Three modes of interpreting reality: Subjectivity, Objectivity & Abstractivity

Perspective is what makes experience Subjective.

Measurement is what makes things Objective.

Idealization is what makes concepts Abstractive. 

 

Subjectivity

My experience of this table in front of me can be enriched, gradually, increasingly the more perspectives I take of it; I can look at it to gather its brownish color and different angles will return different shades of brown depending on its specularity and where the light is coming from; I can knock on it to gather sounds from it, whether it's hollow or dense, wooden or metal; I can touch it to feel its texture and temperature, a warm finger will make the table feel cold, and a cold finger warm, conductive materials exaggerate this effect; I can smell and taste it to detect the kinds of chemicals that might be on it.

Key properties/features of perspective

• these experiences I've gathered from the table are available only to me, specifically the version of me that experienced them earlier, though a "watered down" version of them can be retrieved from memory.
• they cannot be directly shared with others, though they can be explained, analogized, drawn and similar scenarios can be setup such that others can gather similar experiences
• the uniqueness of every individual can guarantee that these perceptions will be more or less different to my own relative to how similar their sense organs are to mine.

Objectivity

In contrast to subjective experience, we can use specialized instruments that can create digitized measurements that everyone can reliably read and agree to be the same and serve as representations of the things in the world. I can use a spectrometer to gather and record the light that the table gives off, or the eye drop feature in a photo editor that returns a 6 character hexadecimal representation of the color; I can record the sound from the table with a microphone and analyze it with an audio editing software; I can put a paper on top of it and draw over it with charcoal to record its grain, or use a thermometer to record its temperature; I can take samples from different areas of the table and analyze them with ICP (inductively coupled plasma) to record which kinds of chemicals are present.

Key properties/features of measurement

• The measurements are independent of the mind making it easy to share with others.
• The reliability of the digitally represented measurements allows for long chains of deduction that can sequentially depend on the one before without degradation.
• Accurate measurements can be used to construct accurate simulations to explore "what if" scenarios that we have not experienced.

Abstractivity 

This word is coined here merely so as to have a place to put and talk about the concepts in everyday life that we interpret but which we can neither measure nor perceive yet still exist in some way. Legal concepts like justice & rights, philosophical concepts like morality & freewill, mathematical concepts like perfect circles & infinite straight lines, don't seem to be things we can be subjective about and perceive nor do they seem to be things we can be objective about and measure, at least not in the same way as I interpret my table.

I task someone with retrieving a table for me from storage of furniture that is likely to contain a table, they've never seen a table, they don't have a measuring tape and I haven't been to the storage to pick out a particular table. How would I have to formulate the task so as to maximize the chances of them finding a table? 

Task: find furniture that has these properties

• has to have a flat level top
• has to have enough legs to make it stable (preferably 4 but 3 and 5 aren't ruled out)
  
• the flat top has to be at waist height and as wide as they are tall (to rule out miniature models, or movie props.)

The concept of the table I've just created exists as the relationship and interaction between information, rule & similarity based definitions that form categories and methods of simplification. The concept table is an idealization of the real objects in the world and the idealization is used as an anchor onto which we can leverage our expectations, examples and imagination.

Logic is another idealization, this time derived from causality of the objects in the world and how we perceive them, and is simplified to allow us to arrive to sound conclusions from true premises.

Boundaries

These three modes of interpretation aren't isolated from one another and they have a feature of graduality. We can have a very slight subjective experience by briefly glancing at something versus focusing intensely; we can measure things with more precise and sophisticated tools versus mere rulers; and categories, simplifications and rules can be more or less fuzzy in their definitions when idealizing our concepts. They also overlap into each other's domains in the sense that we can get a slight sense of objectivity by measuring things with our mere perceptions as when we employ our sense of dead reckoning in lieu of GPS, or logical syllogisms which can be used to measure the rationality of arguments.