibility for my actions, and thereby denied myself the capacity to commit to principled behavior.  I quickly recognized this condition as survival-threatening, prosperity-threatening, and relationship-threatening.  Any perspective that debilitating must be rejected.

[dloubet]

I wouldn't say the psyche is gone or absent, because I would never have said previously that the psyche was here or present, because I don't think of the psyche as an object, but rather, as processes that are running; I.e., as multiple parallel series of events. I would always be willing to replace the word psyche with the compound gerund perceiving/thinking/feeling/lusting/deciding.

I view consciousness as an emergent property of the activity of the brain. Yeah, it's a process. I don't know if I draw a distinction between calling it present or not, it seems obvious that it's present when it's present.

It is I who digest my dinner and I who claim credit.

Well, okay...

Let me ask you, is there any way, in your view, that a thing could be caused, and be subject to causality, and have tendencies, and be subject to probability, yet have free will?

No. If free will operates within the realm of cause and effect, then it's the same as everything else, and there's no point in giving it a name. It only has special meaning if it's a means of operating outside of cause and effect. The only thing that operates outside of cause and effect is quantum events such as atomic decay. But as I've said before, neither randomness nor determinism, nor a mixture, make you free.

Free will does not exist. It's not even an illusion, it's just a claim. For it to be an illusion, you have to observe something that you mistake for free will, but that doesn't really happen. No one points to a specific spot in their decision making and says that's where the free will came in.

If not, then in effect you're defining free will as non-existence, and making it logically impossible, since that which exists cannot have non-existence as an attribute.

I'm not defining it as non-existent, I'm saying it's common definition does not make sense.

Your robot is not free. It's operating according to its programming, and cannot do otherwise. It is irrelevant if its processes are internal or external, they are mechanical. The ability to re-program itself is not a solution either. It would only choose to re-program itself in accordance with it's current programming. The same way we can't escape our nature by trying to re-invent ourselves.

The alternative is to hold nothing and no one responsible for anything, ever, rendering all morality and all law moot. That outcome is unacceptable to me, so I reject the thought process that leads up to it, and hold to my foregoing definition of responsibility.

That constitutes the logical fallacy of Appeal to Consequences. What's true is true regardless of our wishes.

However, the truth that we are not responsible for our actions does not affect the fact that we still experience happiness and suffering, and seek to minimize the suffering and maximize the happiness. To this end, holding people responsible for their actions, even though they're not, can affect their behavior in a positive direction. Therefore it is in our collective interest to treat people as if they are responsible for their actions. This has worked fine throughout human history up until now as a behavioral modifier and there's no reason to think it will change anytime soon.

This works great with the stochastic universe we find ourselves in. A universe in which our otherwise deterministic future is modified by the heavy bombardment of random quantum events. This leaves the future wide open for meat-robots such as ourselves to explore.

[Persimmon Hamster]

There IS objectivity, and that is determined by what works well for us: pragmatism, which is the principle of science.   Subjectivity is corrected by objectivity, through peer-review of either a group of people or scholars and scientists.  Subjectivity persists but is corraled by science, which finds truth through what works in experimentation and falsification.

Are you mistaking an overall consensus among highly similar subjects for absolute objectivity?

There is no free will. It's an illusion, along with "the self."

I experimented with thinking like that.  Denying myself the alleged illusion of free will, I denied myself the capacity to take responsibility for my actions, and thereby denied myself the capacity to commit to principled behavior.  I quickly recognized this condition as survival-threatening, prosperity-threatening, and relationship-threatening.  Any perspective that debilitating must be rejected.

I have no problem acknowledging that there is no free will in the traditional sense.  However, I also have no problem acknowledging that my brain capacity is so limited [as to be incapable of considering the vast array of complex variables involved in every one of my decisions] that on my own scale of consciousness I have what largely resembles free will.  I must always take responsibility for my direct actions, for I am the direct cause.  If I were to directly cause unjust suffering for another then I would hope to be the first to suggest perhaps I ought to be appropriately excluded from the relevant causal chain.

[Persimmon Hamster]

The only thing that operates outside of cause and effect is quantum events such as atomic decay.

AFAIK, this remains to be conclusively determined.  Many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory is deterministic, as are non-local hidden variable theories such as in the Bohm interpretation.