I’ve been thinking a lot these days about subjective experience. If “objective” means stuff that you can point clearly at to third parties, then “subjective” experiences—moods, impressions, ephemeral mental constructs, basically one’s inner world—seem to me to be most of experience.
Most smart & competent people I know think that subjective experience is basically not a thing people should try to share or think much about. If it isn’t “firm” enough to last a long time or clear enough to be transmitted using logical plain language, then it’s basically bullshit, and there’s no sense either taking it seriously yourself or trying to communicate it to others. Inner experience is like dreaming—it’s basically meaningless noise and nobody wants to hear about it. This seems totally wrong to me—the whole genre of lyric poetry seems to be about sharing inner experience, right?
I’m wondering if anybody else here has thought about this. Or has noticed that phenomenology is weird and, once you pay attention to it closely enough, doesn’t look a hell of a lot like a nicely-bulleted list that anyone can understand. (If you have no idea what “lived experience is weird” might mean, read Donna Williams’ Somebody Somewhere.)
I think that sharing subjective experience is pretty intimate. It’s a lot like nonviolent communication, now that I think about it. Or maybe they’re closely related?
In nonviolent communication, you scrupulously avoid the mind projection fallacy in dealing with other people, and you end up talking about your feelings and experiences a lot. This is usually put to a sort of pedestrian use, which is some equivalent of “when you do this thing, I feel bad in some way.” But this is not its only use… just its least intimate one. Consider what it would be like to actually say to someone “when you lean against me while we’re reading, it makes me incredibly happpy, and I feel like my chest is filling up with comfort and contentment.” Or maybe that’s too easy, since it sounds like romantic words one might say to a partner you’re already intimate with. Can you imagine saying to a friend “When we make eye contact after laughing at a joke together, I feel carefree, like I’ve just put down my burdens for a while.”
It seems like that’s just too intimate to be possible—it’s shocking that you could say that series of syllables and not burst into flames. You’d have to immediately defuse it by acting very normal. Maybe follow with “It’s great” to return to the safe process of making value judgments rather than trying to communicate experience. Hm, or maybe it’s just that continuing in such a way provides solid conversational ground, while people don’t have a ready response to someone telling them about their positive feelings in responses to their actions, except maybe feeling put on the spot to reciprocate.
The fact that people who run drug studies don’t measure whether there attempts of blinding actually produce the subjective experience of blinding is the most glaring example of how ridiculous the consequences of most researchers ignoring phenomenology happen to be.
What about if I have several different ideas what “lived experience is weird” might mean but no obvious way to identify just what sort of weirdness you’re predicating of what sort of experience; is there any way to get more insight into your meaning for an investment smaller than the price of a book plus the time taken to read it?
Re your second paragraph, this may be a selection effect for the smart and competent people you know? Many smart and competent people I know think that trying to describe and understand subjective experience is the good stuff.
I’ve been thinking a lot these days about subjective experience. If “objective” means stuff that you can point clearly at to third parties, then “subjective” experiences—moods, impressions, ephemeral mental constructs, basically one’s inner world—seem to me to be most of experience.
Most smart & competent people I know think that subjective experience is basically not a thing people should try to share or think much about. If it isn’t “firm” enough to last a long time or clear enough to be transmitted using logical plain language, then it’s basically bullshit, and there’s no sense either taking it seriously yourself or trying to communicate it to others. Inner experience is like dreaming—it’s basically meaningless noise and nobody wants to hear about it. This seems totally wrong to me—the whole genre of lyric poetry seems to be about sharing inner experience, right?
I’m wondering if anybody else here has thought about this. Or has noticed that phenomenology is weird and, once you pay attention to it closely enough, doesn’t look a hell of a lot like a nicely-bulleted list that anyone can understand. (If you have no idea what “lived experience is weird” might mean, read Donna Williams’ Somebody Somewhere.)
I think that sharing subjective experience is pretty intimate. It’s a lot like nonviolent communication, now that I think about it. Or maybe they’re closely related?
In nonviolent communication, you scrupulously avoid the mind projection fallacy in dealing with other people, and you end up talking about your feelings and experiences a lot. This is usually put to a sort of pedestrian use, which is some equivalent of “when you do this thing, I feel bad in some way.” But this is not its only use… just its least intimate one. Consider what it would be like to actually say to someone “when you lean against me while we’re reading, it makes me incredibly happpy, and I feel like my chest is filling up with comfort and contentment.” Or maybe that’s too easy, since it sounds like romantic words one might say to a partner you’re already intimate with. Can you imagine saying to a friend “When we make eye contact after laughing at a joke together, I feel carefree, like I’ve just put down my burdens for a while.”
It seems like that’s just too intimate to be possible—it’s shocking that you could say that series of syllables and not burst into flames. You’d have to immediately defuse it by acting very normal. Maybe follow with “It’s great” to return to the safe process of making value judgments rather than trying to communicate experience. Hm, or maybe it’s just that continuing in such a way provides solid conversational ground, while people don’t have a ready response to someone telling them about their positive feelings in responses to their actions, except maybe feeling put on the spot to reciprocate.
I think subjective experience is important.
The fact that people who run drug studies don’t measure whether there attempts of blinding actually produce the subjective experience of blinding is the most glaring example of how ridiculous the consequences of most researchers ignoring phenomenology happen to be.
What about if I have several different ideas what “lived experience is weird” might mean but no obvious way to identify just what sort of weirdness you’re predicating of what sort of experience; is there any way to get more insight into your meaning for an investment smaller than the price of a book plus the time taken to read it?
Re your second paragraph, this may be a selection effect for the smart and competent people you know? Many smart and competent people I know think that trying to describe and understand subjective experience is the good stuff.