objective vs. subjective rabbit hole

Think of it as tasting wine. One can measure acidity, sweetness, color, transparency, viscosity, alcohol % and more, and a spectrum analysis can define all its components with great accuracy.

But no one can persuade you how it tastes. It’s only you who can judge that ... and only after you tasted it, not after studying the measurement results.

Good analogy....

What if they give you two glasses of the same wine and tell you they are different or put different labels on them. You then go on to describe how those two glasses are different when they are exactly the same.

Yes you are right about inducing biases, but the way to become a musician for example is to learn how to listen then educating your biases or replacing them, or making it more difficult to be fooled by an external inducement of some biases...O even posted an article about the way a trainedc musician can evaluate chords trespassing Gabor limit...

Anyway this possible conditioning of biases does not logically imply that subjective evaluation would be always deceptive attitude in all cases at all times and on all counts... Saying the opposite will be a sophism...

And yes market conditioning FOCUS on the GEAR objectively with measures and subjectively with "tasting appeal" to the subject...

Acoustic cues and factors are not focussed mainly on the gear but on the space-time environment and on the subjectivity valuable evaluation and their limits...

All acoustic factors are objectively reproducible and under will control in psycho-acoustic experiments...No taste here, perception biases can be evaluated and measured in controlled conditions.... In my audio room or in a more rigorously controlled audio laboratory...

I see purely arrogance and ignorance at issue on both sides. In other words we are dealing with people and people don’t like change or being wrong.

I think the same, the people who focus on gear tasting or in only measuring specs to pick the gear, are blind to the necessary acoustic and psycho-acoustic correlation between their perceptive experiences and the environment and the gear potential optimal working...

And they are more easily fooled by their biases or "tastes" because they dont have any objective control on their biases or tastes like a means and tool to  test them, and here i  dont speak mainly about blind tests but more importantly about acoustic and psycho- acoustic listenings  experiments in their room...... Acoustic factors are not mere equations, they are living events that must be intregrated by the ears body ...Acoustic is also an ART of listening ....

"Flat" response is an engineering measured ideal for designing good pieces of gear...

No piece of gear is perceived to be "flat" by specific ears in a specific normal room IN THE SAME EXACT WAY by all people...

Because nobody hear the same way, and the ratio noise/signals thresholds change with age, heredity, hearing history, acquired biases and acoustic environment etc...

Then a small room acoustic must be paired to the gear and tuned to complement individual biased ears of the owner IDEALLY...

A.I. will do it in the few years to come and adapt any system/room to specific ears of an owner...Like an headphone with the Smyth realizer for a specfic head and ears...But the A.I. will do it for a room/system/ears...

We can do it mechanically with Helmholtz method and some basic psycho-acoustic,  if not optimally for sure like an A.I. will do it, in a satisfying way  with a relative success... 😁😊

Anyway it is the best way to learn a bit  about acoustic factors...

The Stereo I currently own has a custom built 3 position toggle switch … the far left position reads objective, far right subjective, and what we call “flat” (smack dab middle) trivial pursuit :-)

Still working on my patent for mass market … until then

The OP asked it..so..here we go...

In the science, physics, philosophy (philosophy is the father/parent of science), psychology, etc...meaning in the peak of all of this, in the true meaning of all of this...'objectivity' does not really exist.

the only thing that exists is a subjective reality experience. Objectivity, the concept of it, the idea of it, the expression of it, pours entirely out of a subjective experience. in the real world of fundamentals in all we know, at the heights of academia, definition of reality, research, all of it......there's not one single objective consideration that can be proven to be real, including any ideas on 'reality'.

The renaissance people of the past, the multi-skilled masters of the past, came up with the idea of objectivity to help themselves and others try and understand what this place is, and then be able to move the monkey aspects of the body around, but really -- that's about all she wrote.

This, codified and categorized, labelled, defined, etc..this is part of the core of the enlightenment in western society and what become the rigors of western science.

This was considered defined, to some extent, to prevent being lost in circularity (full knowing is not available), by Descartes in the over-simplified axiom (old school meme) of popularity, in the saying of "I think, therefore I am".

This is not the base of the question, or the base of all the considerations, nor is it he final backstop of research and investigation, which is the dangerous part (calling it complete while it isn't--rookie mistakes).

It (the Descartes axiom/meme) brick walls proper research into reality and stops it cold. Which is anti- science, and is generally used incorrectly by people (that fundamental rookie mistake). It is the dividing point between engineers and dilettantes. the central bulk of the IQ and awareness curve-- running around in the box, doing it's social thing.

True actual full on scientists, who are the people who really attempt to unfold this complex and totally unsolved reality question, they look at the whole equation which includes their own unreality..as they HAVE to, or their musing is meaningless and rudderless.

In other words, at the peak of all meaning and intent in science, it is still, beyond a shadow of a doubt.. turtles, all the way down.

Never forget this, and don't get caught up in the idea that your expression through this thing we call a slightly evolved monkey body - actually means anything..... outside of it being a subjective experience in a non-inclusive reality (incomplete, therefore incorrect and destined to FAIL, if attempting to answer truly difficult questions) -- in a meat monkey body.

Which is how one gets to situations (one of identical thousands if you look) where someone like Elon Musk, is totally correct, when he says there is very scant chance at all (ie, billions to one), that this impression of reality is an actual base reality. That this is a subjective experience, created on a skin or skein of some dimensional sort, and is information/differential or data based in some way or another.

Max Planck, the father of quantum science said basically the same thing (again, one instance in thousands, if you look), where he called it an 'information field'. Every thing we know, in the cutting edge of all sciences, says the same thing. You are a thought form in a meat box of undefined parameters, and nothing is real - by the very methods of all possible forms of measurement. Physics in all it's musing and works--totally agrees with this premise. No choice, it is evident in all things for all talented and determined explorers.

Descartes statement is misapplied (i think, therefore i am), and this allowed for the creation of engineering based science, but it is in no way a full representation of the real world. The bulk numbers who do not understand this Descartesian separation point in thinking... do not make their opinion in these matters 'real', if they disagree. It just makes them incomplete and incorrect.

If they get angry about this, avoid them, avoid bringing the question up, when around them, and connecting with them, if one values their monkey meat box of a vehicle of experiencing this reality.

THIS, all of the above, is why, in the physics department and all of it's subdivisions into science and training and academia.. that all of the professors, if pushed and asked, will tell you that there is no such thing as a fact, and all is theory.

We get all these angry 'fact mongers' on forums, everywhere, on all forums..who don't understand this ..... and attack, demanding  their own self security be reflected by me, into them... a thing that.. which ultimately...cannot and does not exist.

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So, very very importantly, here...we gotta keep this straight (it is the op itself)..it is quite critical to the subject at hand: objectivity is a thought experiment - nothing more.

Where, if we go forward, in proper understanding of these critical points (stop windmilling and falling through an undefined blackness, angry and seeking hand-grips for your monkey), you'll have less stress in your life.

THIS, all of the above, is why, in the physics department and all of it’s subdivisions into science and training and academia.. that all of the professors, if pushed and asked, will tell you that there is no such thing as a fact, and all is theory.

Just how many university level physics departments have you been a member of, either as faculty, or a grad student? About the hardest thing to convince a fellow academic of is that their "theory" isn’t fact :-) ... but in more concrete terms, your statement is hollow and baseless. More accurately what they will tell you is that theories are for all intents and purposes factual, depending on the use, and that normally depend on the scale and/or how used. Newton’s second law at low velocities (wrt c), is accurate enough to be fact. Similarly Ohm’s law, and many other formulas used in electricity are accurate enough, where used, to be considered fact. They only break down when we approach very small scales (and theoretical discussions). A more modern model may be needed to properly model and develop a cell within a MOSFET, however, traditional models are many magnitudes more than sufficient to properly use that MOSFET in design and development of a Class-D amplifier. The same is also true of every other thing used in audio no matter the hand waving justifications given my people selling things.