Closing the door behind him, the Author walks to his room. He can't wait to finally lay in bed and relax after a long da–
"No, it's not!" he pauses at the door to his room, seeing Charlotte and Daki fighting about something.
They both look at him.
. . .
Click.
He closes the door to his room and starts walking away.
Charlotte and Daki fly through the wall and catch up to him, flying in front of his face as he heads for the couch.
The Author's eye twitches.
"Heyyyy," starts Daki, grinning at him, "So, we are fighting about something, and need you to be a referee, or a judge or something of the sort between us!"
"Sureee, trial or debate will be after . . . 3 . . . 4 . . . when I wake up," he concludes, laying down on the couch and closing his eyes.
Charlotte enters the Author's mind, her image appearing in his head, "No! We need to settle it now!"
. . .
ZZZZZZZ
"Wake up!" she flashes an embarrassing memory in his mind.
The Author's eyes snap open as he wakes up in a cold sweat and sees both of them floating over him . . .
They both smile. "Sooo? You down? Feel free to decline if you don't want to of course . . ."
Now I know how it feels to be on the receiving end.
The Author rolls his eyes, thinking of his editor.
"I'll listen while laying down. Deal?"
"Deal!"
The Author feels every muscle of his body melt into the couch and yawns, "Okay, I am listening,"
"We were discussing something that was brought up to you by your friend in October of 2020," says Daki.
. . .
The Author raises an eyebrow, "That's four years ago . . . ?"
"Yes,"
He rolls over to sleep silently.
"WAKE UP!"
. . .
"Anyways," starts Daki, "We were discussing the objective and subjective from a philosophical point of view, and this mad woman thinks that science can be subjective. But how can this room, for example, be dependent on a mind? Can the Author, for instance, use his mind to bend and control it to his will?!"
Charlotte huffs, "Well, who says that you need to have control over a subjective experience? We get emotional all the time, not to mention highly stressful situations that show us sides of ourselves that we lied to ourselves about. and sometimes regardless of what we believe or have an opinion of otherwise, see. A subjective experience that we don't necessarily fully control if at all at times."
"But those are off-cases, Charlotte. We can, in general, manage our subjective experience, so why not control all that's around us as (in general) as well? The objects around us act consistently and reliably, independent of any mind,"
Charlotte stares at Daki silently . . . until a bulb lights up in her head.
"Okay, smartass, if I go to sleep now and I have a dream where I am in a park with friends and I don't even know that I am in a dream! Would you say that every other thing in my dream is objective since I am not them and I don't know what it's like to be them? Or . . . a thing? I just know what it's like to be me,"
She watches as Daki goes quiet now, contemplating what she said.
"But isn't that different? Dreams seem to be inconsistent, and we wake up from them when we know we are in them,"
"I don't know about you, but I've personally had some pretty consistent dreams telling an entire story, and even with the rest being inconsistent," she pauses, zooming around in the air.
"I almost never knew I was dreaming! Whatever world I was in always felt within my grasp and real for some reason," she shrugs, "And even when I did know I was in a dream a few times, I didn't wake up right after each time! In fact, in some cases, I had some degree of control of the dream but in others, I couldn't control it at all,"
"So, answer me Daki, the people and objects with me in my dream . . . are they objective or not?"
Daki knows his admission will give her a point and thinks of a rebuttal . . .
"No, I would call them subjective," he says.
"And I know where you are going next!" he continues, not giving her a chance to respond, "That this world could be something akin or similar to a dream, our brain undergoing a subjective experience. Although, you would have to admit that this is definitely unlike any other dream we have ever had,"
"That's fine by me. Although, I did hear of some cases where some people dreamt for years but I'd have to research about it further," Charlotte stops and smiles cheekily.
"But what if this world is like a video game–"
"Wouldn't that be the same thing? The console or PC is having a subjective experience?" interrupts Charlotte.
"Can machines even have such a thing?" questions Daki.
"I don't know, can there not be a machine sentiment powerful enough to run as an executable file? And could you tell the two apart at a certain point? I mean look at how AI advanced over here, if I conversed with some really advanced AI here, I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between you or it–" Charlotte gasps, floating close to Daki's face.
"Are you even a real person? Or a result of me dreaming?" she teases.
Daki scoffs, "If anything, you are the NPC here, listen buddy–"
Charlotte and Daki continue to converse back and forth for a while.
". . . so, this is where are stuck," states Daki in contemplation.
"It seems so . . . " nods Charlotte.
"We can't conclude objective or subjective with regards to science or almost anything really . . . damn!" Daki says, backflipping in the air.
Meow!
A cute cat appears, and Charlotte pets her.
"Then, maybe we assume that it is objective for the sake of progress?" he suggests.
"Assume? With no basis? Why would we do that? Are you confusing reliability and accuracy again?"
"No, it's just that . . . sometimes you assume stuff and experiment to see where it goes,"
"Okay, and I find no reason to assume that things are objective to progress. We can assume they are subjective and still get the same results. We are unable to discern if the results are of a reliable subjective world or a reliable and accurate objective world when studied," says Charlotte, throwing Daki back in a loop.
"Maybe we don't need to assume after all . . . or even bother knowing," she continues.
"Maybe we continue to discover and learn more about the world, and just have faith in our tools and methods to lead us to an answer one day maybe. Maybe we started on the wrong end of things, and we jumped the gun on a matter to be discovered through search rather than being logically deduced by the mind,"
. . .
"And what if we choose to have faith in different answers from our tools and methods . . . because you possess tools I do not approve of and reach different conclusions?" questions Daki.
"Well," she shrugs, "That's life. Maybe one day, something will be discovered that helps people see more clearly. But in the meantime, let's explore all our options until one of us hits the accurate hopefully!"
. . .
"So, that's it . . . we agree on this,"
"Yeah . . . this whole conversation was pointless, we don't need to make up the objective and subjective," says Charlotte, throwing a paper in the floating bin.
"We can live with reliability and faith just fine, and I am content with the results,"
"Okay, so what do you think, Author?" asks Daki, finally turning to look at the Author.
Snort. ZZZZZ. Snore.
Charlotte and Daki smile, "What do you think he is dreaming of?"