The Blanket is comfortable (Subjectivity vs Fact)

[Blue_Blistering_Barnacle]

I saw an interesting discussion about subjectivity and objectivity years ago when I was in college.

The point of discussion was steak prepared thick, juicy and tender versus thin, tough, and peppery. Two individuals subjectively preferred the opposite steak preparation based on objective criteria.

I think that it is fair to say that your awesome blanket is known to be comfortable (to humans) with far more reliability than any biological/medical science we have available to us now. I’m guessing that the physical sciences would be challenged as well.

[Blue_Blistering_Barnacle]

@IvoryTowerDenizen

Still an opinion, because if someone says it’s not comfortable, they are not factually wrong.

Quite clearly he’s either crazy, mistaken, or lying! This blanket is the BEST, better than sliced bread!

When I say he’s lying, clearly he’s not lying on this wonderful blanket, or he’d shut his piehole!

[CurtC]

@Dioptre

You can’t turn something subjective into objective just by increasing your sample size. If everyone in the world finds it comfortable, how do you know? Because they say so? Ok, your claim has just shifted so that everyone says it is comfortable.

I’m not sure if the OP was really wondering about the status of comfortableness of blankets, or he wanted to take it somewhere, but here goes…

Your point exactly parallels my thoughts on the subjectivity of morality. Morality is, at bottom, one’s opinion about the best course of action in a situation. Since it’s an opinion, it’s simply not objective.

Even if everyone in the world agrees that torturing babies for fun is immoral, that does not then make it an objective fact. Morality is still an opinion. Even if there’s a god who thinks it’s not OK to torture babies, it’s still just his opinion, and therefore still not objective. Theists often claim that morality has to be objective to be of value, but it’s so obviously not, that I don’t know how they can even begin to make that claim.

[robert_columbia]

@AHunter3

The OP’s question is useful and insightful.

We find the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity useful but what we mean (whether we realize it or not) is whether our experience of a thing does or does not differ from person to person (and hence from vantage point to vantage point). If it differs, we tend to consider it to be subjective; if we and all of our instruments perceive the same thing, we consider it to be an objective characteristic of the thing in and of itself.

No obvservable quality is an objective characteristic of anything. All meaning is interactive and hence involves the observer. The search for objective meaning is really the search for enough info from enough vantage points that no vantage point is left out.

Yes. Thanks, OP. This is a really interesting discussion.

When we are little children, we learn that there is a stark difference between facts such as “Suzie’s dress is blue” and “Suzie’s dress is pretty”.

When we get to be older, we realize that “facts” and “opinions” exist on a spectrum. Some things that are commonly considered “facts” can be hotly contested. Some people might consider Suzie’s dress to be more of an indigo than a true blue. Some “opinions” are held by nearly all people.

If you go to grad school, you’ll deal with this everyday. There are no “answers” in grad school. The correct response is, “The majority of research (cf. McGuy, 1787; Jones, 1950; Smith, 1978; Cooldude, 1993) indicates that A is correct, but there is a common theory that B is true, as Peters, Belle, and Rogerson (1995) indicate. O’Reilly and Romanov (2003) propose an interesting theory of C but more research is needed.”

[Little_Nemo]

@CurtC

I’m not sure if the OP was really wondering about the status of comfortableness of blankets, or he wanted to take it somewhere, but here goes…

Your point exactly parallels my thoughts on the subjectivity of morality. Morality is, at bottom, one’s opinion about the best course of action in a situation. Since it’s an opinion, it’s simply not objective.

Even if everyone in the world agrees that torturing babies for fun is immoral, that does not then make it an objective fact. Morality is still an opinion. Even if there’s a god who thinks it’s not OK to torture babies, it’s still just his opinion, and therefore still not objective. Theists often claim that morality has to be objective to be of value, but it’s so obviously not, that I don’t know how they can even begin to make that claim.

But this is assuming some objective standard of morality (or comfort) exists - that there is a Platonic ideal of morality or comfort and our human notions of these concepts may or may not match the ideal.

But it seems more likely that no such ideal exists. The concept of morality or comfort is created by consensus. If we define baby torture as immoral, then it is immoral - we assigned that meaning to the word. And if we define comfortable as “the feeling associated with this blanket” then the blanket is comfortable by definition. Like Humpty Dumpty, when we use a word it means just what we choose it to mean.

[gigi]

@AHunter3

The OP’s question is useful and insightful.

Says you.

[Learjeff]

If every single human agreed that blankets are comfortable, then the fact would be: Everyone finds a blanket comfortable.

Another possible fact: “Blankets are comfortable because [biological details here].”

As long as the declaration is a subjective matter, it cannot be a fact, as the term is used by scientists.

There are those who use the term “objective” to mean “everyone agrees.” I once heard a lawyer mention “objective standards of aesthetics”, which was a clue to me why he wasn’t a scientist, bright as he was.

[Great_Antibob]

Seems like the consensus opinion in the thread (ha!) is to add a layer of abstraction and then ignore that layer.

From what I can tell, posters seem to want to say that while comfort is itself subjective, there’s no functional difference between some kind of objective notion of comfort and an overwhelming consensus drawn from a bunch of subjective opinions.

Or between the subjective morality of baby torture and the objective reality that the consensus opinion of humanity is baby torture is immoral.

There’s no real functional difference. Nor does the distinction really mean much in everyday life. We can safely ignore that layer of abstraction/distinction for most daily purposes.

That is, until we run across another highly intelligent species that may have different notions.

[Oly]

@leahcim

Or to put it another way, “red” has some independent definition in regards to spectrum reflected from the object, while “comfortable” is defined entirely by people’s opinion of it. I.e. there is no proper definition of “comfortable” other than “people find it comfortable”.

Does this mean that “The blanket is red” was not a fact before people had an understanding of light waves, etc? Or that “The blanket is red” is not today a fact for people who do not have that understanding, or, to use your term, do not have a “proper definition” of red.

“The blanket is red” was a fact then and it is a fact now because everyone (or enough people) agree that it is so. The wave length stuff came/comes after the fact, literally.

Can’t what is said of the property of redness just as well be said of the property of comfortableness (in the scenario presented by the OP)? If not, why not?

And who’s to say there is not some “proper defnition” of comfortableness out there waiting to be discovered?

[gigi]

@Oly

“The blanket is red” was a fact then and it is a fact now because everyone (or enough people) agree that it is so. The wave length stuff came/comes after the fact, literally.

Leaving aside the whole issue of what I think is red may not be what you think is red.

[AHunter3]

Objectivity is imputed to statements such as “The fragment of gold wire has a length of 1,435,000 angstrom units”.

Several human scientists have used more than one measuring device and read the output thereof with their own eyes. The wire-measure “experiment”, if we may overdignify it by that name, has very repeatable results. There is consensus.

Objectivity remains a myth. (So does subjectivity, for that matter, there is only interactivity, in which interaction yields impressions, sensory cognitions).

[Learjeff]

@AHunter3

(So does subjectivity [remain a myth], for that matter, there is only interactivity, in which interaction yields impressions, sensory cognitions).

I disagree. I have direct evidence that subjectivity exists; it’s not a myth. In fact, it’s about the only thing I can say with complete certainty, as I can’t doubt it without contradicting myself!

Objectivity is the part that might be mythical. But I’m pretty confident there’s an objective reality out there.

[Colibri]

Since the question is about opinions, in my opinion it belongs in IMHO.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

[John_DiFool]

A different angle, if I may…

Two sides to the coin in question…

On the one hand, my mind is boggled that someone, anyone, can listen to say this song and not think it is just the greatest thing ever. Powerful, propulsive, excellent guitar work and drumming, pensive lyrics.

But undoubtedly there are people out there who would find it absolutely abhorrent. And, for those that do, I deeply ponder what it is, exactly, that makes them react that way, makes them want to listen to something completely different, to not like it like I do, to not like it in the way that I do.

But, when that happens, I then ponder how it is that a consensus can be had on anything. If we are all just a wildly disparate collection of influences, experiences, expectations, predilections, etc. (of what makes music “good” for us as individuals), then why should I expect X% of the people out there to like a given song/album like I do? How could we ever agree on anything?

And if they do like song X by said artist, and then we go and listen to song Y by the same band, and it then it turns out that they like it, but I hate it, I then wonder what made them and I agree on the first one, and disagree on the second, which then makes me think that, whatever it was that made us agree on the 1st, it was for wildly different reasons, thus the consensus in the end was purely coincidental.

[AHunter3]

@Learjeff

I disagree. I have direct evidence that subjectivity exists; it’s not a myth. In fact, it’s about the only thing I can say with complete certainty, as I can’t doubt it without contradicting myself!

Objectivity is the part that might be mythical. But I’m pretty confident there’s an objective reality out there.

You are right and I am wrong! :smack:

Yes, I should have said "When it comes to our responses to things outside ourselves, there is not a ‘subjective’ and an ‘objective’ but rather an ‘interactive’ ".

[Boyo_Jim]

@Oly

Does this mean that “The blanket is red” was not a fact before people had an understanding of light waves, etc? Or that “The blanket is red” is not today a fact for people who do not have that understanding, or, to use your term, do not have a “proper definition” of red.

“The blanket is red” was a fact then and it is a fact now because everyone (or enough people) agree that it is so. The wave length stuff came/comes after the fact, literally.

Can’t what is said of the property of redness just as well be said of the property of comfortableness (in the scenario presented by the OP)? If not, why not?

And who’s to say there is not some “proper defnition” of comfortableness out there waiting to be discovered?

Not everyone would agree that the blanket is red. Some people have visual impairments or or anomalies that would cause different responses.

[Velocity]

@Boyo_Jim

Not everyone would agree that the blanket is red. Some people have visual impairments or or anomalies that would cause different responses.

True, just like some might lack nerve sensation or be oversensitive and would not find the blanket comfortable.

[Oly]

@Boyo_Jim

Not everyone would agree that the blanket is red. Some people have visual impairments or or anomalies that would cause different responses.

Agree. And those exceptions prove the point that given the OP’s condition, “The blanket is comfortable” is a fact.

Even with the minority of people who have whatever impairment such that they don’t see the blanket as red, few would dispute the fact that the blanket is red.

The OP says everyone has tried the blanket and no one disputes that it is comfortable. So, in that scenario, “The blanket is comfortable” is a more certain fact than “The blanket is red”.