Subjective and Objective Reality: My Essay
I want to start out by saying that I’m an ultra-beginner when it comes to stuff like this, but I had to do a definition essay in English, and I chose to contrast objective and subjective reality. So, if any of this seems wrong to you, please let me know. I’m sort of stuck right now, because I’m not really sure what to write about next. I’m thinking maybe the history of how the terms came to be or something. Also, for citations, I’m struggling with MLA formatting, so I might not have something in quotations cited, let me know if you want the cites for something.
Regardless of whether or not one watches a phenomenon occur, it still, in fact, occurs. Or does it? This argument is known as objective versus subjective reality. While objective reality initially seems to be the more obvious and substantial answer, fairly recent discoveries in the world of quantum physics have caused new questions to spring up regarding this ancient belief. Whether or not reality occurs outside of the human mind or exists only inside of the consciousness is a question that, despite countless arguments, remains unresolved. Despite arguments that insist on promoting the idea that reality is entirely dependent on our fallible perceptions (subjective reality), the evidence remains in favor that there is indeed a real world that exists independent of our observations (objective reality).
Subjective reality is defined as “relating to or of the nature of an object as it is known in the mind as distinct from a thing in itself.” Proponents of this theory generally believe that reality is relative, and so if someone cannot see an object in front of them, it ceases to exist. Objective reality, in contrast, means “existing independent of thought or an observer as part of reality.” Objective reality usually implies that everything can be proven using rationality, science, and mathematics. Although people use their mind to interpret and to put into practice this information, it still exists outside of the mind to be observed.
If there existed a picture, in a room, two people could agree that the picture is objective, and occurs outside of their mind. However, one could find the picture to be quite lovely, and another could detest it with a passion. These two ideas are not necessarily wrong, but are subjective. Based on this thought, some would suggest that reality is merely whatever a person believes reality to be. However, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away” (Dick). Someone can choose to deny the existence of gravity, but when they step off of a building, the end result is fairly obvious. Simply thinking something to be true does not make it so, because “the map is not the territory” (Korzybski, par.1).
It is mainly the difference between the map and the territory, that marks the difference between objective and subjective reality. The map, or how we perceive the territory, does not necessarily reflect the territory (reality) itself. One can have directions on a map that appear to lead to somewhere quite interesting, but when acted out within the territory, can be misleading. Changing a belief about something changes nothing but chemical firing patterns within the brain. The goal should be to attempt to draw maps as close as possible to the actual territory, but to do so, human fallibility must be admitted, and an attitude of humility should be taken up.
Note: This is all I have so far, I’m supposed to be about halfway done. Anything that is incorrect/needs fixing? :D Thanks guys!
The topic of quantum mechanics should probably be avoided, unless you can expect the audience to have taken a course or read a book on quantum mechanics. Long story short, though, the “what if we create our own reality?” debate was indeed revived by quantum mechanics. The debate was then concluded, long ago, because this was science and not a debate club. Objective reality was not overturned.
“The debate was then concluded, long ago, because this was science and not a debate club.”
Hahahaha. Fair enough point. I’ll change that, I sort of wrote the introduction first, when I had done minimal research, and so when I saw that people still believed in subjective reality, I assumed that it was still a legit viewpoint, even though I disagreed with it. I’m glad that I got the recently revived by quantum mechanics part right though. The audience is my teacher, who’s fairly intelligent, and while I’m not entirely sure he’s familiar with the concept, I’m thinking about going into further detail with the quantum mechanics and briefly (if that’s possible) covering how exactly the debate was revived by quantum mechanics. Thank you, Sir.
There are definitely approaches to QM that smack of subjective reality (“subjective” describing this one you of the many near-clones of you, one in each possible worlds each quantum mechanical outcome involving you creates, if you believe the MWI the way EY does). However, it is indeed best to stay away from the topic unless you are well versed in it.
Are you referring to staying away from the topic in the essay, or in general? Because I’ll admit to being a complete layman on QM, but I do find it interesting. Mind-blowing and confusing, certainly, but interesting.
Upon reflection I think that you can certainly find something online or in the sequences to quote, with a disclaimer that you are not qualified to form an opinion on the subjectivity of QM.
I quite enjoy editing, so here’s my amateur effort. I’m sorry if the comments sound harsh; it’s more for brevity’s sake than anything else. I’m going to concentrate more on form than on content—there are plenty of much more knowledgeable people critiquing the content, and improving your writing form is probably the main point of this exercise.
“One watches” and “phenomenon” are dry, stilted and very general. Maybe open the essay with a concrete example that makes me want to know how you are going to solve this tangible problem.
“It still, in fact, occurs” is wordy and again stilted. The question “Or does it?” sounds a bit like it belongs in a pantomime. These qualities don’t go together well! I agree with the other commenter who suggested you revisit the opening completely.
You haven’t made an argument yet, so it’s not at all clear what you mean by “this argument”. You may have done something like framing a problem or pointing out a disputable question. Furthermore, “objective versus subjective reality” is not something that an argument can be known as. I think with this sentence you are trying to get at something more like “This problem may be formulated as an apparent dichotomy between objective and subjective reality.”
“Seems to be” isn’t very useful here. It seems like you are trying to say something about intuition in the first part of this sentence. What exactly does your intuition tell you?
“Quantum physics” doesn’t seem like it should be a “world”. A “domain” or a “field” or something else, maybe?
“Spring up” is quite a cliched phrase—not necessarily a bad thing, perhaps it will sound better if you revise the rest of the sentence.
With “this ancient belief” you seem to be referring to the vague statement about intuitions that you made in the first part of the sentence. It’s not clear what this belief is, though. Do you mean a belief in objective reality? Have you supported the assertion that it’s ancient?
“Reality occurs” seems kind of odd. Is reality a thing that occurs or exists or… something else? Maybe you need to have a stab at defining “reality” in order to have something to ground this sentence on.
This may be an American/British English thing (I am British and not always familiar with American idioms/turns of phrase), but “outside of” and “inside of” are considered nonstandard/informal in my version of English, unsuitable for a formal essay.
Are “human mind” and “consciousness” intended to mean the same thing here? It kind of seems as though they are, but then again, why would you use two different terms if you meant to refer to the same thing? Maybe you can clarify this.
I’m not sure that “despite countless arguments” adds anything to this sentence. You don’t seem to have discussed any of the arguments yet, so it’s a bit handwavey. It’s not clear whether you mean “arguments” in the sense of “debates” or “points put forward in favour of one side or the other”. Plus, the very next sentence begins with the similar wording “Despite arguments...”
Why (and how) do arguments “insist on promoting” something? Arguments are just arguments. They don’t have agency. People might insist on promoting something, and they might use arguments to do so… you probably want to say something about what exactly these arguments are really soon!
Evidence can’t remain “in favour that” something, unless this is a normal American English expression. There can be evidence “in favour OF” a real world.
Perhaps “independently” would be an improvement over “independent” here?
I still feel like you should by now have said something about what you mean when you refer to “reality” and “the real world”.
Someone else critiqued this definition. I have no idea what it’s trying to say. You need to unpack it or, better, discard it.
You might want to unpack what “relative” means here. The use of “someone” is unclear. If Alice and Bob are looking at a squirrel and then Alice shuts her eyes, would a proponent of this theory say the squirrel has ceased to exist? Presumably you want to argue that they would say it has for Alice, but it still exists for Bob. “Someone” doesn’t really get at this; it could mean everyone or anyone.
“In contrast” doesn’t help you much here. It’s already clear that you’re contrasting the two views, and in this position in the sentence it doesn’t act as a topic-signal very effectively, because you already brought in the thing that we already know you’re contrasting.
This definition is a lot less opaque than the last one, though. Still having trouble with this “reality” thing.
“Objective reality” probably doesn’t imply anything. Adopting the view that objective reality is correct might force you to accept certain conclusions; that seems to be what you’re saying.
I am sceptical of the “everything can be proven” part. Can you explain why you think this follows from the view that there is an objective reality?
“People” is plural and “mind” is singular.
You may want to give an example of what you mean by “interpret” and “put into practice” information. Generally, examples are good. You can’t really go wrong giving examples. Give exciting or silly ones!
Ah, an example! Great. It’s not a particularly exciting or silly one, but it will certainly do. Why does the picture need to be “in a room”? The way you have comma’d this off suggests that it’s somehow important, but I’m not seeing why.
I don’t know what “the picture is objective” means. Maybe you’re trying to convey something more like “the picture objectively exists”?
Also, the two people probably don’t have just one mind between them.
“Quite lovely” is really quite bland. “Detest it with a passion” is cliched but at least it has a bit of pop! I wish we had a description of this picture. It would help me as a reader to get into your example: do I think I would find it lovely or detest it? Readers like thinking about themselves. Pander to this.
You seem to have “opinion” and “idea” conflated here.
I don’t know what “this thought” refers to. Is it the notion that conflicting opinions don’t necessarily mean someone is mistaken? You might want to clarify this.
Who is “a person” here? You don’t really get to the point that I think you’re trying to make, which is that if two people believe reality to be different things, then… what?
I am a fan of this quote. :)
Excellent! A concrete, dramatic example. You have that “off of” thing going on again. Would “inevitable” be an improvement over “fairly obvious”? What makes “the end result” better than just “the result”? Also, why would your character choose to deny something? Wouldn’t they be more likely to be mistakenly convinced of the converse?
Simply thinking something to be true does not make it so, because “the map is not the territory” (Korzybski, par.1).
I agree with another commenter than unpacking the map/territory distinction would be useful at this point. There is a good point buried in here trying to get out.
(Finishing off in a second comment; this was too long for one!)
That comma makes my teeth itch.
OK, this is better. Maybe this is the unpacking I was looking for after all. Still feels like it could take more explanatory work. Maybe you could even put this part a lot nearer the start of the essay, because it’s helping you get a bit closer to explaining what you might mean by “reality”, too. You’ve been keeping that very quiet up to now.
I like the concept you’re trying to get across here. I think this sentence could be improved a lot. “Somewhere quite interesting” is lame. Great opportunity to pick an awesome example! “Acted out” doesn’t seem right. Directions are things that you follow. Instead of “can be misleading”, pick an awful kind of place you could end up in by accident.
OK, this is the first we’ve really heard about the brain as opposed to the mind. Potentially a useful approach, but it comes out of left field a bit. Can you explain that you’re about to start talking about neuroscience before doing so, maybe?
Wait, now we’re back with the maps analogy. The neuroscience bit went nowhere and didn’t seem to further your maps point either. What was the deal with that...?
“The goal” depends on what we’re trying to achieve. You haven’t specified that.
“An attitude of humility should be taken up” is awkward. Chuck it out and rewrite, I think.
I hope some of that advice was useful! Even if you disagree with all my criticisms and don’t like any of my suggestions, perhaps I’ve demonstrated something useful about fine-toothed-comb editing. It can really benefit your writing a lot. Just inspect each sentence closely in turn and find ways to improve it. There will almost always be ways! That’s before you even get as far as examining your structure at the paragraph level...
Good luck with improving your writing.
PS. The fact that I’ve been critiquing your writing means my own will have been riddled with horrible errors in these comments. I just fixed one instance—I have no doubt there are others. Sorry about that.
The “map and territory” are terms that probably deserve some introduction, unless you know for sure your audience understands them.
The opening is really bad and the essay is poorly organized. Do you have an outline of where you want this to go?
First fix the formatting. The middle part of your text looks like copied from another WYSIWYG editor (different font, indentation of first words in paragraphs, no spaces between paragraphs). It doesn’t look good.
This definition is incomprehensible to me. Do you think it will be comprehensible to your audience? Besides, “is defined” creates impression of its being a single universally agreed definition, which is not true.
Dubious. First, existence of objective reality doesn’t totally banish subjectivity, a believer in objective reality can still hold subjective beliefs. Your “everything” is certainly superfluous.
Second, although it may be sensible for practical purposes to define “objective truths” as propositions which different subjects would agree upon when using certain approved methods of reasoning (i.e. “proving by rationality …”), many people would argue that “objective reality” has nothing to do with proving and exists independently of mathematics or science. If there were no intelligent agents, there would be no science, but there would still be reality.
Note also another reason why “everything can be proven” is weird when speaking about objective reality: propositions are proven, but the world is made of atoms, not of propositions.
Who is Dick?
Korzybski I know (do all the readers?), but what par.1 refers to remains mystery.
This seems to imply that in your parlance “subjective reality” is the map and “objective reality” is the territory. But you frame the whole essay as a question “is reality objective or subjective”, which is not compatible with the map-territory interpretation.
Anyway, if you want to write a four-paragraph essay, you should probably not choose a topic worth several hundred pages thick book.
Cthulhu eat me first.
Reword, as is you framed it as a question and describe it as a debate.
There are different degrees of possibility, such as logical possibility, metaphysical possibility, etc.
Make the consequences of following the bad map more explicit than just being misled. Explain the nature of the misleading.