/lit/ - Literature

>>4452468
deep & edgy was a boon to discourse on 4chan

>>4452488
Welp, that's pretty much subjectivism in a nutshell.

>>4452488

Nice, an actual example of the strawman fallacy.

>>4452518
There is no argument put forward in those hilarious and thought-provoking captions beyond the one you ignorantly construe in it. You can only see a primitive attack on subjectivism in that image because you are either dogmatically attached to the subjectivist position yourself or because you lack the necessary experience with the opposing position in order to construct out of the image a legitimate criticism of subjectivism.

>>4452517

>>4452541
that's just your opinion

>>4452518
Go back to TV tropes you fucking faggot

>>4452541
>There is no argument put forward in those hilarious and thought-provoking captions beyond the one you ignorantly construe in it.
Bullshit

there should be a walking guy version of this

>>4452495

This is almost correct but childishly simplistic.

First of all, math is based on a number of a priori axioms. These are not arbitrary. In fact it's literally impossible for the human mind to conceive of a different logical framework. That doesn't make it "objectively" true but it's certainly as close as humans can come to accessing an objective reality (and plenty will say that it does truly lead to understanding of objective reality). Moreover, the proper application of mathematical logic to a problem leads inevitably to a single correct conclusion -- there may be disagreements on unsolved problems, but one party is always, by definition, incorrect.

Whereas the human aesthetic sense is certainly subjective to a degree and does not admit a single correct conclusion. Inherently, the scholar who prefers Don Quixote to Ulysses is making an aesthetic judgment, and any argument based on craft is inescapably subjective. To the question of "which text is better?" there can never be a single correct answer because it's a priori possible for one to have a conceptual framework where quality A is superior to quality B or vice versa. We are not necessarily led to one judgment by the application of basic principles as in math because those basic principles themselves arise from the subjective human aesthetic sense.

We can appeal to expertise, yes, and put a higher value on the judgments of the scholar who has dedicated his life to the study of literature. This is what we do for basically any creative endeavor and it works out because generally speaking, the expert has a good understanding of what appeals most universally to the human aesthetic sense (although here we run into issues of refinement, etc. -- i.e. most people's palates are unrefined and cannot appreciate haute cuisine, etc. -- and this goes for literature too).

Point being these judgments do not exist, cannot conceivably exist, in some reality independent of human consciousness. Without some person to say "I prefer X over Y," you cannot say one arrangement of words on a page, or food on a plate, or notes on clef are "better." A cancer would exist in your lungs whether a doctor detected it or not -- a table would be capable of holding more weight than another whether we tested it or not -- but Paradise Lost is not better than Twilight unless we read them and say yeah, Twilight is fucking terrible.

>>4452687
>Inherently, the scholar who prefers Don Quixote to Ulysses is making an aesthetic judgment
I like Pierre Menard's Quixote better myself :^)

That image has some other funny bits:
>lose faith in arriving at a decisive conclusion on some literary matter
>solving some of these problems once and for all
>other settled disciplines
Which ones?

>math is based on a number of a priori axioms. These are not arbitrary.
Are they not?
There's still the regress argument.

>>4452740
>Are they not?

They're all we have. Since it's impossible to concoct a coherent alternative, the question is rather pointless. Meanwhile, it's certainly possible to conceive of a coherent alternative to a prevailing set of literary conventions -- for godsakes, that's why we have literary movements and sub-movements and outsider art and all that shit in the first place.

The Pythagorean theorem is still true, but go try selling a Homeric epic to a publisher these days and see where you get.

>>4452758
You can concoct coherent alternatives that you do not work.
Maybe you could build a system with paradoxes, like two opposite propositions being true at the same time.
It wouldn't make sense from our current point of view, but it's just a point of view.

>>4452687
>>4452687
>These are not arbitrary
Yes they are, in the theoretical sense. One set of axioms is no better or worse, no more correct or incorrect, than any other set of axioms. By their nature they are arbitrary. If you are to consider them practically necessary in the sense that they are geared towards a group's continued survival or as the necessary conditions for a subject's perception then they are not axiomatic, for they thereby imply further axioms in order to be intelligible propositions in the first place. Evolution is not axiomatic, nor is the impossibility of the human mind to conceive of different logical frameworks.
> Moreover, the proper application of mathematical logic to a problem leads inevitably to a single correct conclusion -- there may be disagreements on unsolved problems, but one party is always, by definition, incorrect.
This is simply because the conditions correctness and incorrectness in the system of discourse of something like mathematical logic is are determined through its inherent system of axioms. One could reconstitute a debate or problem within literature to be equally binary in its conclusions if one simply adopted different axioms out of which different systematic rules would emerge. There is no essential difference.


>Whereas the human aesthetic sense is certainly subjective to a degree and does not admit a single correct conclusion. Inherently, the scholar who prefers Don Quixote to Ulysses is making an aesthetic judgment, and any argument based on craft is inescapably subjective. To the question of "which text is better?" there can never be a single correct answer because it's a priori possible for one to have a conceptual framework where quality A is superior to quality B or vice versa. We are not necessarily led to one judgment by the application of basic principles as in math because those basic principles themselves arise from the subjective human aesthetic sense.
None of this disputes anything in the referred-to post, nor does it elaborate on it in any meaningful way. In fact it simply muddles what's being said by regressing the argument to vagueness by not specifying the relative conditions and appropriate context in which a value judgment is made. We can only consider seriously such wearisome platitudes as
>To the question of "which text is better?" there can never be a single correct answer because it's a priori possible for one to have a conceptual framework where quality A is superior to quality B or vice versa
by stripping a statement of the context in which it is made or removing the sense in which it relates to, the relative conditions that would make an appraisal possible in the first place.

>Point being these judgments do not exist, cannot conceivably exist, in some reality independent of human consciousness.
And here we have the true childishly simplistic outlook. Nowhere in the image you are responding to is that stated to be the case.

>>4452784
Is that picture a joke? Because I'm embarrassed for whoever thought they were clever making it

>>4452784
That is the most disgusting case of conjoined triplets I've seen

>>4452784

That's why I said the axioms we use are a priori true. Alternatives do not hold up to logical scrutiny. That is, they violate the universal sense of human logic: consider that your suggested alternative is formulated on "paradoxes" -- statements that we know without needing to investigate must be contradictory.

There may not necessarily be an objective truth in the universal human logic but no discussion on that line can be anything other than chasing after a phantasm. We are always constrained by that logic, even where we question it. And so I say again it's not arbitary: it's all we have to work with.

>>4452796
forgot my childishly simple trip

>>4452799
everytime someone bitches at agnosticism, it's that argument. everytime
personally, i'm baffled enough that people feel they have to talk about agnosticism at all

>>4452799
I don't know, maybe.
>>4452800
Nice successive doublets here.

>>4452784
Missed a word here. Maybe "know"? Who knows.

Another great picture to get rid of philosophy, for you pictures connoisseurs.

>>4452687
>In fact it's literally impossible for the human mind to conceive of a different logical framework.
It may surprise you to learn that progress in mathematics is often through such conception.

>>4452807
We can question whether we should "work with" or not, that is hold beliefs or not.
If it's your job to hold beliefs and discuss them like people trained in Literary Theory, then I guess it's somewhat justified.
>Michael Frede, however, defends a different interpretation,[9] according to which Sextus does allow beliefs, so long as they are not derived by reason, philosophy or speculation; a skeptic may, for example, accept common opinions in the skeptic's society. The important difference between the skeptic and the dogmatist is that the skeptic does not hold his beliefs as a result of rigorous philosophical investigation.

>>4452807
You say that, and I agree, but I get to wondering what the fact that logicians are still coming up with new proofs means in this context. The axioms we use are a priori true only insofar as the consistency of the logic which, as it is not "complete", can carry it. It makes me wonder if there aren't complexities in logic still not found, and thus shortfalls in its contingent sciences.

Thus the reliance on math and logic as "the truest, most objective" is shortsighted in practise.

>>4452796
>One set of axioms is no better or worse, no more correct or incorrect, than any other set of axioms. By their nature they are arbitrary.

That's not true at all. You keep insisting on linking judgments like "better or worse" to judgments like "true or false," which is absurd. You have no idea what you're talking about. And evolution's got nothing to do with it, talk about muddying the waters. The axioms we work with are the only ones we universally see to be true.

>>4452827

The most basic logical axioms never change, and these are what I speak of. In some fields we have added axioms to broaden the purview of mathematics, after granting certain premises (set theory comes to mind) and these I will admit are in some way more arbitrary because you cannot discuss the axioms of set theory without accepting the existence of a "set." But then again once we have those concepts in place the axioms are inescapable and there is no logically consistent alternative.

>>4452856
>That's not true at all
Yes, it is. As I already said and to which you still no response, One set of axioms is no better or worse, no more correct or incorrect, no truer nor falser, than any other set of axioms.
>You keep insisting on linking judgments like "better or worse" to judgments like "true or false," which is absurd
Where did I do that?

>The axioms we work with are the only ones we universally see to be true.
It's funny that you should think truth, which has never had anything to do with the functioning of logic, or axioms, or anything else in the universe, should be relevant here when you dismiss evolution, which itself does not care about "true" or "false", which itself is the reason why you are even capable of thinking of things in terms of a true or false, if one wants to accept an ironical use of language.
>The axioms we work with are the only ones we universally see to be true.
Truth is not an axiom, it rather depends on an axiom to be intelligible and universal. The axiom itself is neither true nor false, as though truth and falsity were things out there with rightness or wrongness.

>You have no idea what you're talking about
It should be fairly easy for you to diminish any of my points in any way then. We're all waiting. So far all you have achieved is to swap out one set of propositions that rely on axioms with another.

>>4452856
>The axioms we work with are the only ones we universally see to be true.
It's semantic at this point. "arbitrary" comes from the concept of free will and you're talking about defining truth via consensus, with is just mass-scale subjectivity.

>The most basic logical axioms never change
That's because everyone arbitrarily chooses them. Maybe it's just a long series of coincidences and at some point these axioms will be wrong. "Never" is an absolute, an abstract concept. Then again, time probably doesn't exist, see >>4452488

>>4452905
>One set of axioms is no better or worse, no more correct or incorrect, no truer nor falser, than any other set of axioms.

So you're a subjectivist then.

>>4452912
What's the difference between a cultural relativist and a subjectivist?
Is it a subset of subjectivists?

>>4452912
I am a relativist in all things.

>>4452495

wat happen to him

I've been gone these long years since 2011.

>>4452923

Then how can you possibly believe that you can state definitively that one piece of literature is better than another?

>>4452931
Maybe it's just their opinion.

>>4452931
>Then how can you possibly believe that you can state definitively that one piece of literature is better than another?
You cannot, because that statement itself is impossible, for it does not have a relative sense. This misunderstanding of language does not prevent me from perfectly well making value judgments within actually relative senses and discourses, however.

>>4452856
>In some fields we have added axioms to broaden the purview of mathematics, after granting certain premises (set theory comes to mind) and these I will admit are in some way more arbitrary because you cannot discuss the axioms of set theory without accepting the existence of a "set." But then again once we have those concepts in place the axioms are inescapable and there is no logically consistent alternative.
The idea of set theory isn't a broadening, it's more taking what you're talking about (a universal system of logic) and taking it to its conclusion. Following your assumptions, set theory should have been applicable to what most would think of as basic mathematics and revealed a kind of elegant universal abstract truth. Instead, we famously get things like Godel's incompleteness theorem and half finished books by mathematical formalists.

>>4452905
You're awfully good at saying a whole lot of nothing with a whole lot of words and stretching the argument in a hundred different directions. I didn't "dismiss" evolution, I said it's irrelevant to our current discussion. Regardless of how we arrived at our way of seeing the world, nothing changes about how we see it. Nor is there a value judgement of "better" or "worse" being made here. You keep predicating your position on this canard that we reject what is false and accept what is true because truth is "better," but that's not the case. I would like to see how you'd suggest conducting yourself as a person who accepts only what is false -- it's impossible.

And yes, you got me, axioms themselves are not "true" or "false," so I have misused some terminology. Rather I should say the axioms we use are the only ones consistent with our universal sense of logic. Which, and going back to the original argument -- our sense of aesthetics is not similarly universal. There is no particular reason to value intertextuality and so forth. The truths of math follow necessarily from the way humans universally and intrinsically perceive the world, but literary style remains purely a matter of taste.

>>4452907
And to this: I have said repeatedly that there's not anything necessarily objective to the logical axioms we accept, merely that we are confined to accepting them because we cannot conceive of an alternative view. Even when we attempt to construct such a view we can only understand it through the prism of the original, and our mind still rejects it. It is not truth via "consensus" even though there is consensus.

>>4452981
>I didn't "dismiss" evolution, I said it's irrelevant to our current discussion.
It's not.

>I would like to see how you'd suggest conducting yourself as a person who accepts only what is false -- it's impossible.
It's called delirium.

>humans universally and intrinsically perceive the world
They don't. There's a variation in how humans perceive the world. Usually labeled as mental illness. Sometimes as genius.
That's where evolution comes through, since our brains keep evolving.

>>4452995

A person in delirium doesn't believe what they think to be false. No human being ever has or ever will be capable of accepting as true what they believe to be false. A thing cannot be simultaneously true and false: there is no other possible way to think.

>>4453015
>A person in delirium doesn't believe what they think to be false.
It seems paranoia and schizophrenia can manifest themselves with a lot of doubt about whether a perception or a thought about that perception is true or false.
And even if you take a non-mentally ill person, if they change their mind, at some point they believe something, then they stop believing it and they believe something else. Is it a concrete event or do they believe one thing and it's opposite at a given moment?

>A thing cannot be simultaneously true and false
Maybe if you apply quantum physics to minds.

>>4453015
>A thing cannot be simultaneously true and false: there is no other possible way to think.
Uh huh

>>4452981

It's been more than enough such that you have no response to it. The direction has remained the same, you have been unable to give me something this is not a theoretically arbitrary axiom. You have hushed up a lot more about how anything I've been saying has been childishly simplistic, however.

>I didn't "dismiss" evolution, I said it's irrelevant to our current discussion
Yes you did, you dismissed evolution in the context of our discussion, as I said. And it's perfectly relevant, because it would have constituted the only sense in which axioms cannot be considered arbitrary. Thankfully however, you seem to be more interested in providing an evening's worth of hilarity.

>You keep predicating your position on this canard that we reject what is false and accept what is true because truth is "better,"
Where did I say that or where is it predicated as such?
>I would like to see how you'd suggest conducting yourself as a person who accepts only what is false -- it's impossible.
What has this got to do with anything I've been saying? What is false there is constituted by the axioms one assumes. If one assumes different axioms then the falsity implied or constituted by those previous is no longer coherent. All you've said is that you can't accept contradictions. But contradictions are a product of the axioms one assumes, you haven't said anything about axioms. What do you want, a pat on the back?

>And yes, you got me, axioms themselves are not "true" or "false,"
I have "gotten" you at every point of contention in our exchange. Your entire contribution to this thread is effectively based on a misreading of the word "arbitrary".
>I should say the axioms we use are the only ones consistent with our universal sense of logic
The intelligibility of a universal sense of logic is predicated on axioms, it is not itself axiomatic. What you are effectively saying is that our axioms are consistent with further axioms. The onus is, as it has always been, to demonstrate how the set of propositions you are advancing are not subordinate to some set of axioms. You have so far failed to do this.

>our sense of aesthetics is not similarly universal
Nor does it need to be.
>There is no particular reason to value intertextuality and so forth
There are only particular reasons, actually. There is no general reason.

> The truths of math follow necessarily from the way humans universally and intrinsically perceive the world
Which is to say they follow in what is comparatively a particularly elegant and generaly way from the axioms they are derived from.
>literary style remains purely a matter of taste
Which is to say that literary style and its evaluation is highly complex and the application of value judgments in related discourses is not straightforward, due to the axioms upon which such statements are derived from. No essential difference, as I said already, and to which you have no response.

>A thing cannot be simultaneously true and false: there is no other possible way to think.
lol white people. eastern philosophy wins again

>>4453054
Schrodinger's Cat was designed as a criticism of quantum theory because it leads to such an "obviously" impossible situation.

The real lesson is, again, that perhaps the universal sense of human logic is not "objectively" true. A human mind can understand the implication of Schrodinger's cat but cannot properly conceive of it.

>>4453066
Doesn't seem like a very subjectivist thing to say m8.

>>4453077
general semantics

>>4453060

When did you decide that a thing is itself?

>>4453086
Just banter I see.

>>4453087
Where did I say that?

>>4453091

Nowhere, I'm asking you a question.

>>4453090
No, I mean google "general semantics".

Anyway it is about nap time for me. I will come back to this thread tomorrow, after a good sleep made all the more enjoyable by knowing I am not wrong about anything I say and no one will be able to demonstrate to me that that is otherwise for at least 8-12 hours more, to see if there are any worthwhile responses, although it will probably be difficult to make them out due to the depth of the hole this guy has dug for himself

>>4453072
>A human mind can understand the implication of Schrodinger's cat but cannot properly conceive of it.
Except it did.

>>4453123
No, we can understand that the implication of quantum theory says the cat is both alive and dead, but neither you nor anyone else can actually picture a cat which is simultaneously alive and dead.

>>4453119

You never answered my question. When did you decide that a thing is itself?

>>4453127
So you're saying you cannot conceive of air because you cannot picture it?

>>4453137
How could a thing be anything else but itself?

>>4453145
Consider this: Life is bigger than you and you are not me.

>>4453140
Don't be silly. There's a difference between something not being visible and something not being conceivable. When I say you cannot picture Schrodinger's cat I mean something much more basic than creating an image of the cat in your mind. (and besides, who can't picture air?)

You can say the cat is both alive and dead but you cannot actually conjure in your mind a cat that is both alive and dead, your mind insists on a cat with one quality or the other.

This is similarly true for a problem related to Schrodinger's cat, the double slit experiment: we can see evidence of a photon being in two places simultaneously, but it's impossible to conceptualize a single object in two places at once. Go ahead and try it. Maybe you see two copies in two different places, but you do not see the "same" object in "different" places. You can merely understand that it happens.

When will you hambeasts accept subjectivism and objectivism need to be balanced out and not followed 100% for everything?

>>4453163
Nope, not following. The REM lyrics' got me confused. Care to explain?

>>4453190
That wasn't me.

I was asking Deep&Edgy when he made the (arbitrary, apparently) decision that a thing is itself. If the logical axioms upon which we predicate logic are arbitrary, surely at some point he decided a thing is itself, and remains capable of believing that a thing is something else.

>>4453197
Oh, I see. I think you're asking a bad question, though. TO ASK the question "is a thing itself" is to create a structure that allows a thing to be something else than itself. Thus, in order to answer using the same logic, one has to make an arbitrary judgement; the decision that a thing is itself.

Also,
>remains capable of believing that a thing is something else.
I am fully capable of believing my computer is a toaster. *I* did not decide that this is a computer, but since a computer was built, the decision that *this* is a computer was made, and as such, is arbitrary.

>>4453237
The only statement you need to accept before determining whether "a thing is itself" is "things exist."

I hope we haven't slid so far down the slope of insanity and stoner-philosophy that "things exist" is considered an arbitrary judgment.

>I am fully capable of believing my computer is a toaster.
If you believe your computer is a toaster then you believe it's a toaster. You don't simultaneously believe it's a toaster and a computer (unless you believe it's a 2-in-1 toaster-computer but that would be a different object from simply a "toaster" or simply a "computer.")


All of this goes back to my main principle that there are certain axioms which arise naturally from how humans perceive the world. We do not choose from amongst a number of equally viable axioms, we naturally self-create them and only at some later point do we define them. There is no possible way to think such a thing as "a thing is something else" or "this statement is both true and false."

>>4453266
I'm sorry.
Things exist, but do they exist as themselves? A thing exists, but that which it is is not determined by that.

>>4453292
>Things exist, but do they exist as themselves? A thing exists, but that which it is is not determined by that.

That's the point of asking if a thing is itself. The question might create a structure in which there are seemingly two "possibilities" but that doesn't mean the choice is arbitrary because it's literally impossible for the human mind to conceive the alternative. We are forced into accepting one answer before the question is even posed.

>>4453301
What is a stick? Is it an outgrowth of a tree? Is it a spear? Is it a tool? Is it material? Is it a thing to be used?

>>4453312
Let's not conflate the uses of an object with what it is. A stick is certainly not another stick, or a rock on Pluto. No matter how you describe it, it's itself.

>>4453319
Curious. Do you think the use of a thing is irrelevant to what it is?

I can't think of why I disagree with that.

>>4453324
Why wouldn't it be?

If I chopped off your leg and affixed it as the fourth leg for a table with only three, your leg would still be the same object, just in a new use.

Of course now we can start getting into a ship of theseus type debate: when your leg, now removed from your body, starts to decay -- is it still your leg? This is probably the place your mind is going to when you instinctively disagree that the object's use is irrelevant, since we define an object in terms of other objects, ultimately. But saying "a thing is itself" does not mean "a thing cannot change," and at any instantaneous moment, any object you choose to define is undeniably itself, and not something else.

>>4453347
If you took a leg from a table, and replaced my chopped-off leg with that, I would say that my new peg leg is "my leg". Though, this is obviously not arbitrary.

I don't know, there seem to be logical conditions here I do not understand.

Thanks for the conversation; very interesting, got more stuff to ponder. Need to sleep, though.

Thank fuck no one mentioned "essence"