Sunday, May 17, 2015

On Solutions to the Subjective Panacea

There are certain questions that puzzle people, mostly because the seem to have no real answer. For example, the paradox of the Ship of Theseus (also known as the "George Washington Axe" puzzle):

"The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their places, in so much that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same."
        —Plutarch, Theseus
The basic idea is that you have a ship, and each day you replace one plank of wood until you have replaced all of the ship. Is it the same ship? What if you where to take all the cast-away pieces and put them back together? Which is the original ship? You could say that one, or the other (or neither, for that matter) is the original. However, there is no real answer, except for the idea of it being different for each person because each person has a different perspective, hence a difference opinion. AKA, a subjective solution. Another example where this fits is on "what makes someone human", which can also be solved subjectively.

So the question that remains is; what is the solution to subjective problems? Because by allowing ourselves to answer questions in the manner of "oh, no, we couldn't possibly answer that, it's based off too much empirical data" is not actually answering the problem, it's merely categorizing the question under the heading of "Necessitates a Subjective and Individualized Answer." So how does one actually answer these questions?

Well, because we are compelled so heavily to answer those questions with the panacea of "Necessitates a Subjective and Individualized Answer," it seems almost pointless for one to try to answer the question in any deterministic and purely logical way. The problem is our epistemic horizon; that is, our ability as pragmatic beings to fully comprehend every single minutiae of our existence. Let's face it, no one can fully grasp all the inputs their brains receive that lead them to make a decision (this actually has bearing on the question of free will, but that's a story for another time). In any case, the fact remains that we do not have a high enough or specialized enough "consciousness" to answer the question towards the problem of "Necessitates a Subjective and Individualized Answer" (which bears upon our own consciousness to begin with, hence the difficulty).

In conclusion, we cannot answer the question of subjective answers, and the idea of "Necessitates a Subjective and Individualized Answer" will just have to sate us until someone or something with a varied and elevated position will allow us an answer. But will we understand, or even recognize, the answer when presented to us? I do not know. We shall see.

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