One of my guilty pleasures is the Reacher series on Amazon. The protagonist (Alan Ritchson), a beast of a man, finds himself only a bit concerned about his latest brush with death. (These brushes occur several times per episode.) This is just what he does and must do. The only thing he won’t tolerate is the reactive individual. Whatever happened to the male role model that can suck up their doubts and fears to push through?
From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm Sent: Friday, August 28, 2026 11:39 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> Subject: [FRIAM] Subjectivity as a spectrum For the new book I have read the famous philsophers like Dennett, Searle, and Nagel, and used AIs to summarize their books. Nagel's book "The view frok nowhere" is a bit simplistic. Reality is more complex than having just two views, subjective and objective, isn't it? In the desperate cries of babies we see pure desires and raw emotions. Babies are cute but naturally egocentric. Lacking language they only can perceive the world in a subjective view, and helpless as they are they need to communicate their needs to their parents. The only view they have is a 1st person view (characterized by "one great blooming, buzzing confusion" as William James said, which they interrupt by intense bursts of emotions). Everything a toddler perceives is extremely subjective. In a sense a toddler knows nothing else. Grown-ups have learnt to follow social rules and norms. They learned the value of politeness and friendliness. They are able to reach a more objective view of the world. Thomas Nagel called this view the "view from nowhere" in his book of the same name. As we grow older we move along the spectrum from high selfishness to low selfishness. We are still driven by emotions and do not become fully objective, but we acquire the ability to view the world from an objective view. Nagel calls this ability to move from a subjective to an objective view detachment. We see it normal child development: Babies -> Toddlers -> Children -> Teenagers -> Grownups There are exceptions: evil psychopaths and vile narcissts are still as selfish as toddlers or use emotions to manipulate other people. Artists, musicians, poets and critics are intentionally using personal feelings and emotions to be creative in their works. Narcissists/pyschopaths (subjectivity for bad purpose) <-> Creative persons (subjectivity for good purpose) Would you agree that seeing subjectivity as a spectrum is more useful that postulating only two views (subjective vs. objective) ? ChatGPT has created the attached image for it. -J.
smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
