Ultimate

I've chosen to use the word ultimate or actual rather than objective to refer to the transcendent reality of "what actually is".

In the subject-object metaphysics, and the related materialist worldview where objects are considered as the ground of reality , objective is typically synonymous with real, while subjective is considered illusory, or less real. In the Metaphysics of Quality (MoQ), this distinction is not made. Both the objective and the subjective emerge from a unitary ground of being encapsulated under one concept: Quality. Therefore I use the term ultimate or actual rather than objective to refer to that transcendent reality, which subjects can never fully grasp.

As described in MoQ, Quality stands above the objects and the subjects. It isn't grounded in the object, and therefore cannot be captured or defined by objective data—a smaller container cannot contain the larger container.

The state of betterness is elusive to objectification: Cutting off the arm can be terrible in one context (when it happens to a healthy subject in the case of torture), but good in another context (when sacrificing the part to save the whole in the case of an infection). The state of "no arm" is objective and the same in both scenarios, and yet the state of Quality is different. We know it, but cannot define it. The only way to understand this, is in terms of Quality itself, which is undefinable: the first frame of torture is characterized by a procession toward chaos, catastrophe; the second frame of medical intervention by a procession toward health and order. First has a downward aim, second has an upward aim.

Quality is ineffable, dynamic, and can't be objectified. We can only approach it through the subjective judgement of what feels "better" and "right", and work to attune our perceptions to align with the ultimate.