Is My Hypothesis Valid???

Why on Earth would you ever expect to have objective evidence of a purely subjective phenomenon?Human emotions are totally subjective. They don't exist objectively at all. Saying "I love my son" is equivalent (so far as evidence goes, anyway) to saying "I had a dream about my son," or "I have positive feelings when I think about my son."There's nothing objective about it, and those who claim that "love" or other emotions exist in any objective way are barking up the wrong tree. There are certain brain processes that can be objectively measured that can be associated with emotions and thoughts, but when it comes down to it we're still not objectively measuring emotion - we're objectively measuring electrochemical processes in a person's brain that that person experiences as a given emotion.There's no problem inherent subjective experiences and feelings. Problems only start to arise when you try to apply wholly subjective experiences like dreams and feelings to objective reality.When Straggler says "I love my son," no objective information is involved. When it comes down to it, Straggler's experience of "love" may be very different from mine, or yours. But when Straggler says "I love my son," he is expressing that he feels an emotion he has identified as "love" towards his son. It's completely subjective...and completely okay. We believe him simply because, with wholly subjective things like emotions, only Straggler can possibly know what he feels because it's his experience.When a person says "I feel God's presence," their subjective experience is not in doubt - they certainly have some "feeling" that they identify with their deity. However, this does not in any way suggest that "God" exists in objective reality. It simply means that an individual has a feeling.Subjective "feelings" only relate to objective reality similarly to (sometimes educated) guessing. "Feeling" that there is a cat inside a closet has absolutely no relationship to a cat actually being in a closet; dreams of flying or falling into a giant canyon have no relationship to Superman-style flight or a suicidal jump.Subjective experiences relating to gods, ghosts, goblins and fairies, whether they be visions of angels or dreams with divine revelation, prove only that the individual had a subjective experience. Such subjective experiences are not, in any way evidence of any of those things existing in objective reality.The mere term "subjective evidence" directly correlates to confidence in a given conclusion that cannot, by definition, be supported by the subjective experience. No degree of objective certitude is granted by a "feeling" for one conclusion over another - it can only provide unfounded emotional confidence: faith. The hallmark of irrationality is operating under the mistaken assumption that personal, unverifiable, subjective experiences somehow relate to objective reality.

Hi Rahvin,
You said:

quote:

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Unfortunately, that simply reinforces my point. Without the objective evidence supporting what a lion or a forest are and that they exist, the observations of the 100 are open to interpretation. The "lion" could in fact be a jaguar, or a fairy. The "forest" could be a city, or a tent. The observation of the 100 could simply be mass hysteria. Their claim is not evidence that there is a lion in a forest at all if we do not have objective evidence that lions and forests exist.

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The hermit is relying on the subjective statements of the villagers and is ignorant of what a lion is or what a forest is. Upon further query of the witnesses he can establish through they're combined information that he should not go in the forest. Not based on His objective evidence but based on they're subjective statements. Yes they are using OBJECTIVE evidence since they are the ones that saw the lion in the forest. But the hermit has no knowledge of any of it other than what he is told. He can still surmise that there is a large predatory cat in the forest and he had better beware.
I agree with you that the villagers are basing they're subjective statements on objective evidence. But it is the subjective evidence that is the basis of the hermits decision to keep clear of the forest or not.We all in my opinion conduct arguments from authority when you get right down to it. We do not physically check every fact of every scientific paper, or do the math....we hear a report or read the information and make our conclusions based on the source. We evaluate the sources credibility and make our decisions based on this. I am simply trying to have the empiricist concede that subjective evidence regardless of being based on objective evidence exist. Just because it is partially based on objective evidence does not mean it is not subjective evidence. It may not be the best evidence, but it is evidence. Maybe? Edited by 1.61803, : bad spelling.

Why will you not treat the example given in Message 44 as a valid example?If we are to truly distinguish "subjective evidence" from the "subjective interpretation of objective evidence" why must you insist on examples where the two can be conflated?Surely the intellectually honest thing to do here is to atttempt to provide examples where the two cannot be confused?Thus talk of lions and forests and observations, all things that we agree are objectively valid concepts, seeks only to use possibly objective evidence as support for subjective notions. No?Let us try and seperate the two. Your genuine help in doing this would be much appreciated.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

No, not really. Subjective "evidence" is only evidence if it is at least partially based on objective evidence; in the absence of any sort of observation the subjective experience is worthless. For instance, suppose the hermit talked to a villager who didn't really go along and look at things but got worked up enough by the villagers to have strong feelings about "stuff". The account of that villager isn't useful to the hermit at all because it cannot possibly convey even a warped view of reality, due to the complete lack of objective evidence.Feelings can color our perceptions of observations (in fact almost always do) but they cannot, on their own, convey information about reality. In the absence of objective evidence subjective "evidence" is meaningless, while on the other hand in the absence of subjective "evidence" objective evidence is accurate. What does this tell us?

of course the groupings were arbitrary. how might you group them?i saw my son yesterday
i saw a cat yesterday
i saw my googlesplat yesterday
i saw an IPU yesterday
i saw God yesterday
i saw the table in half first off, the witness did not have to be so special. we only had to create a situation where the evidence was subjective.your witness may be fine. but any witness who testified would be fine.as you fleshed out the limitations of your witness, i began to wonder what his testimony would be, but - assuming he had testimony to effect that he was certain the defendant committed the crime, the testimony would be fine. and, before you raise your hand, yes - the defense would cross-examine with everything they could bring to bear to discredit the testimony, so i have to assume in your hypothetical situation, that this testimony would stand up. i'm not sure how, but the details are something you would be able to provide should it matter.my objection was only that it was unnecessary to construct such a hypothetical witness. a policeman with 20-20 vision would be fine. it would still only be subjective evidence, and even though there may be no objective evidence to corroborate the testimony, it would be enough to convict. so my objection was only ancillary to the question. well, in my story, there is no other evidence. now it is true that we know that people commit crimes of murder, like we know that cats cross roads. we dont have an unbelievable fantasmic crime here.i'm not certain 1) you can eliminate all objective components in the world experience of the person giving the subjective testimony (i'm assuming he is NOT claiming something like he dreamed it happened); and 2) i'm not certain, once we're in the courtroom, it would matter.where you are taking this is not where i was taking it. having read RAZD's later response, he appears to be in yet a 3rd village of thought. so we seem to be talking about 3 different things. all we need now is a YECist to join in with the equivalent of irridescent quantum-hidden Elephant Wings.

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- xongsmith

Bingo, 1.6180339

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- xongsmith

I'm not a lawyer, and don't claim to have a lot of knowledge in this area, but I rather doubt that any jury would convict a murderer with no objective evidence.For one, a dead body would be objective evidence of a murder. From what I understand, one person saying, "I saw that guy murder someone," would not lead to a conviction. It would take some sort of corroborating evidence, or at the very least, a number of witnesses, all pointing the finger at one person, with sufficiently similar stories of the events, and some sort of proof showing the witnesses didn't concoct some conspiratorial story to convict an otherwise innocent person. If these things were not present, and the jury still convicted, the convict could justifiably, IMO, appeal citing an incompetent attorney.

You are making no sense.If the evidence used in court is "subjective evdidence", as opposed to the subjecttive interpretation of objectiv evidence, is our deaf blind paraplegic witness a valid and reliable witness or not?If not why not? Be specific.

i may be wrong here, but i dont for one second think that RAZD thinks they are indistinguishable.objective evidence is always superior, it's at the top of the ladder.
i think that you may be arguing that subjective evidence is no better than a Random Guess - i.e. - the ground the ladder is on, rather than one of the lower rungs. and when that's all you have, it's better than nothing (the Random Guessing ground).

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- xongsmith

But that subjective evidence, while it may be enough to prevent the hermit from putting his life at risk to test the claims of the villagers, does not give us a reliable way to discern the objective, real world.Science, in striving to remove as much subjectivity as possible from the process, has provided a far superior method of determing what's objectively real than naively believeing anyhting a group of people tells you, despite not even being aware of the things they claim to exist and having nothing presented as proof beyond their say-so. If we, in general, did so, then Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormon Church would find it much easier to convert people, they'd just have to send larger groups out.

But then it's exactly the same as nothing. If having no evidence whatsoever allows you to randomly guess, then how does subjective evidence, which only gets you to the level of randomly guessing, become better than nothing?

your "as opposed" split is not my split.
you want to make it "subjective evidence" without the possibility of interpretation of objective evidence?at some point i'll need to have you describe our unfortunate witness's testimony for your example. i dont need it for my example. i dont care if it's subjective interpretation of objective evidence - by the time it gets to the courtroom as testimony it's only subjective evidence.

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- xongsmith

Well after two and a half threads of disagreemenmt with RAZD I am pretty sure that this is what he is saying.I have asked repeatedly and still no actual indication as to what is and is not subjective evidence has been forthcoming.But the fact that neither you nor I can say for sure is testament to his evasion on stating exactly what the fuck it is he does actually mean after two and a half threads of discussion. Do you think that the methods of science (predictions, repeatability, peer review, independent corroboration, testing hypotheses etc. etc.) are designed to maximise objectivity and minimise subjectivity? Or not?

conceded. so i have "a number" of witnesses.
a single policeman's testimony can convict for smaller offenses.

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- xongsmith

Yes. Our parapligic says that he felt euphoric at the time of the alleged murder. He thus feels that he was in tune with the murderer.Is this evidence of a murder? If not why not?