Paola, (01)
Different people may prefer different perspectives.
Their preferences may be subjective, but that does not
imply that the perspectives are subjective. (02)
To take the example of the photographs of the city,
perhaps you prefer one photo and I prefer another.
Our preferences are subjective, but each photo is
an objective representation of one perspective. (03)
> ... how can I express such distinction otherwise? (04)
I suggest that you can start by expressing them as a list
that says "Here are multiple ways of describing the same
thing from different perspectives." (05)
The goal of science is to find general equations or other
kinds of formulas that can characterize a large collection
of low-level data more concisely. (06)
One of my favorite examples is the collection of data by
the astronomer Tycho Brahe, who made very accurate measurements
of the motions of the planets because he wanted to support the
Ptolemaic theory about how the sun and other planets revolved
around the earth. But then his assistant, Johannes Kepler,
used the same data to demonstrate that the earth and other
planets went around the sun in elliptical orbits. (07)
You could say that Brahe and Kepler started with the same
objective data, but they had different preferences about
how it should be generalized. In the end, Kepler's version
proved to be simpler, more general, and more accurate than
Brahe's. (08)
John (09)
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