Critical listening and altered states

Objective reasoning can be thought of as thinking like a machine.

A machine...
Designed by a human.
With metrics set by humans and human science.
With output defined by humans.
With output interpreted by humans.

The trail of the human serpent is over everything. Nothing is objective. It’s just that some results are easier to agree upon and are more easily repeated.

What science accomplishes is intersubjective agreement that is based on *stipulated* standards -- which were invented and stipulated to accomplish a purpose.

The kind of objectivity you’re representing here is hardly defended any longer. It relies on a correspondence to an independent reality which is, by definition, inaccessible. That kind of reality may have a place in religion, but not in science.

P.S. Because any sound is only a part of an interactive circuit involving music-gear-ears-brain-interpretation, then the very division into subjective and objective is impossible. Even medical researchers (let alone philosophers) are suspicious of the idea. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/theres-no-such-thing-as-an-objective-view-of-something

For instance, Diana Krall - Black Crow

It's a cover of a Joni Mitchell song. Mathematically it may measure better but its a pales in musical comparison to the original.  
I'm in this hobby to feel, to have a song take me somewhere.  This is a great example of technician vs musician.  
Joni not only wrote it but performed it.  Is performance measurable?  I have a (maybe unhealthy) connection with Joni Mitchell.  A lot of singers attempt Joni Mitchell songs but like kissing your sister (don't have a sister so I really wouldn't know)  it's not the same.

I think that "critical listening" isn't just about being frequency response, accuracy and all the other attributes you want to assign it but it's all about the only thing that really matters which is the music.

In this society where strong emotions are stifled if an enhanced state of mind helps you emotional  connect to sound and rhythm then it's critical listening.  I you are listening with a measuring microphone more power to you but  you are only getting a partial picture of what is really happening.

I feel pretty strongly that I ought to be sober when evaluating gear. Costs too much not to be.

My reference point is that typically an album I first listened to with a high or buzz on and then listened to a week later, more often than not, sounded like junk.

YMMV

How about if I hire a robot for the objective listening, it will disabuse me of  my emotional connection, aka delusional pleasures of connecting with the music. Millercarbon reminded me the machine/robot doesn't hear. In that case I have to do the objective listening, which I now find out isn't possible with humans.

I'm ok with all this, I'll simply listen and build my system based on what's pleasurable to me.