NationStates Jolt Archive

...when everyone shares it? In the process of making more or less a joke post to the "Is Homosexuality wrong" thread I started talking to myself about how right and wrong--or any other such concept--is only a concept and that it is subjective, and that even if everyone were to share an identical specific belief about the concept, like if everyone absolutely believed murder was wrong, it wouldn't change the fact that it is still subjective and it is still a belief.

But do you guys of NSG agree? Do concepts become more than just concepts if everyone believes in them? Can human belief render that which is subjective to become objective?

Firstly: what is your subjective opinion about what "objective" is?

And then, there are only three classes of concepts: truths, theories/assumptions and beliefs.
Truths can only be found in mathematics, so the rest must be assumptions and beliefs, and there's hardly any difference between these two.
So almost all of human behaviour is based on beliefs and assumptions that neither have nor need any subjectively defined air of objectivity.

No. While a vast number of things are true primarily because of our frame of reference, belief in itself, regardless of the number of believers, cannot make a belief reality.

In a way, it does.
The more people share a belief, and the more seriously they believe it, the more socially acceptable this belief gets, until it gets treated as truth.
Look at things like racism, for example. People to this day will tell you that being part of xyz race will mean that you're either a lazy no-good bastard, or a super-efficient, well-adapted individual.
Same goes for sexism. And any religion you care to pick.

It doesn't make something objective, no; but if enough people believe something and act as if it were true it might as well be so.

It becomes a mass delusion - like the so called fact of the existence of Australia.

It becomes a mass delusion - like the so called fact of the existence of Australia.

But then, how objective is the idea of "existence"...?

Can human belief render that which is subjective to become objective?
No.

What majorities CAN do, however, is use objective forces to advance their commonly-shared subjective beliefs, and make it objectively impossible for others to avoid conforming.

Its 8 am... too late for this kind of stuff...

...when everyone shares it? In the process of making more or less a joke post to the "Is Homosexuality wrong" thread I started talking to myself about how right and wrong--or any other such concept--is only a concept and that it is subjective, and that even if everyone were to share an identical specific belief about the concept, like if everyone absolutely believed murder was wrong, it wouldn't change the fact that it is still subjective and it is still a belief.

But do you guys of NSG agree? Do concepts become more than just concepts if everyone believes in them? Can human belief render that which is subjective to become objective?

I can't think of a single thing that everyone believes. Oh sure, there are a few that come close, but there seem to always be a few people out there who disbelieve something that even a vast majority takes as given. The Flat Earth Society comes to mind.

It becomes a mass delusion - like the so called fact of the existence of Australia.

Not a delusion. A Conspiracy! :eek:

But then, how objective is the idea of "existence"...?

Pretty objective- something must exist, even if we are unable to observe it properly. Either something exists or it doesn't unless you want to argue the whole enough people believe it is true route, which I think is bologna.

Can human belief render that which is subjective to become objective?

sometimes. or at least it can show some specialized form of subjectiveness that takes part in objectivity of some sort. for example "this book appears red to me" is clearly subjective - it all takes place in my head. and given different physical and mental capacities, it very well could have looked not-red to me. but if i am a 'properly functioning human' (leave aside some messy issues there for now), the appearing red is objectively right. if someone said that it looked green to them, we wouldn't say "well, it's all subjective anyways." no, we'd say that there is something wrong with them.

Isn't morality an example of this?

There is no objective rightness or wrongness to the universe, yet we all agree that serial killer/rapists are wrong in what they do.

Isn't this an example of something being treated, for all intents and purposes, as objective despite the fact that it's not?

Yes, absolutely. Definitions of words, for instance, are only the way they are because we all agree on what they are. And quite often we don't agree on what they are, plus other times they change... you get the idea.

http://www.feldmangallery.com/media/books/1984_01.jpg