Everyone has a valid opinion/taste? Don't make me laugh

[Aprilgold]

There's a difference between a analysis and a opinion.

A objective opinion is facts.

A opinion is someone's objective taste, whenever someone says "This game is horrible" and doesn't back it up with objective facts, well then thats their opinion.

Opinions can be held by anything that can form coherent thoughts, however they may or may not be right. Objective opinions are fact, they can't be incorrect.

 

[SmegInThePants]

I won't call an opinion invalid unless it is unreasonable. Any reasonable opinion is valid, though still subject to becoming invalid as new info comes to light.

If a person holds a naive opinion due to lack of information, perhaps you could help them out by providing that info. Discussions shouldn't be thought of as 50 people simply stating their opinion. In that scenario everyone is talking and no one is listening, its not even a discussion.

And you prejudice yourself against learning if you so easily jump to the conclusion that other opinions are invalid, so as to avoid examining them for kernels of truth you might well benefit from (even if they are wrong, there might be one bit of wisdom from amongst their many errors that you could take from them and learn from).

And of course, there is always the possibility that *you* are wrong and unaware of your error. Dismissing other opinions based on some excuse w/out first examining them will make it much less likely you will ever learn of your error.

Obviously, if an opinion is logically flawed, it is unsound and invalid (though it may still be true, even if for reasons other than they realize): All dogs have four legs, my cat has four legs, therefore my cat is a dog. Invalid. Unsound. But perhaps my cat *is* a dog because I'm crazynuts and on an lsd trip and mistakenly perceiving my dog to be a cat, so i'm right despite having unsound reasoning. Even an opinion formed on an invalid basis can accidentally be correct.

 

[irishda]

On the one hand, experience is necessary to recognize standards in the medium. But, on the other hand, these standards are completely arbitrary and can change considerably with subsequent generations. If a standard shifts, suddenly points people were using to justify why a game was great now might seem like people who were "ahead of their time".
For instance, some of the "greatest ever" films haven't stood up to the test of time very well, if only because the standards of what makes a great movie have shifted. The Godfather is horribly paced in today's world. But our standards for movies require more action or suspense.

Not all opinions are equal in terms of valid criticism, but all opinions become obsolete pretty fast.

Everyone knows it. Not everyone could express it. This is a troll thread.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

I'm saying that you can't have a more valid opinion because quality isn't objective. People may be looking for different things in a game. Plus this argument is really only applicable to comparative work. You seem to be saying that someone's best game ever is wrong because they haven't played as many games as others. Isn't their best game ever subjective? I'm just saying that you can't have a more or less valid opinion about something subjective.

Quality may not be strictly objective but there are generally similar standards by which things are judged, and also people who have very similar if not the same subjective taste as each other in one or more particular things.

I feel like I'm repeating myself, but of course someone's personal best game ever is always valid, but when they state 'this game is good' or 'this is the best game ever made' if they have not played any other games how can these statements ever be seen as valid? Whether subjective statements or not?

Also I'm not solely talking about objective quality here, I'm also talking about individual subjective quality. The more you experience games the more informed your subjective opinion of what you personally like is. If you've only played one game it is your personal favourite game, but the more games you play your personal favourite game will change, and theoretically if you could play all games you would come to your personal favourite game of all time. Thus your subjective opinion of what you yourself like comes closer to being 100% valid the more you experience in that medium, no?

I feel that "this game is good" is also just as personal as "this game is my favourite" and thus equally as valid. When someone says "its a good game" you dont think "how their opinion on the game could be anything, that statement is an objective review not at ALL based on how much fun they had". Imagine i enjoy my first ever game. I say it is a good game because i had fun with it. It achieved my purpose of playing. I therefor base my opinion on "this is good" because i recieved enjoyment from it. Its primary purpose. Even if i play a million more games that are better than the first it doesnt make that original enjoyment any less real. I still had fun with it. I would call a game i enjoyed good and NO subsequent games could change that view of how much fun i had at the time. You seem to think opinions on what i find fun change the more i experience. Not at all. I treat each game as a seperate entity. I would have had as much fun playing assassins creed 2 playing it as my first game or my 1000th so my opinion in it really has nothing to do with my "experience" and more on the simple question of "did i have fun?" which is so totally subjective and un affected by my experience, games played, age or anything. This when someone says "That game is good" all i hear is "i had fun with it". It isnt invalid.

 

[Rheinmetall]

Everyone has a valid opinion. Typically yes. Is there a way to measure someone's opinion validity? We can never be sure, so in that case we should accept everyone's opinion and then filter it with our own criteria.

 

[lord.jeff]

Is Citizen Cane the best movie ever to everyone? Those educated in film say so and therefore it has to be everyone's favorite movie.

 

[Ninedeus]

We could also argue that opinions/taste can neither be valid of invalid as to validate something means that it can be justified and be accepted as truth but the foundation of a persons opinions is their own personal belief and thought and these cannot be validated as they are intrinsic to the person. But the conclusion stemming from those opinions can be valid or invalid.

 

[DarkRyter]

But he cannot say "Movie A is good" with genuine truth, without any sort of subjectivity or perspective. Because good isn't real. Maybe to you and me and him and font guy. But that doesn't make good real.

Sure, to some extent you can say that "good" is just a matter of subjective definition, but that would be a truism and you'd accomplish nothing by saying it.

While no person can say that a certain movie or game or whatever is "good" with some sense of Absolute Truth, what you CAN judge is whether it adheres to certain principles of good design or good art. Exactly what those principles should be is debatable. But if you were to take two steaks and say that you think Steak A is delicious and Steak B tastes lousy, then, yes, while to some extent that is just a matter of subjective taste, there is also a certain standard you're already judging the stakes by on a subconscious level. In your mind, there is a certain quality in the steak that you are looking for. It is a quality on which Steak A delivers beautifully, and Steak B falters. By analyzing the quality you look for in a steak, you can, to some extent, speak objectively about subjective taste.

And if you come to discuss the issue with other people and find that they too seek the same quality in a steak, then you can establish that as a sort of guideline by which to judge it. That doesn't mean that your guideline will be Absolutely True, but it serves as a useful point of comparison.

Honestly, there are different philosophies of criticism, but I won't really get into that. I do however think that it's good and constructive to have discussions over things being "good" or "bad", and the more we have of it, the better, as long as it's based on actual thought and reason rather than just rabid fanboyism. Just because there's no Absolute Truth about it, that doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss it and argue about it! We all have our own reasons for liking and disliking certain things, and understanding those reasons, those subjective and relatively random differences between people, is fascinating.

There's nothing more insipid or annoying than a person who kills an interesting argument by bleating "THAT'S JUST YOUR OPINION!"

I have no idea where you got "There's no point in critical discussion" from "there is no absolute truth".

I was just denying that opinions can be valid or invalid.

 

[dobahci]

I have no idea where you got "There's no point in critical discussion" from "there is no absolute truth".

I was just denying that opinions can be valid or invalid.

It just seemed pointless to me to be saying that no opinion is absolutely true or false, since you're pretty much stating the obvious.

So I was trying to extrapolate something more interesting from it.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Opinions are what you make of them.

If I pick up this book next to my desk, and I let go of it, it will fall back to the earth (or if you prefer relativity, you can claim the earth falls to it).

Scientific, measurable fact. I can repeat that process til the day I die, and it will conclude the same way every single time.

"Adolf Hitler* was an asshole." Is an opinion no matter how true we think it is; even in the face of overwhelming facts, because there exists the possibility that SOMEONE out there still loves Hitler (and thus, doesn't think he's an asshole) for whatever reason. Assuming one could take a perfectly honest poll and get perfectly honest results, you would find an outlier response somewhere, but it would exist, and its existence contradicts the alternative hypothesis, so it cannot be objective fact.

(this is also why hypothetical guesses fall into the realm of subjectivity, even if in hindsight, they turned out to be true. Contexts can change. I could theoretically launch that book on a rocket into space and it would no longer attempt to fall to the earth. Granted, we can make some really good guesses with Statistics and mathematical limits, but even a statistical approximation is ultimately subjective since the degree of accuracy is completely arbitrary.)

No so with the falling book. There is no outlier result where it just hangs there in the air, assuming the conditions of the test (context) remain unchanged.

That's my useless stab at pseudo-philosophy and logic for the day. I have another fucking physics lab to attend.

(*invoking Godwin's Law preemptively, given my lack of motivation to redefine something like Subjective reasoning.)

 

[Taerdin]

Yes.

What a compelling argument, I can see why you act so condescending when you clearly are more intelligent and better at conveying points and understanding to other people, and take the time to actually listen to others and evaluate what they are saying instead of dismissing it offhand.

I feel that "this game is good" is also just as personal as "this game is my favourite" and thus equally as valid. When someone says "its a good game" you dont think "how their opinion on the game could be anything, that statement is an objective review not at ALL based on how much fun they had". Imagine i enjoy my first ever game. I say it is a good game because i had fun with it. It achieved my purpose of playing. I therefor base my opinion on "this is good" because i recieved enjoyment from it. Its primary purpose. Even if i play a million more games that are better than the first it doesnt make that original enjoyment any less real. I still had fun with it. I would call a game i enjoyed good and NO subsequent games could change that view of how much fun i had at the time. You seem to think opinions on what i find fun change the more i experience. Not at all. I treat each game as a seperate entity. I would have had as much fun playing assassins creed 2 playing it as my first game or my 1000th so my opinion in it really has nothing to do with my "experience" and more on the simple question of "did i have fun?" which is so totally subjective and un affected by my experience, games played, age or anything. This when someone says "That game is good" all i hear is "i had fun with it". It isnt invalid.

I think you're just being naive here. If you played 100 games that use the same mechanics, hit the same plot points, and do literally everything a particular games does just as good or better, and even have their own unique takes and push it in some interesting way, and then play a game that does the bare minimum with those mechanics, the bare minimum game would seem derivative and lazy.

Now if you played that minimal game first you might enjoy using those mechanics for the first time very much. I'll even concede that you might have some fond nostalgic feelings for that game and may even enjoy thinking about the joy it once brought you. But if you're actually saying to me that every single game you ever played and enjoyed completely 100% holds up for you even today... then I guess you're very lucky and a special rare case

You make a thread, you let people discuss it until it's expired. You don't act like a backpedalling douchebag and edit your OP so people don't know what the subject matter was.

People can still discuss it. What good would responding to the initial post be when we're now discussing new points? Maybe you could try reading some actual arguments and getting involved in the discussion instead of leaping into a thread to just call someone a douchebag. That is both off topic and completely uncalled for.

Also if you looked for like 10 seconds on the first page I'm sure you could find the OP quoted somewhere, if it's that damn important to you. I just thought I would limit the people who contribute to this thread to those who can bother to read beyond the OP before responding. I guess it worked.

 

[DeathStreamer]

If I was in a dangerous situation, lets say a power plant was melting down and people are about to die imminently. There are two men who have proposed solutions, one of the men has no experience at all with nuclear plants, and doesnt even work there, and the other man has worked at that plant all his life, which is more likely to be correct?

It's POSSIBLE that the more experienced person is wrong, of course. These are not absolutes, there are never absolutes. I'm just trying to say that in general someone with more experience is more likely to know what they are talking about, and therefore their opinion is more valid.

So by your ideology, you would rather go with Homer Simpsons solution to the problem, someone who has worked at a nuclear power plant for years, but has no grasp on how it works or how to fix it, rather than say, a young genius who has never worked at a power plant in his life, but can perfectly understand the theories and workings of science and how to best solve the situation.

Someone who has had no experience with something will always have a valid opinion. Said opinion may be wrong, but it is still their unique and individual opinion. You may have a more educated opinion of something, and can ignore or disagree with someone else's opinion, and still be perfectly right, but that doesn't change a thing. Really the only time an opinion can be invalidated is when it is related to something factual. Like a 1st grade kid trying to solve an algebraic equation with no understanding of how to do any of the workings, and then coming to a wrong answer, which by their opinion is right. The kid THINKS it's right, but if I were asked to do the same equation (assuming it is an equation I can calculate perfectly) and I get an answer I KNOW is right, I KNOW they are wrong, whether they think so or not.

 

[Taerdin]

If I was in a dangerous situation, lets say a power plant was melting down and people are about to die imminently. There are two men who have proposed solutions, one of the men has no experience at all with nuclear plants, and doesnt even work there, and the other man has worked at that plant all his life, which is more likely to be correct?

It's POSSIBLE that the more experienced person is wrong, of course. These are not absolutes, there are never absolutes. I'm just trying to say that in general someone with more experience is more likely to know what they are talking about, and therefore their opinion is more valid.

So by your ideology, you would rather go with Homer Simpsons solution to the problem, someone who has worked at a nuclear power plant for years, but has no grasp on how it works or how to fix it, rather than say, a young genius who has never worked at a power plant in his life, but can perfectly understand the theories and workings of science and how to best solve the situation.

Someone who has had no experience with something will always have a valid opinion. Said opinion may be wrong, but it is still their unique and individual opinion. You may have a more educated opinion of something, and can ignore or disagree with someone else's opinion, and still be perfectly right, but that doesn't change a thing. Really the only time an opinion can be invalidated is when it is related to something factual. Like a 1st grade kid trying to solve an algebraic equation with no understanding of how to do any of the workings, and then coming to a wrong answer, which by their opinion is right. The kid THINKS it's right, but if I were asked to do the same equation (assuming it is an equation I can calculate perfectly) and I get an answer I KNOW is right, I KNOW they are wrong, whether they think so or not.

You either didn't fully read what I said, or didn't understand it, or I failed to properly convey what I meant. If someone was a genius and I could tell they were of course I would consider their opinion more highly, I never said it was an absolute. In fact I went out of my way to say it's not an absolute. Just in general someone with more experience is more likely to have a more informed and valid opinion.

As for your second paragraph, I think you're confusing validity with someones right to have an opinion. Everyone has a right to an opinion, but how well informed or valid it is is separate from that.

I'm not even arguing that a partially informed opinion can be proven to be invalid, but it could perhaps be seen to be less valid. A completely uninformed opinion could be proven to be invalid I believe. For instance if I give an opinion on something I literally know nothing about, how could that opinion ever be proven to be valid? What I say may be correct if I guess very luckily, but the fact that it's correct doesn't make it well informed, nor does it carry as much weight as someone's well informed opinion.

For instance if we were defusing a bomb and I say, 'I know nothing about bombs but I think you should cut this wire'. I may be right, but you would likely be hesitant to follow my instructions. Whereas someone who knows bomb defusal inside out giving the same opinion would be more well informed and hold more weight.

The same could be said for the question of, 'What is a good restaurant in city X'. I could give you an answer, but if I've never been to city X in my life, nor have I ever read any reviews or menus of restaurants in that city, nor do I even know which restaurants exist in that city, if I respond 'Alfredo's' how much weight does my opinion hold? Is it still just as valid as someone who has lived in that city all their life and knows all the restaurants? Are these opinions still equal?

Just to be clear here is a definition of the word valid:

well-grounded or justifiable : being at once relevant and meaningful

 

[DeathStreamer]

As for your second paragraph, I think you're confusing validity with someones right to have an opinion. Everyone has a right to an opinion, but how well informed or valid it is is separate from that

Yeah, I think I did too, I tend to screw arguments up when I make them too long

Actually, after properly looking at the various definitons of "valid" or "validity" I have to agree entirely with your argument, however I don't think invalid opinions should never be considered when coming to a conclusion (Though I don't think I read anywhere that this is what you do, sounds that way though). Ironically it would seem, my opinion of your argument was rather invalid, as I did not properly take into account the meaning of the word validity and confused it with other meanings.

 

[Eddie the head]

Well I don't know everyone brings there personal experiences along with them. They might not say the right thing and get things spot on but they might just remind you of something you missed or show you a different way of looking at it. Like how an orbit works fallowing Newton it is close to a ball on a string, gravity is holding onto it like a rope the object in question is going in a circle. But if you fallowing Einstein space time is curved the object in question is just moving forward on bent space time. Neither of those is a wrong way of looking at it one is a much simpler understanding of it but you couldn't get to the more complex example without the simpler one.

of coarse that is assuming that most people think like physicists witch isn't true most people are idiots. So you might have a point.