What is objectivity based on?

[mattnapa]

A couple of quick thoughts. The most basic kind of objective reality is experience, and Descartes with "I think therefore I am." There are a lot of fascinating aspects on this question one of which is correspondence theory and whether the experience of an outside environment actually matches the in tinsic nature of that environment. By there is a second type of fact's which are of an abstact sort such as mathematics, rational interpretation etc. i am not sure if I am far afield from what you are talking about, but when you talk objective reality that is what comes up for me

 

[anart]

A couple of quick thoughts. The most basic kind of objective reality is experience, and Descartes with "I think therefore I am." There are a lot of fascinating aspects on this question one of which is correspondence theory and whether the experience of an outside environment actually matches the in tinsic nature of that environment. By there is a second type of fact's which are of an abstact sort such as mathematics, rational interpretation etc. i am not sure if I am far afield from what you are talking about, but when you talk objective reality that is what comes up for me

Hi Calypso, have you had a chance to read the Wave and Adventures Series yet? It really is vital to understanding the discussions that take place on this forum.

 

[mattnapa]

Anart- Thanks anyway.

 

[mattnapa]

Anart- Was the thread started about objective fact, or was it based on your wave book. I would probably be happy to look at the material you were offering if it was not done with this exclusionary tone. This is a concept that is covered by science which is called philosophy. Maybe it is you that needs more background information to talk about the subject correctly?

 

[Buddy]

i am not sure if I am far afield from what you are talking about, but when you talk objective reality that is what comes up for me

Hi Calypso. I'm not answering for anart, but I noticed that you indicated you may have some doubt as to how close your comments come to what is being discussed, therefore, I assume you are willing to consider more information or, at least, the subject matter from a different angle?

Fwiw, I see anart's comment as being helpful and guiding you to the material needed to expand your understanding. Laura's Wave series forms the context for most of the discussions on the forum.

 

[RyanX]

I wish to be able to express a theory I have based on experience, but I can not base it on any facts. For example, I am a student of the stock/currency/futures/housing markets and my studies of this area have suggested to me and others whom I have studied alongside, and learned under, that it is the herd that drives the markets. I say suggested because it is just a theory and not something that can be proven by fact, but only experience. Using the markets as an example, the herd can be right about the direction of the markets, but what matters most to them is when and how they participate. Whenever you reach a point where not only does the herd all agree with the direction of the market but are also participating or positioned in it, will the market stop and reverse, simply because there is no one left to participate and drive it further. However, before it ever gets to that point, the herd may all agree in the direction and can all be right, and as long as they do not participate the market will be allowed to head further in that direction.

With this theory about the markets, can we then use this same theory on the red pill blue pill idea? Let's humour ourselves for a minute and imagine that at some point in the near future we will all be given the chance to take either a blue pill or a red pill. Now my question to you is which one would you take?

Maybe I don't understand the markets and herd theory, but my understanding is that all it takes is for a certain number of big investors at the top to make moves and then all the smaller ones below them follow suit? In other words, herd theory works from the top down instead of the bottom up or in any fluid way. Convenient that economists focus on the "herd" rather than those elite investors at the top making the big moves, no? Kind of takes the eye off of the ones pulling the strings perhaps? I'm just speculating here...

In some ways though I see what you are trying to say when it comes to objective truth, herd mentality and the act of swallowing that bitter pill. There are a certain number of elder members on this forum who have done a lot of research in many areas of knowledge. They have dedicated years of their life to this. A lot of people here know this and see the results from it. They value this work and take the word of these individuals seriously when it comes to all things. These individuals have opinions which are aligned with Objectivity based on their level of knowledge. You can certainly challenge these ideas/opinions, but unless you have a plethora of research to back up your own ideas/opinions, it might be best to take the position of a student rather than a teacher.

Since there is only one Objective reality, activity on this forum may look like a herd mentality or "hive mind" to an outsider, but they don't realize that this is just one trait of a co-linear network that is aligned with Objectivity. You can't have some people accepting a little bit of this or a little bit of that and others doing likewise. My truth versus your truth, etc. That gets into the notion of YCYOR and wishful thinking. There are plenty of forums out there like this, but that is not the goal here. That's not to say there isn't a good deal of subjectivity that goes on here, but it is typically qualified as such.

Another important point is to not just accept the ideas here as truth without researching them and digesting them yourself. That is part of the 4th Way teachings is that one must not accept anything as truth until they have proven this truth to themselves. In other words, nobody can do the Work for you, you have to do it yourself.

Does that make any sense?

Have you read Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous yet? Along with reading The Wave and the Adventure Series, this book would help to explain a lot of what goes on here and might clarify some of your questions about Truth and Objectivity.

 

[John G]

This is a concept that is covered by science which is called philosophy. Maybe it is you that needs more background information to talk about the subject correctly?

This place knows about Descartes, he's even mentioned here:

http://www.cassiopedia.org/glossary/Objectivity

What you are doing is like going to a String Theory research forum and talking about Loop Quantum Gravity without knowing anything about String Theory. Loop Quantum Gravity could be OK for a String Theory forum in a compare and contrast kind of way, but not knowing anything about String Theory would severely limit one's ability to compare and contrast.

 

[anart]

Anart- Was the thread started about objective fact, or was it based on your wave book. I would probably be happy to look at the material you were offering if it was not done with this exclusionary tone. This is a concept that is covered by science which is called philosophy. Maybe it is you that needs more background information to talk about the subject correctly?

Calypso, please read the forum guidelines - in their entirety. If you agree with them and can abide by them, that's great. You have an apparent tendency to take offense at non-existent provocation and to go on the attack. This is not only quite unhelpful, but removes any opportunity for you to learn. If you are not here to learn, then perhaps another forum would be better for you.

 

[tridean]

Thanks for all the replies.

My thinking regarding the blue and red pill is that the movie the Matrix is extremely well known worldwide, and if I was one of those PTB, I would be expecting everyone to take the red pill.

 

[mattnapa]

Anart- It seems the usage here of objective facts is a little esoteric as described by your forum rules, so perhaps I was somewhat misguided in thinking you were talking about the general philosophical usage.

Bud- Thanks for being helpful

 

[Argonaut]

Dingo, thank you for starting this thread. I've been going through the same sort of thinking recently. I've been thinking in terms of various past belief systems I've had - mainly Christianity and Wicca, both of which I threw myself into completely. At the times I was into them, the "realities" they described WERE reality for me. I perceived everything through those religious filters, and they seemed to answer all the questions and tie up all the loose ends. I thought I was thinking objectively, but I was far, far from it.

For the past week or two, I've been thinking about my current convictions and ideas based on the Cass material, Gurdjieff, Ponerology, etc... And I was wondering if it was possible that I was falling into the "belief trap" once again. I mean, it all makes sense and explains everything going on in the world so well... but so did Christianity and Wicca back when my perspective was "shaped" by them. Could I be getting fooled again? How do I know that this stuff is based in objective Truth? After all, I do have a history of falling into belief systems...

But after reading through this thread, I see the difference. And it's an enormous one. For one thing, I never would've asked all these questions back in my "belief" days. And the only reason I'm doing so now is BECAUSE the ideas here taught me how to. Systems of belief teach you WHAT to think, but here we learn HOW to think. It's possible for someone to take the Cass ideas and turn them into a subjective belief system of some kind - but not if one truly gets the point. And for me this is a big way to differentiate between a true, objective idea from a subjective one. A subjective system usually has built-in "protection" for itself - some form of manipulation - while an objective system does not. An objective system offers itself up to be scrutinized and analyzed, and even helps you learn how to do that. It's clear to me that this forum really IS a place of objectivity. Not each and every piece of data written here will be 100% correct, but in this environment we can network to reach a working conclusion, scientifically. And like anart said, we eventually develop a nose for what's true and what's false.

Thanks for all the replies.

My thinking regarding the blue and red pill is that the movie the Matrix is extremely well known worldwide, and if I was one of those PTB, I would be expecting everyone to take the red pill.

This is pretty much the situation we're actually in right now, isn't it? Lots of COINTELPRO "Morpheus" figures offering fake "red pills." :) But if you mean a hypothetical ACTUAL pill being offered... I'd refuse to take either one until I knew more about who was offering the pills and why. And if it was an "act now, no time to think" type of situation, I'd just refuse completely. I think any genuine "teacher" would gladly offer himself and his pills up for analysis before we chose to take one.

[EDIT: Now that I think about it, disinfo sources really do offer us physical - although not literal - "red pills." Psychadelic drugs and mono-atomic gold, for instance. Both pushed as ways to "wake up" and see the Truth. How would you respond to a strange man offering you some mushroom or plant to ingest, claiming that it would "open your eyes to reality"? The proper response to this would be the same as the proper response to some guy offering you a choice of two differently-colored pills, whether red, blue, or anything else. :)]

 

[Laura]

Anart- It seems the usage here of objective facts is a little esoteric as described by your forum rules, so perhaps I was somewhat misguided in thinking you were talking about the general philosophical usage.

Bud- Thanks for being helpful

Calypso, notice at the top of the page the words "The Cassiopaea Forum." The forum was created by me and my husband and a group of researchers to explore reality as presented by the Cassiopaean Experiment. If you are not familiar with that context as presented in The Wave and Adventures With Cassiopaea, available free on the website, then you will have some difficulties with the discourse here. If you are not interested in the Cassiopaean explication of our reality after reading about it, then this forum isn't for you despite the fact that we may discuss many things that interest you in and of themselves.

 

[Joe]

Speaking in general of what is "objective reality," psychologist, John Schumaker, writes about it in a way that appears to me to come close - though he doesn't go all the way - to what both Gurdjieff and the Cs mean about objective reality, though what Schumaker then proposes - controlled delusion - as the means to mental health - is quite out of line with what we advocate.

The reality of the individual is to some extent the result of constructions that are fabricated and propagated by culture.

yeah, what Schumaker seems to be missing here are the reasons why "the reality of the individual is to some extent the result of constructions that are fabricated and propagated by culture" and to what extent they are propagated by culture, who makes the culture and how.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

A couple of quick thoughts. The most basic kind of objective reality is experience, and Descartes with "I think therefore I am."

There's a quote from Needleman's Lost Christianity which is relevant here:

"The problem of these new religions," he said, "is just that they do give results. But not necessarily in a religious sense. People are going to these new religions for emotions, for experiences, not for reality. An experience always seems real, even if what you experience is illusory in nature.

Experience is objectively real only in the sense that it "happens", but that is not the type of objectivity we're talking about. People can experience events, emotions, entire realities which are illusory, i.e. not objectively real. This is discussed in depth in the Wave. For example, we can have the "experience" of being loved, when in fact we are not; the experience of being "right" when we're actually wrong; the experience of being alive when we're actually dead; the experience of "love" when really it's chemicals; etc. etc. Objectivity is learning to See things as they are, to transcend mere "experience" for true Knowledge and Being.

 

[Joe]

All feelings that we have that relate to ourselves are true, if we so choose. What's an objective fact? Grass is green. If it's not, then there are no objective facts and everything that we perceive is just the representation of that thing as understood by the limits of our perception. How's that? :D