The Objectivity Myth: What we call “Objective Reality” is just a colorful misnomer
“It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the conclusion that the content of consciousness is the ultimate reality.” -Eugene Wigner
W e can’t help but anthropomorphize the notion of objective reality. As I make my case in my recent book, The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution, objective reality does not exist, what exists instead is subjectivity, intersubjectivity (or “consensus” reality) and supersubjectivity (universal consciousness). This extraordinary claim apparently demands an explanation, so let’s get to it.
If you were to talk with a human in the early 20th century, their universe would not “contain” galaxies, for example. So, all we can do when defending objectivity is to assume our present worldview, and any worldview of other creature in the vast space of possible minds would be irrelevant to us. We can certainly imagine how a dog perceives the “objective” world accentuating the sense of smell, so lesser intelligences’ point of view may not even be an issue here. The issue arises when we try to extrapolate the…
