Objective/Subjective

During my primary classes, we had to cram one line answers.

Q.Where does the sun set?
Ans.The sun sets in the west.
Now if we think we have defined the directions (east/west) according to the direction of rotation of earth, hence of rising and setting suns. So actually the answer should be,"Where the sun sets is west". Gradually we started getting objective questions, like fill in the blanks, matching, one words etc. But there were also subjective questions like write an essay on "The library". The objectives were high risk high gain options. The subjectives were on the other hand easier to answer but difficult to score on.

Having dealed with subjectives and objectives for the last 17 years, i had never once really realized there meaning.

We generally go out for dosas and south indian coffee at dawn after a night out. The mess is run by a tamil family with everyone involved in the business. Aunty, their son, uncle and helpers. The son goes to college. Anyway we have become friendly with them and it is heretic to go somewhere else to have the morning breaker. But this mess closes at abt 8. So on such an occasion i suggested another place which offered dosas till abt 10. My friend asked me if the dosas there were any good. Normally i stay away from these questions, because of the different mophologies of palates. I jokingly said that it was a subjective question and i can only say that i like them. He disagreed that it was very objective, either the dosas were good or they were'nt. I knew in my heart that this was specious.

Then i thought about it. And the following reasoning makes sense.
Objective is where the outcome is decided by the object. The objects properties decide the outcome. Here the dosas size or price were objective. Anyone with a ruler must measure it the same. But how we percieve its taste depends on our palates. And here the subject is "taste". Hence taste is subjective. Though chemical properties of the dosa has an influence on its taste but how we percieve it depends on us.

And this leads to truth. What is true? I believe there are two kinds of truth. A personal truth (which tends to be subjective) and a general truth (which is close to objective).
A friend once remarked," Prostitution is disgusting." Actually what he subconsciously meant was, he thinks prostitution is disgusting. But when i told him this he didnt agree. When i asked him to objectively prove that prostitution is desgusting he could not. Because everything comes to a subjective dead end.

If everyone realized that ones own truth may not be true for the next then the number of conflicts would decrease tremendously.
Oh, know i think i have gone overboard.


COMMENTS


fodder for the mind! thanks for the comment on my blog! visitors are always a pleasure...atithi devo baha and all that ! ;-)
geebaby