Is subjectivity just a matter of context?

[Coffee Jesus]

The dichotomy of subjectivity versus objectivity doesn't apply to real objects. Anything that is real is objectively real. Nothing can be subjectively real. That's nonsense. Am I right to say that this dichotomy only applies to statements?
I think subjectivity versus objectivity is just a manifestation of the way language works. If the meaning of a statement depends on who is saying it, then it is subjective. Of course we translate the subjective into objective all the time, and we use context to do so.

Example:
If someone just said "I was here", that objectively means "The speaker was at the place where he was at 2014/05/11 13:14 UT at some prior time that should be specified by the context."
If Chuck Norris just said "I was here", that objectively means "Chuck Norris was at the place where he was at 2014/05/11 13:14 UT at some prior time that should be specified by the context."
If he said it in response to "Where were you at 7 am?" by somebody in Kentucky, then it objectively means "Chuck Norris was at the place where he was at 2014/05/11 13:14 UT at 2014/05/11 12:00 UT."

It is my contention that "subjectivity" merely describes statements whose meaning depends upon the context, and that it's nonsensical to apply the term to any other non-linguistic aspects of reality such as mental states or physical laws. Yes, descriptions of sensory states are subjective because some people are color blind or tone deaf, but the mental states are real. No, physical laws are not descriptions of reality, they are reality; you are confusing the representation with the thing being represented.

[Confused Ape]

The dichotomy of subjectivity versus objectivity doesn't apply to real objects. Anything that is real is objectively real. Nothing can be subjectively real.

From one of the NASA sites.

Atoms And Empty Space

Q: I understand that atoms are mostly empty space, so is the solidity of objects an illusion? If I am looking at a chair, am I looking mostly at empty space?

A: You are right, atoms are mostly empty space. However, we cannot see this because we look at everything with visible light. Light waves have a characteristic size that is bigger than an atom, so they cannot tell us anything about the tiny structure of an atom.

Light waves passing through atoms behave similarly to water waves passing over pebbles on the beach. The characteristic size of the wave is known as the wavelength. This is the distance between one crest and the next. If a water wave has a wavelength of a few feet, it will be unaffected by pebbles as it approaches the beach. The wavelength is bigger than the pebbles. If we watch these waves, we won't know the pebbles are there. However, if the waves encounter a large boat, they will be diverted around the hull, and we can easily see that.

The light waves we use to look at everything have a short wavelength, but they are still bigger than an atom. For example, yellow light has a wavelength of about 0.58 micrometers. In comparison, an atom has a radius of about 0.00005 micrometers. People have used X-rays to image crystals, because X-rays have wavelengths about 500-1000 times smaller than light. These images can show the location of the atoms, but not their contents.

You make a good point about the chair. It appears to be solid, but it is mostly empty space. It resists crushing because the electrons of the chair atoms cannot easily be compressed together. Charged particles repel other particles of the same charge.

So, what is objectively real about the chair? Our experience of it as a solid object or the fact that it's mostly empty space?

[Coffee Jesus]

So, what is objectively real about the chair? Our experience of it as a solid object or the fact that it's mostly empty space?

Both. "It is solid" can be considered a subjective statement about how you experience it, but remember that "subejctive" is merely context-dependence. A shrimp might percieve a chair differently, but with the correct context (the species of animal doing the speaking), that can be translated into an objective statement, so we can still investigate its accuracy. It's no different from the statement "I was here" in the OP example.

[Confused Ape]

So, what would be the objective reality of the universe if there were no living organisms to experience it? Or what would it be if there were no humans around to talk about the concepts of objective and subjective?

[Coffee Jesus]

So, what would be the objective reality of the universe if there were no living organisms to experience it? Or what would it be if there were no humans around to talk about the concepts of objective and subjective?

edited
It would be the same, but without living organisms. Except that, I presume that whatever objective statements were true will remain true since you didn't specify otherwise.

edited
Since evaluation for truth is applied merely to the objective implications of your subjective statements, it would be wrong to say that your subjective statements would be false if you didn't exist.

[Angrboda]

I don't know what you mean. What you've given in the OP is an indexical.

[Confused Ape]

A shrimp might percieve a chair differently, but with the correct context (the species of animal doing the speaking), that can be translated into an objective statement, so we can still investigate its accuracy.

Let me know when you find a talking shrimp. Anyway, back to your opening post.

The dichotomy of subjectivity versus objectivity doesn't apply to real objects. Anything that is real is objectively real. Nothing can be subjectively real. That's nonsense. Am I right to say that this dichotomy only applies to statements? I think subjectivity versus objectivity is just a manifestation of the way language works. If the meaning of a statement depends on who is saying it, then it is subjective. Of course we translate the subjective into objective all the time, and we use context to do so.

1: Did subjectivity versus objectivity exist before some humans came up with the concepts of subjective and objective?

2: The way we talk about it does seem to depend on context but that's the way the language we're communicating in works. How far is language influenced by a group's world view and experience?

There Really Are 50 Eskimo words for ‘snow’

Krupnik and others charted the vocabulary of about 10 Inuit and Yupik dialects and concluded that they indeed have many more words for snow than English does.

Central Siberian Yupik has 40 such terms, while the Inuit dialect spoken in Canada’s Nunavik region has at least 53, including “matsaaruti,” for wet snow that can be used to ice a sleigh’s runners, and “pukak,” for the crystalline powder snow that looks like salt.

For many of these dialects, the vocabulary associated with sea ice is even richer. In the Inupiaq dialect of Wales, Alaska, Krupnik documented about 70 terms for ice that mark such distinctions as: “utuqaq,” ice that lasts year after year; “siguliaksraq,” the patchwork layer of crystals that forms as the sea begins to freeze; and “auniq,” ice that is filled with holes, like Swiss cheese.

It is not just the Eskimo languages that have colorful terms to describe their frosty surroundings: The Sami people, who live in the northern tips of Scandinavia and Russia, use at least 180 words related to snow and ice, according to Ole Henrik Magga, a linguist in Norway.

What is the true objective reality of snow and ice? An Innuit probably regards wet snow that can be used to ice a sleigh's runners as being objective reality but the English language doesn't have a word for it.

This kind of linguistic exuberance should come as no surprise, experts say, since languages evolve to suit the ideas and needs that are most crucial to the lives of their speakers. “These people need to know whether ice is fit to walk on or whether you will sink through it,” says linguist Willem de Reuse at the University of North Texas. “It’s a matter of life or death.”

“All languages find a way to say what they need to say,” says Matthew Sturm, a geophysicist with the Army Corps of Engineers in Alaska. For Sturm, it is the expertise these words contain that is of most interest, rather than the squabble about the number of terms. “These are real words that mean real things,” he says.

We couldn't be having this discussion about objectivity versus subjectivity if the language we're using hadn't evolved to make it possible.

[Coffee Jesus]

I don't know what you mean. What you've given in the OP is an indexical.

Subjective and objective are properties of statements only. A statement is subjective if its (objective) meaning depends on certain contextual clues e.g. the identity of the speaker. I think this theory accounts for most uses of the word "subjective".
"Subejctive" can also denote that a thing is mental in nature, but I think that's a semantically distinct usage.

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1: Did subjectivity versus objectivity exist before some humans came up with the concepts of subjective and objective?

No, there were no instantiations of these properties before language appeared.

2: The way we talk about it does seem to depend on context but that's the way the language we're communicating in works. How far is language influenced by a group's world view and experience?

Explain the relevance of this question.

What is the true objective reality of snow and ice? An Innuit probably regards wet snow that can be used to ice a sleigh's runners as being objective reality but the English language doesn't have a word for it.

We could recreate the meaning of any of those eskimo words using multiple English words.

We couldn't be having this discussion about objectivity versus subjectivity if the language we're using hadn't evolved to make it possible.

Yup, but subjective and objective statements existed even before we had words for them.

[Confused Ape]

1: Did subjectivity versus objectivity exist before some humans came up with the concepts of subjective and objective?

No, there were no instantiations of these properties before language appeared.

Nobody knows how and when language got started.

Homo Sapiens

The development of fully modern behavior in H. sapiens, not shared by H. neanderthalensis or any other variety of Homo, is dated to some 70,000 to 50,000 years ago.

The development of more sophisticated tools, for the first time constructed out of more than one material (e.g. bone or antler) and sortable into different categories of function (such as projectile points, engraving tools, knife blades, and drilling and piercing tools), is often taken as proof for the presence of fully developed language, assumed to be necessary for the teaching of the processes of manufacture to offspring.[127][129]

Jared Diamond identifies the greatest step in language evolution as the progression from primitive, pidgin-like communication to a creole-like language with all the grammar and syntax of modern languages.[104]

Once humans had language, how long did it take before they came up with the concept of objective and subjective reality? Nobody knows.

Explain the relevance of this question.

After experts had decided they'd figured language out, they found an exception.

Brazil's Pirahã Tribe: Living without Numbers or Time

The Pirahã people have no history, no descriptive words and no subordinate clauses. That makes their language one of the strangest in the world -- and also one of the most hotly debated by linguists.

The language is incredibly spare. The Pirahã use only three pronouns. They hardly use any words associated with time and past tense verb conjugations don't exist. Apparently colors aren't very important to the Pirahãs, either -- they don't describe any of them in their language. But of all the curiosities, the one that bugs linguists the most is that Pirahã is likely the only language in the world that doesn't use subordinate clauses. Instead of saying, "When I have finished eating, I would like to speak with you," the Pirahãs say, "I finish eating, I speak with you."

Equally perplexing: In their everyday lives, the Pirahãs appear to have no need for numbers. During the time he spent with them, Everett never once heard words like "all," "every," and "more" from the Pirahãs. There is one word, "hói," which does come close to the numeral 1. But it can also mean "small" or describe a relatively small amount -- like two small fish as opposed to one big fish, for example. And they don't even appear to count without language, on their fingers for example, in order to determine how many pieces of meat they have to grill for the villagers, how many days of meat they have left from the anteaters they've hunted or how much they demand from Brazilian traders for their six baskets of Brazil nuts.

The debate amongst linguists about the absence of all numbers in the Pirahã language broke out after Peter Gordon, a psycholinguist at New York's Columbia University, visited the Pirahãs and tested their mathematical abilities. For example, they were asked to repeat patterns created with between one and 10 small batteries. Or they were to remember whether Gordon had placed three or eight nuts in a can.

The results, published in Science magazine, were astonishing. The Pirahãs simply don't get the concept of numbers. His study, Gordon says, shows that "a people without terms for numbers doesn't develop the ability to determine exact numbers."

So how could the language be influenced by the Pirahã's world view?

Eventually Everett came up with a surprising explanation for the peculiarities of the Pirahã idiom. "The language is created by the culture," says the linguist. He explains the core of Pirahã culture with a simple formula: "Live here and now." The only thing of importance that is worth communicating to others is what is being experienced at that very moment. "All experience is anchored in the presence," says Everett, who believes this carpe-diem culture doesn't allow for abstract thought or complicated connections to the past -- limiting the language accordingly.

Living in the now also fits with the fact that the Pirahã don't appear to have a creation myth explaining existence. When asked, they simply reply: "Everything is the same, things always are." The mothers also don't tell their children fairy tales -- actually nobody tells any kind of stories. No one paints and there is no art.

Even the names the villagers give to their children aren't particularly imaginative. Often they are named after other members of the tribe which whom they share similar traits. Whatever isn't important in the present is quickly forgotten by the Pirahã. "Very few can remember the names of all four grandparents," says Everett.

There's another interesting bit of information about them.

Culture

According to Everett, the Pirahã have no concept of a supreme spirit or god,[11] and they lost interest in Jesus when they discovered that Everett had never seen him. They require evidence based on personal experience for every claim made.[5] However, they do believe in spirits that can sometimes take on the shape of things in the environment. These spirits can be jaguars, trees, or other visible, tangible things including people.[12] Everett reported one incident where the Pirahã said that “Xigagaí, one of the beings that lives above the clouds, was standing on a beach yelling at us, telling us that he would kill us if we go into the jungle.” Everett and his daughter could see nothing and yet the Pirahã insisted that Xigagaí was still on the beach.[13]

We could recreate the meaning of any of those eskimo words using multiple English words.

Yes, we can recreate the meanings but why didn't English language speakers invent a specific word for "wet snow that can be used to ice a sleigh's runners"? Would we even be using multiple words for this kind of snow if the Inuit hadn't decided that this was a specific type of snow?

but subjective and objective statements existed even before we had words for them.

Very likely true because there would be no need to invent words for concepts which didn't exist. We have no idea what the first ideas concerning objective reality were, though. I'm guessing that a spirit on the beach is objective reality in the Pirahã world view but their language indicates that they haven't come up with the concept of objective and subjective reality.

[Ryantology]

So, what is objectively real about the chair? Our experience of it as a solid object or the fact that it's mostly empty space?

Our definition of 'solid' describes a state of matter in which the arrangement of atoms/molecules are structurally rigid. It is not contingent upon density. So, there is no conflict here.