This write up is more philosophy than anything. I don't use references or such here because I haven't researched the concepts discussed here. These are just beliefs and opinions based on my judgements and experiences. This came about from thinking about the role of psychological therapy, the need for questioning, and the desire for guidance. It touches on the importance of art, and of people that love you enough to really try. It overthinks a lot of things, and I don't necessarily thinks it's a "correct" or "complete" way of looking at these things, just one way. I've tried to avoid what I might call the "recursion of consciousness" problem or "number of steps ahead" problem. And I kinda don't like thinking of these things so rationally. ## Conjectures? - Opinions outside of oneself are required in order to avoid the domination of the ego in personal decision making. - Purely objective feedback received purely objectively would have the best outcome. In effect, it would result in a perspective on reality closer to the objective truth. ## Objectivity being impossible Let's say someone has a situation that they want feedback for. The way most people offer opinions is by relating to a similar personal situation they have experienced and forming judgments through that comparison (whether this is done consciously, unconsciously or somewhere in between). This means that even if someone writes up an account as accurate as they can make it and publish it anonymously in order to receive anonymous feedback, that feedback will still be relative to the personal experiences of the responders more than they are an objective view of the situation itself.  The problem of asking for feedback, then, is that the responders are in no way guaranteed to want to do a deep enough exploration before considering their own response (in order to reach objectivity), and therefore it will likely reinforce their own egos more than the intention to provide good feedback which would help avert the feedback requester's ego. Now lets assume the opinions received are objective. Even if the responses were objective, the reading those responses would still be filtered by the recipient's ego and not have the desired effect. Objective feedback needs to break through personal ego to be heard as such. ## Go the other way So, feedback *received* never normally has the objective result. Except, it might still be possible. The feedback receiver would ideally suppress their ego filter but I think this is difficult/impossible/the primary reason for looking for feedback in the first place. There are a few situations I can see that would make the resulting impact of feedback more objective. 1. The feedback giver is not objective, but their subjectivity goes opposite to the belief & bias vectors of the feedback recipient and the resulting impact cancel to produce what an objective feedback would have achieved for an objective recipient. The presence of the feedback receiver's ego filter makes this inherently difficult because it's hard to predict what truly gets heard. 2. The feedback is objective, and somehow bypasses the receiver's ego filter. 3. The feedback recipient has the ability to interpret feedback in relation to the giver's particular characters and situation, in order to correct for subjectivity. Scenario 1 is interesting because subjective feedback givers can still be self-aware enough to aim for that left-of-centre target that would align the feedback closer to objective truths. But there is the issue of the recipient's ego filter. Scenario 2 is interesting because I think this is a role solely occupied by **art**. Art is lots of things. A key impact of artistic things, is that they make you see something familiar with a new eyes. Fresh perspective. That's just what we're looking for when we look for feedback! So, feedback that is poetic, that is artistic, can be more impactful. The intended result of the artistry is to trick our way past the ego and reach a deeper level of consideration from the feedback recipient. The big difficulty here is the lack of objectivity of the feedback giver, and the intense difficulty of using artistic techniques skilfully enough to not distort the message. Like psychological hackers trying to get a payload through a firewall. The combination of scenarios 1, 2 and 3 makes it is both *powerful* and *possible* for a skilled enough, empathetic enough feedback giver. However, that person almost surely will not be the one responding. Few would know you well enough to hit 1 well. Few would have the skill to pull off 2. Few will be invested in you enough to attempt it. ## Conclusions I think it’s somewhat futile, and arguably damaging, to look for feedback anonymously. Yes, other perspective are interesting but often what will happen is egos will collide or the feedback recipient will selectively listen. The alternative is 4 fold:  1. Engage in other people's art, so that your reaction to it may tell you something about yourself. 2. Engage a trained therapist, so that they may guide you towards questioning the positions you hold. Good therapist will lead towards objective questioning, not opinion giving. This is to thin out the ego filter. 3. Engage with yourself by way of artistic creation in order to learn about your own ego and gain an appreciation for its presence in others. 4. Request feedback only from others you understand a bit and have capacity / energy / love enough to put in when giving the feedback. Do it with your own understanding of their backgrounds. Anonymous feedback is less helpful than understanding the filter. # Comments Email [email protected] to get a comment added. Be sure to mention the post title.