Philosophy Discussion: Is anything in life truly objective?

Passcode: 363639

We had an interesting debate last time on whether mind-body dualism was correct. I did not believe it was. Looking at the evolution of matter into living things, living things into mental things, mental things into collectively organized things, I thought the mind is intricately related to the body(brain) and not separate from it. Furthermore, I did not believe that mental states are of a character fundamentally different than physical ones because they grow out of the physical states and appear to be an inborn potentiality of the physical (i.e. matters ability to self organize).

Others in the group challenged that view particularly with the Idealism theory, which holds that because everything we encounter appears to be subjective qualia, instead of there only being physical things, the opposite was true and there are only mental things. Lets dig deeper into this proposition:

In this next discussion/debate we will discuss the question of is anything in life truly objective and not subjective?

What I found interesting when comparing the Idealism and Strict Materialist theories was how similar they are wherein on the materialist view we only believe that there are material things and their in-born potentiality to develop into higher levels and ultimately develop consciousness and in the Idealism theory it is believed that non-living things have their own subjective reality and hence consciousness (If I am understanding this view correctly).

Overall, In this series we discuss great questions of philosophy. You could call what we are doing debate style or open forum, but participants are free to give their ideas and challenge others while discussing the topic of the week. Each week I will choose from one of hundreds of topics such as: are humans innately good or evil, what makes us human, did you exist before you were born, and does god (a supreme mind) exist. I think a Socratic method/critical analysis of questions where each assumption held on a particular topic is questioned to dig deeper is a good way to make progress.

(The Zoom link will be posted shortly before the event. I have installed a timer in Zoom, so a timer will start automatically when you start speaking, I am setting a 3 minute time limit on each speaker. Once a speaker talks anyone can follow up with a counter point, question, or continuing thought along the same line of thought (leave such comments to 1 minute). But do not begin a new train of thought unless you raise your hand. )