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>Personal experience still counts as evidence. It doesn't count as objective evidence
by 50656E6973 7y ago
>Personal experience still counts as evidence.
It doesn't count as objective evidence
- blancheneige 7y agoHow to do you define "objective" when objectivity depends on the very phenomenon studied?
- 50656E6973 7y agoObjectivity cannot be achieved without a control group. So when we attempt to objectively study consciousness with consciousness, we have reached a point of recursion. >objective: Existing independent of or external to the mind; actual or real.
- mikeash 7y agoSure it does. Imagine there’s a cave you can’t enter. You can send other people in, though. You send someone in and they tell you there’s a lion in there. You send someone else, they also say there’s a lion. You send a thousand people in and they all say there’s a lion. You send in people you’re certain have never met each other and they say there’s a lion. You send in people from cultures that haven’t contacted each other and they still say there’s a lion. You send in people who have no idea what a lion is and they say there’s a strange animal in there and the description matches a lion. Put it all together and you have objective evidence that there is, in fact, a lion in that cave.
- 50656E6973 7y agoWithout genetic testing you could not objectively know for sure if that was a lion or some other species. Just because a lot of people agree on something based on shallow observations does not make it objective science. Thats moreso the realm of subjective "soft sciences" like sociology.
- mikeash 7y agoAre you implying that nobody anywhere was ever objectively certain of the presence of a lion before the past few decades? And how does genetic testing objectively tell you that it’s a lion? Genetic testing tells you that its DNA is similar to something else you’ve previously identified as a lion, but if there’s no way to be sure if that identification then you’re just moving the problem.
- 50656E6973 7y agoYes, up until the recent advent of genetic sequencing, we humans have often mistakenly considered two organisms that look the same to the naked eye as being the same.
- Retra 7y agoThe same in what sense? Sameness is not an objective property of organisms.
- mikeash 7y agoYou didn’t address my second point: how does genetic testing give you an objective measure of lionness when it’s still ultimately based on observations and subjective assessments?
- 50656E6973 7y agoGenetic testing is far more scientifically revealing than just eyeballing something because it's based on actual objective tests, data, and math. Just like radio astrology is far more scientifically revealing than just looking up at the night sky and declaring theres nothing more to the universe than meets the eye. Typically a genetic variance of >2% indicates a different species
- mikeash 7y agoSo, you test this animal and it’s within 2% of a known lion. How do you know the known lion is a lion?