Thanks for the thought provoking essay. I've enjoyed our interactions so far, so I'll lob over one more attempt to get at my key concern with your philosophy.
There's lots I agree with, of course! Specifically, I agree, in the main, with the descriptive parts of your metaphysical claims. Reality must be objective, and the 6 conditions you give seem reasonable enough to me (though I may choose a shorter list!). No, this is not the part of the essay I want to comment on this time. Maybe later!
The key thing I do not understand is when you write these very sensible sounding things, clearly thought through for a long period of time, then near the end (like in your last essay) you start adding normative claims after descriptive "causes" to those normative claims.
Quoted below **emphasis mine**
> The real choice is not between belief and disbelief, but between acknowledgment and denial. To acknowledge objectivity is to recognize that **reality maintains a universal structure with downstream implications for everything: reason, fairness, rights, responsibility, and coexistence**. It is to respect that structure while participating in reality in ways that preserve coherence—not merely for oneself, but for others, including those who come after us.
> Denial does not exempt a person from participation. One continues to operate within the same reality, benefiting from the very coherence one denies. The difference is that **denial opens the door to selectively suspending universality whenever doing so becomes advantageous. Principles become conditional, fairness becomes negotiable**, and coherence gives way to preference, power, or expediency.
For the point of a targeted conversation, let's take the ideal **fairness**. Does objectivity demand a normative claim on the value of fairness? I would actually argue it would not! To get there though, let me try outlining my best-effort version of your argument
1. To act, think, or reason at all, you must assume your actions are capable of having predictable consequences
2. This assumption _is_ an implicit reliance on an objective, invariant reality
3. Therefore, if you claim that objective reality doesn't matter, or that subjective preference can override it, you are using the tools of an objective universe to argue for it's non-existence.
Fairness _could_ be construed in terms of entities with absolute, unyielding, uniform laws regardless of who or what they are. This is structurally true, gravity doesn't care who you are it only cares about your mass and location in spacetime. However, when you bring up alongside the human concepts like rights, fairness has a much different connotation.
Fairness is more like empathy, or being able to give everyone an equal shot. Protect the vulnerable. Reward good behavior and penalize bad behavior. These are the kinds of "fairness" I think about, and these are the kinds of ideals I see you arguing for here.
But this doesn't follow. Believing positively in that kind of fairness is a normative claim that isn't baked into the laws of physics.
In fact, the reason humans exist at all is through millions of years of starvation, death, and brutality to steer mutation by natural selection. This is quite unfair! Think of how much bad luck there is. Fairness, as I believe you want to construe it, isn't objectively baked into the laws of nature.
To be clear, I think fairness is a good thing, generally speaking. But I don't think it's an objective fact about the universe that we should try to defend on these grounds. I think we will need to appeal to more humane sources, and argue for the value of humanity, first, before such ideas would be possible to argue for. In other words, if we think humanity isn't valuable (e.g. other self-sustaining things are better for some reason) then the idea of fairness wouldn't come along for the ride anymore. There's a missing step between 1) objectivity demands <conditions> are met 2) these human-level values are therefore valuable. There's a missing "and humans are valuable" step in the middle, which I think needs significantly more work, which is what a lot of religious stories aim to provide for folks.
Thanks for the thoughtful response, I think the main disagreement may come down to what we mean by fairness.
You seem to mean fairness in the humane sense: empathy, equal opportunity, protecting the vulnerable, rewarding good behavior. I agree those matter. But I’m using fairness in a more structural sense first.
I’m defining fairness as a balance between consistency and selectivity.
Reality itself operates this way. Gravity is consistent, but outcomes vary depending on conditions. A feather and bowling ball fall differently, yet the principle remains stable. Medicine is selective, different patients require different treatments, but medicine only works because biology itself remains consistent enough to study.
So the real question becomes: what kind of reality produces better conditions for fairness, an objective one or a subjective one?
There are really only two options. Either reality is grounded in objective structure (6 stable conditions that maintain consistency for coherence), or it is grounded in subjectivity (principles that shift according to preference, power, or circumstance).
An objectively grounded reality gives us both stability and leeway. We can selectively adapt because there are consistent defaults to fall back on when our decisions fail.
Think of electricity. We can engineer light and illuminate our homes 24/7 through selective intervention. But if the grid fails, there is security in knowing the sun still rises. We may lose convenience, but we do not lose orientation.
Consistency is the safety net that protects selectivity.
A purely subjective reality offers freedom but no stability. When selectivity fails, there is nothing beneath it to recover coherence. Principles become negotiable. Fairness becomes conditional. Security disappears.
So it is not that objectivity automatically gives us compassion in the immediate sense. It is that fairness thrives in a reality that foundationally prioritizes consistency over selectivity, because consistency protects selectivity, not the other way around.
Got it. Then I guess we don't disagree. When I read your statements about fairness and rights, I was reading more into it than really was there! Fair enough. Thanks for your response :)
Thanks for the thought provoking essay. I've enjoyed our interactions so far, so I'll lob over one more attempt to get at my key concern with your philosophy.
There's lots I agree with, of course! Specifically, I agree, in the main, with the descriptive parts of your metaphysical claims. Reality must be objective, and the 6 conditions you give seem reasonable enough to me (though I may choose a shorter list!). No, this is not the part of the essay I want to comment on this time. Maybe later!
The key thing I do not understand is when you write these very sensible sounding things, clearly thought through for a long period of time, then near the end (like in your last essay) you start adding normative claims after descriptive "causes" to those normative claims.
Quoted below **emphasis mine**
> The real choice is not between belief and disbelief, but between acknowledgment and denial. To acknowledge objectivity is to recognize that **reality maintains a universal structure with downstream implications for everything: reason, fairness, rights, responsibility, and coexistence**. It is to respect that structure while participating in reality in ways that preserve coherence—not merely for oneself, but for others, including those who come after us.
> Denial does not exempt a person from participation. One continues to operate within the same reality, benefiting from the very coherence one denies. The difference is that **denial opens the door to selectively suspending universality whenever doing so becomes advantageous. Principles become conditional, fairness becomes negotiable**, and coherence gives way to preference, power, or expediency.
For the point of a targeted conversation, let's take the ideal **fairness**. Does objectivity demand a normative claim on the value of fairness? I would actually argue it would not! To get there though, let me try outlining my best-effort version of your argument
1. To act, think, or reason at all, you must assume your actions are capable of having predictable consequences
2. This assumption _is_ an implicit reliance on an objective, invariant reality
3. Therefore, if you claim that objective reality doesn't matter, or that subjective preference can override it, you are using the tools of an objective universe to argue for it's non-existence.
Fairness _could_ be construed in terms of entities with absolute, unyielding, uniform laws regardless of who or what they are. This is structurally true, gravity doesn't care who you are it only cares about your mass and location in spacetime. However, when you bring up alongside the human concepts like rights, fairness has a much different connotation.
Fairness is more like empathy, or being able to give everyone an equal shot. Protect the vulnerable. Reward good behavior and penalize bad behavior. These are the kinds of "fairness" I think about, and these are the kinds of ideals I see you arguing for here.
But this doesn't follow. Believing positively in that kind of fairness is a normative claim that isn't baked into the laws of physics.
In fact, the reason humans exist at all is through millions of years of starvation, death, and brutality to steer mutation by natural selection. This is quite unfair! Think of how much bad luck there is. Fairness, as I believe you want to construe it, isn't objectively baked into the laws of nature.
To be clear, I think fairness is a good thing, generally speaking. But I don't think it's an objective fact about the universe that we should try to defend on these grounds. I think we will need to appeal to more humane sources, and argue for the value of humanity, first, before such ideas would be possible to argue for. In other words, if we think humanity isn't valuable (e.g. other self-sustaining things are better for some reason) then the idea of fairness wouldn't come along for the ride anymore. There's a missing step between 1) objectivity demands <conditions> are met 2) these human-level values are therefore valuable. There's a missing "and humans are valuable" step in the middle, which I think needs significantly more work, which is what a lot of religious stories aim to provide for folks.
Looking forward to chatting more. Cheers!
Thanks for the thoughtful response, I think the main disagreement may come down to what we mean by fairness.
You seem to mean fairness in the humane sense: empathy, equal opportunity, protecting the vulnerable, rewarding good behavior. I agree those matter. But I’m using fairness in a more structural sense first.
I’m defining fairness as a balance between consistency and selectivity.
Consistency provides security. Selectivity provides flexibility.
Reality itself operates this way. Gravity is consistent, but outcomes vary depending on conditions. A feather and bowling ball fall differently, yet the principle remains stable. Medicine is selective, different patients require different treatments, but medicine only works because biology itself remains consistent enough to study.
So the real question becomes: what kind of reality produces better conditions for fairness, an objective one or a subjective one?
There are really only two options. Either reality is grounded in objective structure (6 stable conditions that maintain consistency for coherence), or it is grounded in subjectivity (principles that shift according to preference, power, or circumstance).
An objectively grounded reality gives us both stability and leeway. We can selectively adapt because there are consistent defaults to fall back on when our decisions fail.
Think of electricity. We can engineer light and illuminate our homes 24/7 through selective intervention. But if the grid fails, there is security in knowing the sun still rises. We may lose convenience, but we do not lose orientation.
Consistency is the safety net that protects selectivity.
A purely subjective reality offers freedom but no stability. When selectivity fails, there is nothing beneath it to recover coherence. Principles become negotiable. Fairness becomes conditional. Security disappears.
So it is not that objectivity automatically gives us compassion in the immediate sense. It is that fairness thrives in a reality that foundationally prioritizes consistency over selectivity, because consistency protects selectivity, not the other way around.
I recommend this essay: https://www.godobjectively.com/p/empathy-vs-toxic-empathy
Got it. Then I guess we don't disagree. When I read your statements about fairness and rights, I was reading more into it than really was there! Fair enough. Thanks for your response :)