The dangers of pure objectivity

Too much logic can be a bad thing, and get in the way of common sense.

In our modern world, far too many people think with their hearts before their heads. Arguments are now based less on hard facts and biological realities, and more on emotions and ideology. Too many things are treated as subjective, all a matter of perception.

If you realize the danger of this, the most obvious solution is to lean away from subjectivism and towards logic and objectivity, to start thinking logically about everything and stop listening to your intuition so much.

There is a danger, however, in drawing every conclusion solely with pure objectivity. By objectivity, I mean unbiased reasoning based upon only the truths which can be known for certain, the construction of an airtight, logical framework of reality hung upon completely rock-solid, undeniable truths. If you base everything only on indisputable facts, rigid and clean and inescapable, and do not allow any intuition to clutter up the space between the diamond pillars of truth, you lose a different kind of logic, the logic of common sense. You become separated from social realities rather than natural ones.

Let me explain what I mean by way of example. Take the scientific argument that free will does not exist, like Stephen Cave discusses in this 2016 article in the Atlantic. Of course, I can come up with some quasi-religious arguments for this conclusion - the Creator set the world in motion with a specific goal in mind, and everything is heading towards that goal; everything in existence was intended by the Creator to happen; thus, nothing we do as individuals truly affects anything, as it was predestined to happen, and we do not have a choice in the matter.

The purely scientific argument for the non-existence of free will, on the other hand, is that everything was non-intelligently "predestined" to occur after the Big Bang - the initial explosion of existence that produced our universe occurred in a precise shape in precise directions, and these original facts resulted in exact distributions of matter and energy, created the very nature of the fabric of spacetime down to the smallest subatomic particle. The nature of the fabric resulted in all existence, down to the precise chemical distribution of atoms in our brains, and everything, all the choices and all the reasoning we've ever made, all the events and all the plans that have affected our lives, was preordained to occur by the exact nature of the Big Bang. As everything was predetermined at the time of that single event, none of the choices we have made were our own, and none of the decisions we will make will be our own. We have no say and no way to affect reality, as the effects of reality determine us and our choices. Therefore, free will cannot exist.

The scary thing about this argument is that it makes sense. If you accept the Big Bang as having been real and look at the argument with a purely objective mind, there are no flaws (that I could find, at least) in this fatalistic argument.

So what's dangerous about accepting fatalism as truth and not believing in free will?

For starters, it's a very cynical and depressing view. If nothing we do matters, then what's the point of life? Why do we try to change the world, if we can ultimately change nothing? This concerns our individual mental health alone, but there are also concerning possible ramifications on society as a whole. If you accept that free will doesn't exist, you will be less likely to teach your children about the importance of free will, the consequences of their actions, and the danger in allowing others to make choices for you.

Now imagine that a cunning authoritarian (let's call him Tony) manages to get into power and convinces his followers that, because their choices ultimately don't matter, they may as well let him make all the hard decisions for their society. If the population has accepted objectivist fatalism, they don't properly value the meaning of freedom and the importance of making their own choices because it goes against pure logic, so they do nothing to stop Tony from amassing more and more power until he turns the country into a dictatorship. But if the population believes in free will, Tony has a much harder time getting them to give him control. They value their freedom to make their own choices and to try change the world, and don't want to lose that right.

Some of the researchers mentioned in the Atlantic article agree with that point - that whether or not free will exists, we must believe it does in order for civilization to maintain stability. If free will exists, then it is crucial we act like it's real and take our decisions into our own hands. If free will does not exist, then there is no harm in behaving like it does exist, as everything will happen as it has been predestined to, regardless of what we believe. Even if it goes against objective logic, a societal belief in free will protects that population from losing control.

Excessive objectivity is dangerous in regards to the question of free will. It's also dangerous if we apply it to our innate human rights. We're just complex chemical machines designed to reproduce and spread, so why do we consider ourselves to be born with rights? Aren't "rights" societal constructs, products of functionalism designed to keep civilization stable? What's the problem with Fred infringing upon on someone's rights if they're a bad person, then?

(Admittedly, completely objective people would refuse to define what a bad person is, but here I'm discussing regular folks who have certain humanistic tendencies at their core, who don’t follow objectiveness in every way.)

How about the soul? Does the soul really exist? Our consciousnesses are made of electrical impulses in our neurons, so where can the soul be? Isn't that just another societal construct?You see where I'm going with this. If you lean too much into objectiveness, you start seeing everything as societal constructs, because a lot of stuff is. You start seeing freedom as a lie. You become nihilistic and cynical. You become fatalistic. You stop believing in the meaning of life.

In fact, when all civilized constructs are viewed as lies, you cross back into subjectivity. Sanity requires a balance of objectivity and subjectivity. When you lean too far into one or the other, you start seeing all individual perception as deeply inaccurate, or see every individual belief as the truth for that individual. At the point when you think human perception is inaccurate and overly clouded with bias, and you can’t tell if anything is objectively real or all a delusion, you fall into insanity.

So, while we desperately need rationality in the modern world, it’s important to make sure you don’t get your head too far into the clouds of pure logic. Logic and objectivity must be rooted firmly in common sense and basic intuition in order to maintain sight of necessary civilized constructs. Logic and objectivity must be functional to be applicable to the real world. Logic and objectivity must remain human.

The infinitesimally tiny speck of your life in the enormity of all spacetime may seem objectively meaningless, because its worth is subjective. You must choose to give it meaning to have any.