There
are few better ways to engage the imagination than learning a new language. I’ve
spent quite a lot of time in Germany in the last 25 years and in the 1990’s I attended
evening classes in German at the Goethe Institute in Glasgow. With my
background in fine art photography it was perhaps inevitable that I would be
intrigued to discover that the German word for lens is “objectiv”. It shares
its etymology with the English words "object" and
"objective" but what I have always found curious about this word is
the fact that lenses are by no means objective. Lenses possess unique
properties that allow them to be used in various ways to alter the path of
light, to focus it and, most notably, to produce images. We’ve come to think of
images – especially photographic images - as highly realistic depictions; as
truthful representations of the world, as unmediated representations even. But
the only reason we might be led to this mistaken conclusion is because we have
lenses in our heads which obey the very same laws of optical distortion.
We have
become so familiar with photographs and the ways photographic images represent
the world that it might be argued that they have become the very yardstick of
perception; a standard by which we judge the veracity of our sensations. Nonetheless,
for an organism lacking a functioning lens-based perceptual system – a bat for
instance - photographic representations are of no use whatsoever.
If
you wanted to produce a viable representation for a bat (or for an echolocating
alien for that matter) you would probably have to provide some kind of
headphone device and play echolocation recordings at a frequency they recognise.
Of course a bat would probably find the headphones uncomfortable and the
experience would, no doubt, be extremely
alarming in the absence of bodily control. Nonetheless the principle is
workable. Some blind people have developed the skill of echolocation and
research shows that it is possible to simulate the necessary sensory input
through stereo playback of audio recordings.
Lens-based
images and echolocation headphone devices are examples of a profoundly
interesting form of representation that depends entirely upon the
characteristics of the perceptual system which it exploits. If we carefully
control the system of presentation then it is possible to produce these simulating representations in such a way
that they are extremely difficult to differentiate from ordinary sensations. Virtual
Reality, holograms, 3D film, TV and stereograms as well as numerous optical
illusions – the Ames room being a prototypical example – all exploit the
characteristics of the visual system in this way.
But it would be wrong to assume that
simulating representations are objective. For a representation to be
objective, it must be perceiver-independent.
In other words, it must not rely on any form of distortion, foible or
idiosyncrasy - no matter how consistent or mathematically specifiable - in any
particular perceptual system. The only form of objective representation
therefore is one in which the represented object and the representation itself match
one another precisely. The reason this is the case is because only matching
representations are likely to be acceptable to all conceivable perceivers –
bats and bat-like aliens included.
In
defining objectivity, dictionary definitions frequently refer to the notion of “mind
independence”. This term serves to make an important distinction between objectivity
on the one hand and all forms of personal opinion, emotional colouring or subjective
bias on the other. However, it would be easy to loose sight of an important
fact about objectivity. An objective view is one that represents things as they actually are. It enables the description or representation of material things,
actions and states of affairs in such a way that any perceiver, no matter how intelligent
or perceptually well endowed, would accept such a representation as accurate and true. The only way we can go about identifying, selecting and
creating such representations is through our capacities as representation-makers
and this would be impossible without the contribution of our minds. So, in this
limited, but vitally important sense, objectivity turns out to be inextricably mind-dependent (or else an entirely unattainable ideal).
Far from being an impoverished and partial viewpoint, subjectivity involves a rich
interweaving of representational dispositions, capacities and abilities, some of which have been
genetically acquired, others that have been discovered and refined through cultural innovation over millennia
and perhaps even some that are unique to the experience of the individual. But
whatever distinctions we might wish to draw between objectivity and
subjectivity there will always be a significant overlap, because both are a
product of our capacities to make and to use representations. Both require
minds and both involve the capacity to identify, select and produce matching
representations.
These
thoughts originally emerged from a consideration of prevalent attitudes towards
childhood development, imagination and fantasy. In the previous accompanying
post we saw how these attitudes, especially towards fantasy, often expose a
certain disdain regarding the assumed lack of “reality” or “fact” in fantasy
preoccupations. Perhaps the anxiety underlying such disdain pits the subjective
against the objective on a checkerboard that turns out to be little more than a
puritanical invention.
The
reason that imagination and fantasy (which is simply a variety of imagination
in which the improbable plays a more prominent role) are so vitally important
for human beings is because we are prodigious representation users and even
when we find ourselves wholly immersed in the most subjective of pursuits we
are nonetheless sharpening skills of representation which, despite all claims to
the contrary, are fundamentally social in nature and are directed towards a
richer, more varied and more intelligible understanding of the world.
Inevitably
there are instances in which individuals lives as so monotonous, harsh or unbearable
that they feel forced to retreat into what we might call the solace of the subjective; of thoughts and imaginings of how
things might be otherwise. We all do this on occasion – perhaps more than we
are willing to admit. But how other than through this capacity to daydream, to
fantasise and to imagine could we ever form hopes or ideals or even conceive of
the very notion of objectivity in the first place?
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