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> My friend...what is a chair?
If you're interested in learning more about abstract concept formation such as understanding how we know what a "chair" is, I recommend reading this essential book on the subject: Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.
> So it’s not human consciousness that makes someone a person, it’s “having had at one point a self aware human consciousness” that makes someone a person.
I am saying that it is indeed, possession of human-level consciousness that makes one a person, but a person can fall asleep and still maintain possession of its personality. (That's why when Jack falls asleep and you wake him up, he is still Jack and not some completely different dude named Ralph.)
>When does one become self aware?
Sometime after birth, perhaps months later. At birth a newborn's consciousness is at the same level of an animal's or lower. It does not possess thoughts in anything similar to how we have words, but rather emotions.
We are subject to huge amounts of sensory perceptions as our data about the world. An animal's mind is able to separate out those sensations and make some sense of them. Infants have to do that, too, and it's their first task. Compared to an animal, a human's mind can go further and understand those sensations in much greater detail and determine entities' distinguishing characteristics, creating abstract concepts (you may have never seen a certain model of car before, but when you see it you know it's a car because it possesses the attributes that define what a car is) and later much more abstract and higher level concepts that build on lower level concepts (such as the concept of individual rights, which is extremely abstract).
If anyone reading this is seriously interested in the issue of concept formation, I recommend the book Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology
If you're into philosophy, then the greatest deconstruction and denonciation of post-modernism that I've ever read was Ayn Rand's "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology". In her typical writing style, she makes sure to be extremely explicit and methodical, to the point of sounding repetitive, to make sure that she discredits post-modernism and other anti-epistemological philosophies from every single possible angle.
The goal of science is to learn new things about reality.
Whether our awareness or the awareness of other animals is imperfect is irrelevant: all our senses gather information about reality. Reality is the constant. Once we use our senses to perceive reality, we use our rational mind to form concepts about it which we communicate to other humans. We validate our concepts using logic to make sure they are non-contradictory. Once they are non-contradictory, we integrate them into a whole (the one in the many) as a unit of knowledge.
I assume that you mean consciousness at a human level, which would be self-awareness with the ability to think in terms of abstract thought.
It's hard to say exactly when an infant acquires that ability. Starting from nothing, a living being is bombarded with a chaotic amount of sensory perceptions. The mind has to first perceive and separate them from one another, but in the womb there is almost nothing to perceive. Recognizable patterns develop in those sensations as the data begins to repeat upon the viewing of similar entities.
Once those sensory perceptions begin to make some sense, the human mind is able to go a step further and engage in the act of abstract concept formation. You may have never seen a certain model of car before, but if you see it you will know it is a car as it possesses the fundamental attributes that make a car a car, but those individual attributes do not necessarily adhere to particular measurements. (You might say that abstract concept formation is a mental process of "measurement omission".) From lower level concepts denoting objects, higher level concepts are formed. The concepts of "individual rights" and "morality", for example, are extremely abstract and build on numerous other lower-level concepts. If you find that discussion interesting and you're interested in learning more about human cognition, read Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology
So when does consciousness at a human level begin? When does human level thought with self awareness begin? It's difficult to say exactly. Some infants will attain human consciousness sooner rather than later. At best we can paint it in broad terms such as "not before <this point> but definitely before <this other point>. Narrowing down the ranges of those time points is a matter for medical scientists who study cognition to figure out, not philosophers and legislators. Fortunately, we can feel comfortable that the "not before <this point>" is at least several weeks after birth, which gives us plenty of time to set a drawing line at one or two weeks after birth for the purpose of establishing objective law.
>But like you said, my emotion of enjoyment is based on my values and assumptions about reality. > >So if I choose to do something because I enjoy it, that's not based on "reality". > >It's based on my assumptions about it. Even if they are wrong.
Reality includes your emotions and your beliefs. Anything that exists, even thoughts, are part of reality. Part of this confusion stems from the tradition in philosophy where "reality" sometimes refers to mind-independent reality. Context determines the sense of reality being referred to.
So if you enjoy something, that's a fact about reality: You enjoy that thing. That's new knowledge, specifically about yourself.
>I'm having some trouble reconciling this with Rand's belief of Tabula Rasa.
Tabula rasa pertains to knowledge. None of those things pertain to knowledge. If you haven't already, I recommend that you read Rand's <em>Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology</em>.
>I tried some, but most therapists seem like the kind of people who just got through their psychology degree and that's it. Most just seem like the regular NPC spewing pop-vulgar nonsense, without any capacity for independent rational thought.
Yeah, there are good and bad therapists. As with any shopping, do your research. How trained are they in CBT? What is their view on free will? Do they have a PsyD (the clinical psychology equivalent of a PhD)? Don't be afraid to "interview" them with questions. You'll likely also have to "test drive" various therapists to see who resonates with you.
Also, without knowing anything else, I can't say whether your judgments of certain therapists were accurate. Many people think therapists "spew pop-vulgar nonsense," but many of those people are also the ones in most dire need of mental help.
>I'd love to find an Objectivist therapist. But it's not easy. Especially when I don't live in the US.
This website is generous in basic concrete help.
Let me address these potential sources of subjectivity:
Firstly, you're correct that many people reason incorrectly or don't attempt to reason at all. But it does not follow that reasoning correctly is impossible. This is why the science of epistemology is so crucial - it instructs men how to reason, how to think logically, how to form proper concepts. Confirmation or any other source of bias is exactly what a rational epistemology would prevent (for details, see Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology).
Secondly, if you truly believe that ethics is "inherently subjective" as Hume did, then you may as well directly concede that no social system is better than any other in any way shape or form - those are all ethical questions. If you declare ethics to be outside the realm of objectivity, then all bets are off.
Fortunately, it's not true that values are subjective. A value is something which one acts to gain or keep. Values are only possible to a living creature - a rock has no values. Values therefore are logically dependent upon the concept of life. And its own life is any creature's ultimate value - it's the only value which is an end in itself. Therefore the objective ethical standard in any given context is the life of the organism - in the case of humans, man's life. That which is proper to man's life is the good, that which is antithetical is evil. That is the only objective moral standard - and the necessary foundation for all ethics and politics (and as well as aesthetics).
Thirdly, the confusion regarding words results from the erroneous equation between concepts and language. The word designating a concept is not the same as the concept itself - it is simply a convenient label to facilitate recollection of the concept. While the word is arbitrary, the concept is not. For example the concept "red" is valid despite the fact that the French call it "rouge". Just like how the quadratic formula is equally valid if you use a,b,c or f,g,h to refer to the polynomial coefficients.
You are however completely correct that today many concepts are invalid and are therefore subjective - just listen to any campaign speech. But, as before, this calls for clarifying those concepts - not abandoning them. How to form and define proper concepts is a core issue in epistemology - if one follows the proper method, one can form valid concepts. As a taste, some basic rules when forming proper concepts are: concepts must have referents in reality, concepts must be formed on the basis of fundamental characteristics, not incidental ones, concepts must have a specific definition.
The essential point is that simply because humans often think subjectively with regards to knowledge, ethics, and concepts does not imply that objectivity in those regards is impossible. Just because people are bad at math does not mean math is subjective. All your points correctly identify a problem in today's society - but they do not serve as evidence that no solution is possible. That solution is an objective philosophy.
No, they are the examples. It's the fundamental wrongdoings of postmodernism. They literally disagree with the primary axiom of logic itself that A is A, B is B, that something can not be both A and B at the same time and that all things must act according to their nature; i.e. identity.
This can in its simplest form directly translate to "I feel like [wrong gender], so I must be a [wrong gender]."
The second simply means that they think you can never infer the morality of any action from the state of that which exists. E.g. the fact that you inherit X amount of money does not morally entail that you should use it to pay off debt.
In short if you subscribe to the is-ought dichotomy, it is impossible to logically justify any moral imperative whatsoever except nihilism. In this space principles are arbitrary, and there is no moral doctrine incabeable of morally justifying obvious Hitler-level evils.
With regards to "sometimes objective, sometimes subjective": Something is subjective XOR objective. This follows from the fact they are contradictory properties. Relevant to this topic is the problem of universals, in which postmodernists argue universals are created at will- and only exists in the minds of that which percieves them. See wikipedia. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology quite savagely destroys the postmodernist position and is probably an enjoyable read even if you're not an objectivist.
P.S. It's late and I don't want to run everything through spellcheck, so I might mistype some words etc., hope you don't mind.
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Objectivist-Epistemology-Expanded-Second/dp/0452010306
Tolkien never wrote about epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, or any other branch of philosophy. Ayn Rand did.
At best, you can take his fiction and try to <em>interpret</em> them and figure out what his thoughts of philosophy are. The resulting "Hobbitism" wouldn't necessarily be on equal ground as Objectivism, due to the lack of content (Rand having written more, and explicitly so), but it would be close.
I advise folks to skip all her fiction and read Intro to Objectivist Epistemology. Saves many hours and many misconceptions.
I think if you look a little deeper, you'll find that Rand is actually quite different than Nietzsche on fundamentals. There are some superficial similarities, such as extolling the potential greatness of man and strongly disapproving of the Christian morality of self-sacrifice. But Nietzsche isn't very rigorous and doesn't think much of reason or rationality.
Rand's ethics and metaethics are some of her best known contributions to (non-academic) philosophy. But her most fundamental contribution is actually her theory of concepts. It was presented in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.
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