Can Someone Explain Subjective Reality To Me?

Question

I've heard somewhere about the belief of subjective reality, and well I'm confused. If subjective reality was real, would all of the people I interact with be imaginary? Like a projection of myself? So would that mean that my emotions are affecting theirs? And the whole "conciousness" thing is also confusing. Is my world conciousness? Am I conciousnes or is what is going on AROUND me conciousness? Can someone explain it to me? Thanks! =)

Answer 1

Subjective reality. If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? If you believe reality is objective, then you say it does make a sound even if no one is there to hear it. If you believe reality is subjective, then you say it did not make a sound because no one was there to hear anything.

Subjective reality says all reality is defined by each person's individual sensory experience. My concept of blue may be different from your concept of blue. What if I had never experienced the colour blue before. How would you describe it to me without showing me the colour itself?

Subjective reality says if no one was alive to experience anything, all things would cease to exist because no one would be there to sense anything.

By the way, the statement, "All reality is subjective" is an objective statement. Further, if my reality includes a belief in Jesus Christ and God as being ultimate, objective truth, subjective relativists will disagree that my belief can be true; however, remember they say "all reality is subjective," so, for me, they say, it is true. But if my belief that God is ultimate, objective truth is true for me then it must be true for everyone else as well. It can't be otherwise.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Well, these are pretty much unanswerable questions, but as for as categories and definitions of philosophical concepts are concerned, the notion of "subjective reality" is, to put it simply, that it's all "in the eye of the beholder." The moderate, and I think most sensible view, is that there is some sort of foundational reality that is, for all intents and purposes, unknowable, since it's inevitably filtered through our individual perceptions.
As for your second point, that's called "solipsism." It's a form of skepticism holding that only one's individual perception of reality is verifiable, though at its most extreme it entails the belief that there IS no such thing as external reality, that it's simply a projection of the perceiver's consciousness.
The question of consciousness is also unsolved, and there are lots of interesting debates in a field known as "philosophy of mind." If you're interested in reading about some of the most current theories regarding the ways in which consciousness functions and its position in relation to "external reality," you might want to check out some of John Searles writings. Hope that helps.

Answer 3

A person poses or asks a question, the first thing I do is look at linguistically:

'I've heard somewhere about the belief ( for belief see http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/ph/phc2b1b.htm ) of subjective reality (here we have 'subjective' used as a modifier for the word 'reality' as abstract noun,.... If subjective reality was real (it is not real? is there then an unreal subjective reality?), would all of the people I interact with be imaginary? (halucinated people? or errant assumption) Like a projection of (from)myself? So would that mean that my emotions are affecting theirs? (if your emotions do not affect them, they would be very insensitive people) And the whole "conciousness" thing is also confusing. Is my world conciousness? Am I conciousnes or is what is going on AROUND me conciousness? '

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/sljudge.htm#SL171

You, as a bound being are subjecting your sense in you. The word 'conciousness' is from the word 'conscious' from the latin 'concio' or 'concios'. Interpreted in its parts for its parts english, it is 'together yes-ed'.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hl/hlnotion.htm#HL3_586

"Plain minds have not unreasonably taken exception to this subjective idealism, with its reduction of the facts of consciousness to a purely personal world, created by ourselves alone. For the true statement of the case is rather as follows. The things of which we have direct consciousness are mere phenomena, not for us only, but in their own nature; and the true and proper case of these things, finite as they are, is to have their existence founded not in themselves but in the universal divine Idea. This view of things, it is true, is as idealist as Kant’s; but in contradistinction to the subjective idealism of the Critical philosophy should be termed absolute idealism. Absolute idealism, however, though it is far in advance of vulgar realism, is by no means merely restricted to philosophy. It lies at the root of all religion; for religion too believes the actual world we see, the sum total of existence, to be created and governed by God."

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/sl_iv.htm#SL45n2

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hl/hlsubjec.htm#HL3_599

"It believes thought to be a mere subjective and formal activity, and the objective fact, which confronts thought, to have a separate and permanent being. But this duality is a half-truth: and there is a want of intelligence in the procedure which at once accepts, without inquiring into their origin, the categories of subjectivity and objectivity. Both of them, subjectivity as well as objectivity, are certainly thoughts - even specific thoughts: which must show themselves founded on the universal and self-determining thought. This has here been done - at least for subjectivity. We have recognised it, or the notion subjective (which includes the notion proper, the judgment, and the syllogism) as the dialectical result of the first two main stages of the Logical Idea, Being and Essence.

To say that the notion is subjective and subjective only, is so far quite correct: for the notion certainly is subjectivity itself. Not less subjective than the notion are also the judgment and syllogism: and these forms, together with the so-called Laws of Thought (the Laws of Identity, Difference and Sufficient Ground), make up the contents of what is called the ‘Elements’ in the common logic. But we may go a step further. This subjectivity, with its functions of notion, judgment, and syllogism, is not like a set of empty compartments which has to get filled from without by separately existing objects. It would be truer to say that it is subjectivity itself, which, as dialectical, breaks through its own barriers and opens out into objectivity by means of the syllogism."

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/slsyllog.htm#SL192n