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Can’t find a way to take a decision using just objective criteria)))

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Jose

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Hi all,

I have the following scenario. Someone is deciding where to go for lunch, two places have the same objective pros and cons. But, one of the places really do not like one of the places. If we use just Objective there is no way to make a decision. But once we introduce fillings (an subjective criteria) the decision is trivial. What is the Objectivists way to see this scenario?

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Really choosing life, entails more than merely breathing for the next few seconds, it means choosing to live long range... choosing to choose life again the next day and the next ... indefinitely, for as long as you possibly can.

The choice to continually choose life and to live as long as possible is simple, achieving it is complex.

The potential for you to live as long as possible in future depends on your level of flourishing not just directly on your choices at any one time.  You can’t choose to save yourself from an unexpected threat by jumping to safety if you have taken care of yourself so badly that you are simply incapable of it.  Some events are unforeseen or cannot be predicted. The more physically strong you are the more likely you will survive accident or illness or other physically stressful events. The more mentally and emotionally strong you are the more likely you will survive extreme emotional trauma or events that may test your very will to live or test how quickly you can get back on your feet or how well you can will yourself to take care of yourself again.  Your level of flourishing, your physical and mental health, is crucial to your likelihood of long term survival.  As such every materiel and spiritual value that improves or contributes (in sum total) to your well being generally is objectively conducive to your flourishing and hence your choice to live in a world you simply cannot control.

Your enjoyment at lunch is the product of your subjective tastes in food and ambience... but the spiritual value of your enjoyment and the mental well being it promotes, even if merely modestly incremental, are objectively good for you.

All else being equal (the food is not poison, and the patrons not gang members liable to cause a shoot out) choose the place you enjoy the most, it’s objectively the best choice for you.

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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5 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

spiritual value of your enjoyment and the mental well being it promotes,

Spiritual value of my enjoyment is a subjective value in the way I understand it.

5 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

it’s objectively the best choice for you.

If is Objective should be the same conclusion for everyone so the quoted phrase is having your cake and eat it.

My problem is that I do not understand what she mean by Objectivity 

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7 hours ago, Jose said:

Spiritual value

is value pertaining to the well being of the mind

7 hours ago, Jose said:

Objective should be the same conclusion for everyone

There is a common misconception that the particular result from the application of objectivity to each person must be the same. in fact objectivity requires that particulars differ because people differ.

A blood transfusion may be necessary for you to live.  The wrong type of blood will kill you.  This is an objective fact about your uniqueness.  It illustrates that you cannot ignore the reality of your nature and magically make actions which are in reality harmful to you, good for you.  You can subjectively wish that B positive blood will save you but if it is incompatible you can’t make it actually so.

Objectivity of your decision is about getting things right about reality.

As for “same conclusion” for everyone this is a mere incidental side effect.  Morality is for you and is about you.  Also note that the sameness depends on the level of abstraction.  Clearly “get a transfusion of b positive blood when you are about to die from blood loss” is not applicable to everyone.  Note, that “get a blood transfusion of your blood type when you are about to die from blood loss” is applicable to everyone.  Once you have made the best choice to get a transfusion and live, an analysis of the applicability of the decision which is best for you to other people is a distraction a purely academic exercise.  Engage in that once you’ve saved your life if you get enjoyment from musing about other people.

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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18 hours ago, Jose said:

What is the Objectivists way to see this scenario?

The person has made a mistake in his conscious recognition of the pros and cons. His negative emotional response to the one restaurant indicates at least one con that he missed at the conscious level, but still has at the subconscious level. If he can't pull this information from his subconscious or identify the missed con, then he has to decide whether to trust his subconscious or not. Personally I would go to the disliked restaurant, because I'd want to sort out the conflict between my reason and my feelings.

Edited by MisterSwig
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I really have problems with what you said. Your example of the blood transfusion I fail to see the relationship with my example the blood transfusion example is objective but the food is subjective. In the first one there are biochemical reasons on the second one just my filling is involved, even if I go the food will be as nutricios than my preferred place.

 

What you said is called being rational that is not the same as being objective.

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People have individual, objective preferences about food. Only you are objectively aware of what foods you like and dislike. I happen to enjoy morel mushrooms. I think they are delicious. It is my taste buds with which the food is interacting. I am the one experiencing the taste. No one else can make that level of an objective determination for me.

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22 minutes ago, dream_weaver said:

People have individual, objective preferences about food. Only you are objectively aware of what foods you like and dislike. I happen to enjoy morel mushrooms. I think they are delicious. It is my taste buds with which the food is interacting. I am the one experiencing the taste. No one else can make that level of an objective determination for me.

My question is no about mushrooms. I’m talking a fully sensation using this persons filling. The scenario will not change if the menu of both places are the same.

But, my problem is that you finding mushrooms delicious is a subjective evaluation.

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57 minutes ago, Jose said:

No why?

I think my problem is that my understanding of what “objective” means diferente than her. Can you please define “Objectivity”

The aforementioned Lexicon entry can certainly give you an idea of where Rand was going with her conception of objectivity. But just reading that isn't likely to help you. Nor is having anyone "just define it" for you. I could give you Ockham's or Duns Scotus' definition, or Descartes' version, or any version and you're not going to understand it. It's just going to be a bunch of words to you.

You already have your own beliefs about what "objecivity" means. What you need to be doing is asking yourself to define objecivity, and then asking why you chose to define it that way. What facts did you observe in reality that gave rise to the need for you to have something called "objecivity" in your vocabulary? What is it distinguished from? What reasons did you have for adopting your particular version the way you did? Or did you just pack a bunch of assumptions together? Or did you pick it up from somewhere?

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13 minutes ago, 2046 said:

You already have your own beliefs about what "objecivity" means. What you need to be doing is asking yourself to define objecivity, and then asking why you chose to define it that way. What facts did you observe in reality that gave rise to the need for you to have something called "objecivity" in your vocabulary? What is it distinguished from? What reasons did you have for adopting your particular version the way you did? Or did you just pack a bunch of assumptions together? Or did you pick it up from somewhere?

That is the reason I’m asking for her definition... I have my definition, you are right, and is different than Rand’s one. So we need to agree on a definition so we are talking of the same concept. My definition of “objectivity” can be everything that is green, and I can have an answer to all the questions pointed above. That do not help us to have a successful conversation.

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On 11/23/2019 at 5:15 PM, Jose said:

But once we introduce fillings (an subjective criteria) the decision is trivial. What is the Objectivists way to see this scenario?

Is it likely that these feelings are totally arbitrary? How is that even possible? Can you think of any real-life situation that is somewhat close to your exampl? Then give us some insight ... ...  in that real-life example:  why did you feel that way?

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9 hours ago, Jose said:

From the link “Metaphysically, it is the recognition of the fact that reality exists independent of any perceiver’s consciousness. 
If I’m reading this correctly the fact that you like mushrooms is not an Objective fact.

2046 is correct. The Lexicon, as it is called, serves to provide examples from the wider range of source materials.

If Mr. Smith does not like spinach, it is a fact for all the spinach lovers as well as all of the spinach haters. It is even a fact for anyone who has never tried spinach before and has no personal knowledge of what spinach tastes like, cooked, raw, or even blanched.

This fact does not move you much closer to a working definition of objectivity. As far as definitions go, start with objectivity: the quality of being objective.

 

Mr. Jones owns two McDonald franchises. Their locations are within a mile of one another. He uses the same suppliers for all the consumables. Instead of hiring separate staff, he employs one staff and created a schedule that will alternate each employee between the two restaurants, and will also have a different combination of employees working with one another on any particular shift.

For the sake of reframing your original inquiry, the two restaurants are equal distant from your location on a divided boulevard. You can take the east exit and turn south, or you can take the west exit and turn north. When you finish your meal you can exit the northern McDonald's to the east and turn south or exit the the southern McDonald's to the west and turn north to return from when you came.

Both McDonald's restaurants were built  with a dining room facing east providing a spectacular view of the Atlantic Ocean, and a dining room facing west providing a spectacular view of the Rock Mountains.

The example, in this case, is more elaborate than the triviality of the decision.

 

Edited by dream_weaver
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18 hours ago, Jose said:

The scenario will not change if the menu of both places are the same.

Because the menu is the only relevant factor in evaluating restaurants?

11 hours ago, Jose said:

I think my problem is that my understanding of what “objective” means diferente than her.

No, you don't understand that values are relational to the valuer. It doesn't matter that two restaurants are identical in every way. If you made a mistake and judged one slightly differently in the past, and then you don't consciously recall that difference now, it could subconsciously affect your emotional reaction, causing you to not understand why you prefer the one over the other.

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7 hours ago, softwareNerd said:

Is it likely that these feelings are totally arbitrary? How is that even possible? Can you think of any real-life situation that is somewhat close to your exampl? Then give us some insight ... ...  in that real-life example:  why did you feel that way?

You do not like the chairs of the restaurant ... yes is arbitrary but that is the whole point it is any subjective criteria.

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4 hours ago, dream_weaver said:

If Mr. Smith does not like spinach, it is a fact for all the spinach lovers as well as all of the spinach haters. It is even a fact for anyone who has never tried spinach before and has no personal knowledge of what spinach tastes like, cooked, raw, or even blanched.

Yes is a fact... but that does not made it objective is a subjective fact

 

4 hours ago, dream_weaver said:

The example, in this case, is more elaborate than the triviality of the decision.

Yes ... you get the point ... and the subjective fact is that this person do not want to see someone hanging out outside one of the restaurants.

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3 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

Because the menu is the only relevant factor in evaluating restaurants?

No ... in my example there is no objective criatura... so if the menu is relevant they are the same.

 

3 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

you don't understand that values are relational to the valuer.

Any pointer to start understanding this.

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2 hours ago, Jose said:
5 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

you don't understand that values are relational to the valuer.

Any pointer to start understanding this.

Consider how consuming peanut butter might be a value to you, but to someone else it's a threat to their life. Even when you have something that is valuable to everyone equally, it's valuable to each one in particular based on the particular relationship of that particular value to the particular person.

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5 hours ago, Jose said:

You do not like the chairs of the restaurant ... yes is arbitrary but that is the whole point it is any subjective criteria.

As stated, this has already moved toward being completely arbitrary, to being a potentially objective. "Objective" here means that one considers the the facts about the restaurant and about yourself. For instance, maybe the chairs are average size, but you're a big person and the other restaurant has oversized chairs.

And, that's not to say you will always know your reasons... perhaps the chairs are upholstered in yellow, and you just hate the look. Yes, one can spend the time introspecting where your tastes come from, and whether they make sense...but, given that you have those taste, the decision to avoid the yellow chairs is still objective. Objective does not mean right/correct... because one could be using incorrect facts about either the object or the subject... It just means considering both those aspects.

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5 hours ago, Jose said:

Yes is a fact... but that does not made it objective is a subjective fact

 

Yes ... you get the point ... and the subjective fact is that this person do not want to see someone hanging out outside one of the restaurants.

The "No Loitering" signs were not noticeable? 

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