Can Subjective Experience Be Objectified?
Reflections on Science, Medicine, and the Meaning of Human Experiences
Is it ever possible to objectify subjective experiences?
Science lies in the realm of objectivity. Physical sciences are based on natural phenomena which are observable, detectable and measurable, and wherever possible, reproducible.
Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and their applications : Engineering, Architecture, etc — are all considered “hard” sciences.
A slight sense of uncertainty starts from Biology. Biology could be viewed as a complex function of physics and chemistry.
Biology = f { Physics, Chemistry,… }
The challenge starts when Biology becomes “Medicine”.
Particularly, when medicine is treated on par with physics and chemistry, or on par with mechanical engineering.
Symptoms and Medicine
The realm of clinical practice is fundamentally based on the human experience, i.e., symptoms of the patient. Be it pain, difficulty in breathing, or some other impairment. But by its very nature, “pain,” “difficulty” are not objectively measurable, or even detectable.
One can argue that pain is visible on the patient’s face, hence it can be objectively appreciated. True—but the very expression of pain on a person’s face itself is a subjective experience of that person → we are relying on the expression of the person, not the pain itself. It is not impossible that there could be situations wherein the facial expression need not accurately represent the intensity of the pain.
Thus, even within clinical medicine, there exists a degree of unavoidable ambiguity. When we move into mental illnesses, this ambiguity becomes even more pronounced.
Is Human Mind objective?
It is obvious that “mind” is subjective. Mental processes are all subjective and unique, although (almost) always influenced by the surroundings one grows up and lives in.
Thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and perceptions exist within the internal world of an individual. Although they are shaped by biology and influenced by the environment, they remain deeply personal and unique.
Therefore, the “disorders of the mind” are also subjective, in their own world. Two persons with a presumable “mental disorder” need not present with similar experiences → they can be quite totally different, influenced by their previous life experiences.
Consequently, mental disorders cannot always be understood purely through objective categories.
One can say that a particular “Thought disorder” is due to the increased dopaminergic firing in the mesolimbic pathway of the brain —maybe it is a fact—but what does that mean to the person experiencing those ‘disordered’ thoughts?
Such explanations may be scientifically valid and extremely valuable for research and treatment development. However, the biological explanation alone may not capture what the experience actually means to the person living through it.
The classifications therefore function best as practical frameworks for communication and treatment, rather than as complete representations of a person's inner experience.
Can knowledge alone lead to meaningful change?
It is a well-established fact that smoking causes cancer. There is widespread awareness that cigarettes have carcinogens which affect the cell division and repair process, causing uncontrolled proliferation resulting in cancer. The biological understanding is perfect.
But did that stop people from smoking?
Understanding the neurobiology of addiction alone might not be enough to make one overcome addiction. It could definitely provide insight and help the person make sense of their addiction—but that alone is often insufficient for one to overcome addiction.
What actually matters is the meaning ascribed to the experience of the person.
Mr X is a chronic smoker. His daughter means the whole world to him. His daughter loves him more than anything else, and she is looking forward to her dad attending her graduation. Now, when Mr.X is made to realise that he might not be well enough to attend to his daughter’s graduation if he continues to smoke → that would strike a realisation deeply — because this reflection has profound meaning to it, in his world.
Understanding the meaning behind events
“Delusions,” “disordered thought,” “psychotic,” “alcohol abuse” : all have their own meaning behind them. For this, one needs to understand and explore the person’s story with curiosity. And that needs time and interest.
Every thought and every action a person has some meaning, or an intent. Even random and trivial activities like washing dishes, cleaning the house have meaning. They might be meant to restore the “order” of one’s home.
As Friedrich Nietzschesaid, “One who has a why to live can withstand any how.”
The ideal human cares about the “Why?” of other people, and helps them to practice their why, exercising them with joy.
Therein comes unconditional love and interpersonal harmony.
Yes, subjective experience can be objectified, and people do it all the time, tragically enough. But what gets objectified is never lived experience in its origin, only what remains once it has been translated into language, theory, diagnosis, measurement, or model. That is where the confusion begins. Something first lived is treated afterward as if it had always already been an object waiting to be captured, classified, and explained. But experience does not first appear as an object. It appears as lived immediacy, and only later do words, analysis, and systems arrive.
That is exactly where Wittgenstein cuts. Not by replacing one theory of consciousness with another, but by showing how language overreaches itself. Words do not carry the living source inside them. Their meaning lies in their use, within a form of life, within a language game. So when people speak about “experience” as though it were a thing that can simply be pinned down and exhausted by description, language starts pretending that it commands the source, while in reality it only comes afterward. Life is not built from the word. The word is built from life. The fact that something can be described does not mean its essence has become an object in our hands. It only means we have built a grammar around what was once lived directly.
Nishida cuts even deeper. In his thought, pure experience points to a level prior to the hard division between subject and object. Experience is not first “inside” a subject who then looks “outward” toward an object. That split is already a later abstraction within the field of experience itself. His notion of basho, place or topos, makes this even sharper: whatever appears, appears within a field that is not itself just another object among objects. So the moment subjective experience