boasts of Athiests II

Your judgment was meaningless in the same way that, in my hypothetical example, my judgment that red was superior to blue was meaningless.It had meaning for me, but it did not have meaning objectively.Now, in the pursuit of truth, what matters is objectivity, not subjectivity. I can subjectively value anything I like, but it means nothing. It might make me happy, of course, but that has nothing to do with truth.

The quality of truth does not apply to things or beings, Jar. It applies to statements.I cannot say that a stone lying in the street is either true or false.Truth has to do with opinions only. Your opinion that your experience was valuable was purely subjective and therefore meaningless--objectively speaking.

What I meant was your opinion has no truth-value. Of course it matters to you, just as my subjective ideas matter to me. I have a lot of those, as everyone does. For example, I have this opinion that I am a fine fellow. Purely subjective, of course.

It may make no difference to your views, but it makes a difference as regards the truth of the proposition. Just because you think the experience was valuable doesn't mean that it was valuable. For all we know, it might have been harmful to humanity at large or even to you. Your opinion that it was valuable was subjective. It was not an idea logically derived. It was emotionally derived.Just because you have nice feelings doesn't mean that the proposition was true. One might have nice feelings by thinking, "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world." That does not mean that God is in fact in heaven and that in fact all's right with the world.

If by "meaning" we mean a definite idea that can be communicated to another, then of course such statements have meaning.

By "truth-value" do you mean, such statements MIGHT be objectively true?

OK, I understand.Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that there are no objective values. This means that no thing, experience, or behavior can be said to be any more valuable than any other thing, experience, or behavior. "Value" is not a quality that can be assigned to any experience.Then suppose I have an experience, and I make the claim, "This experience was valuable." This statement is untrue about the experience. But suppose this experience really is valuable to me (say, it makes me happy). In order for my claim to be true, it has to be a statement about me, not a statement about the experience. The experience I had need not be valuable for anyone else.

OK. Now just a clarification about "meaning," so I can get the terms down. Would you say that a statement such as "Arithmetic is green" is meaningful?I was using the term "meaningless" to mean statements like that.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

So if "Arithmetic is green" is not meaningful, I would think that "Arithmetic is not green" also lacks meaning.So if we go back to the premise that there are no objective values, we can say that objective value is not a quality that can be applied to experiences, in the same way that color is a quality that cannot be applied to arithmetic, or other such concepts. So if I have an experience, and make the claim,"This experience was valuable," that would be like saying "Arithmetic is green"--as regards objective value. In that sense, the statement would not be meaningful (it would lack truth-value).It would, however, be meaningful subjectively. Suppose I had an experience of watching a certain movie, and my claim was, "This experience of watching that movie was valuable." In an objective sense, this statement would lack meaning. In a subjective sense, it would mean, "This movie was valuable to me." Let's say what we mean by "valuable" is that it made me happy. Such a statement is meaningful--it might be true or false. But the truth or falsehood has to do only with me (whether or not watching the movie made me happy).You were saying that the experience and the person could not be separated. But the movie in itself has no value. Nor, I would think, can an object (the movie) have subjective value except in connection with a subject (me or someone else).And I would think that the fact that I had a subjectively valuable experience cannot be used in evidence that the movie has value for others.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

OK, I get that. Let me go back to a statement I made earlier, and change the wording somewhat (in this statement there was no premise about a lack of objective value). Here's what I said earlier:Suppose I prefer the color red to the color blue. And suppose I do so because I associate red with a favorite color of a long lost girlfriend, whom I still love. So when I see the color red, I am enthralled.Now if I make a generalization, and say, "Red is a superior color to blue," my judgment is purely subjective. [It has no truth-value at all in that it has no logical basis.]I change the words in brackets to the following: "It has truth-value but there is no evidence for my claim."The reason it has truth-value is that it could possibly be true, for all we know.And then in another statement I made to Jar, in his asking what difference it made whether my judgment was subjective or not, I said,"It may make no difference to me, but it makes a huge difference in regard to the value of the color. [My judgment of it is meaningless].I change the sentence in brackets as follows: "My judgment of it lacks merit as an argument. But it is a meaningful statement in that it might be true or false."Does this pass muster with you?Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

OK. Subjective judgments are meaningful in that they have truth-value (can be true or false). But there are two ways they have truth-value.Let's say we don't know if there is an objective ranking of colors or not.1. I say, "I prefer red to blue" (truth value: either I do or I don't).
2. I say, "Red is superior to blue objectively," (based on my subjective association described above). Truth value: This statement is either true or false, but the argument is fallacious. The statement is put in an objective form, but the argument is subjective.Agree?Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

Jar, do you mean that the world is awesome in a subjective or objective sense?If you mean it in the subjective sense, the truth-value of your comment is as follows: either you feel awe when you observe the universe or you do not. If we had an awe-meter, we could hook it up to your brain and find out if you do in fact feel sufficent awe for this statement to be true.Is this all you mean? Somehow I think you mean more, and yet you have said that all judgments are subjective.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

Obviously, I do, or I wouldn't have asked.Now, if you mean it in the objective sense, the statement would mean that the universe exudes those qualities that produce awe even if there's no one to feel it. Millions and millions of years ago, when there were no people, the world nonetheless was awesome. I'm not sure if the animals feel awe or not, but even before the animals the universe was awesome. Is this what you mean?Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

I don't know. Is there a limit? That sounds like your statement is meant in an objective sense.But there's a problem here. Your evidence is SUBJECTIVE.You can't build an objective argument on subjective evidence.

All? Are you suggesting that science or mathematics, when properly practiced, is subjective? I would certainly disagree about that.Would you say that logic, properly handled, is subjective? I think I would disagree about that too.But I suppose you are referring to morals and what we value and so forth. My nihilistic philosophy would tend to agree about that. Therefore, the statement, "the world is awesome," being merely subjective, need not be considered seriously except insofar as it is a description of your feelings.That's the problem. People keep agreeing with me that values are subjective, but they also keep ramming them home to me with a bit too much vigor.You can't have it both ways.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.