You're both wrong. Any item can be used as an objective reference for the purpose of measurement or alignment.
If a person knows their shaft well enough they can use it to align to the shot and be very consistent once they figure out the parameters.
I find it funny that some people have this aversion to using more concrete methods of aiming. As if somehow this takes the romance of the game and makes it clinical and surgical. Slice the ball into portions, dissect that balll, etc...... maybe it's just me but it seems like some folks in this thread prefer to just guess when they aim and they are mad if other people don't want to be guessing all the time.
John,
As I think I said in one of my PMs, It seems as though you don't have a good understanding of what the issues actually are.
It's not that an object can or can't be used as an objective point of reference. We could argue as to the validity of calling the A & B lines on the OB as objective points of reference but some of us have 'conceded' that to move on to the more pressing issue.
When one looks to simultaneously see the CTE & 'edge to' line & locates themselves on a line where that is accomplished & gets that 'fixed' cue ball. That is IT... relative to the two balls. There is no need of ANYTHING else & NOTHING from the outside of that that is objective can influence that. If one moves off of that line they have then lost the fixed CB & have lost the objectivity of that relationship.
(Unless... A B & C are not points or 1 point wide lines but instead are an array of points forming rather wide lines almost to the point of complete fractional sections of the OB, but I have NOT heard anything like that said. If that is the case Then they are certainly objective in nature.)
Put the two balls on a round table with no pockets & what I just stated above is possible & will be duplicated because it IS objective (If we concede that the ABC points are objective points.).
Now go cut a pocket in on that round table. Nothing changes.
I know the 2:1 ratio & 90* will be launched within seconds of when I hit submit. That has nothing to do with the objectivity of seeing the CTE & the 'edge to' lines simultaneously. They do not change in the objectivity of that vision. Move them anywhere on the table & they do not change objectively.
If for one, the OB hits center pocket & I rotate the whole 'mechanism' 4* the OB does not hit the pocket & the balls & vision center relationship does NOT change objectively just because the whole mechanism has been rotated or moved over laterally.
ANY change is of a subjective nature because one now wants to send the ball out on a different outcome angle line because the pocket is no longer on the outcome line of that objective relationship.
To do that something has to change. Either the amount of pivot or the losing of the 'fixed' CB from the objective visual. BOTH of those are subjective in their nature with no definitive objective guidelines.
If one can not see that with their critical intellect, then something is lacking & I do not yet know how to say it much more clearly than that, if at all.
Best Wishes.