Nothing is Subjective

Common sense is nonsense sometimes. That includes the ordinary distinction people make between objective and subjective.

Dictionary.com sums up the typical view: “Subjective most commonly means based on the personal perspective or preferences of a person — the subject who’s observing something. In contrast, objective most commonly means not influenced by or based on a personal viewpoint — based on the analysis of an object of observation only.”

Consider a couple objects that people call subjective:

• Pleasure when eating ice cream
• Pleasure when dancing: Like someone who dances at parties vs someone who hasn’t danced since their wedding reception.

Notice a key pattern. These are preferences. They are evaluated for utility: more or less pleasure from eating ice cream or dancing.

Whereas if I say, “There’s a pile of rocks”, that’s either true or not. I definitely saw a pile of rocks, but I’m doing more than telling you what I saw — I’m telling you my sight is right.

You can choose to fool yourself about whether something’s there, like a crazed conspiracy theorist, and you’ll definitely see things that aren’t there.

But you can’t fool the pile of rocks into being there.

Likewise, you can choose to visualize ice cream so intensely — the sweetness, the creaminess, the cold relief on a hot summer’s day — until you enjoy it more. And you will enjoy it more.

We can change our preferences to some extent.

But that does not make our preferences walled off from reality and consequences. It only delays the impact.

If you like ice cream a lot, you’ll eat a lot more.

All objects, as a rule of method, have both causes and effects. Including so-called “subjective” ones. Your preferences impact you and they do so for reasons that you can evaluate.

Nothing in reality inside or outside of our minds is arbitrary. You cannot manipulate your way out of anything and everything.

Choices are differentiated. Some are better, some are worse.

Everything is objective.

Nothing is subjective.