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In many domains, subjective ratings are highly correlated across human. For instance, there is such a thing as objective facial beauty: the beautiful faces are
by loup-vaillant 13y ago
In many domains, subjective ratings are highly correlated across human. For instance, there is such a thing as objective facial beauty: the beautiful faces are those rated as such by most humans (note: gender and sexual preferences matter). (Caveat: beauty vary across cultures.)
What's more interesting is determining which domains are highly correlated (human beauty in current western culture), and which are poorly so (blind wine taste). And that assessment can be backed by much more than uninformed personal opinion.
- obviouslygreen 13y agoUnfortunately, this doesn't just touch on whether a thing can be judged in any specific capacity objectively. People "like" or "dislike" things for too many reasons to reason about them. There's a sort of masochism in many of us that results in things that are slightly painful -- e.g. consuming capsaicin -- being pleasurable. Many people are also drawn to abnormalities in human and other physiques and other statistical oddities in nature for various reasons. Then there are people who perceive the world differently (e.g. the colorblind, the blind, the deaf) who perceive the same things very differently and will thus have differently-formed subjective experiences of the same things as 'standard' humans. Yes, subjective ratings can correlate. However, that does not mean they're any closer to objective, or any closer to validity or invalidity.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago> Yes, subjective ratings can correlate. However, that does not mean they're any closer to objective... Pure subjectivity means nobody else agrees. Pure objectivity means everybody else agrees.