Is Reality a Social Construction ?

Okay,

So the committee can't handle the contradictions, so they got the name caller to play for time or create a diversion.

I would like to think that your reference to my "humanity" comes from your recognition of our commonality of being "fragmented selves", but I doubt whether you have grasped that yet.

Fresco



There is only one me. I think it might be time for you to seek professional help…with all this multiple personality talk.

Just wanted to take time out, at an appropriate moment, to compliment you on improving to jackass.




You are right…I have not bought into your blind guesses about the Reality of existence.

If you ever do want to get away from this exchange of whatever the hell we are exchanging here...and back to a discussion of what you know to be true about reality...that would be nice also.

Okay, So lets get this straight.Where shall we start from ?

!. You don't know whether I know.

2. You know I don't know.

3. You guess I don't know.

4. You know I am guessing.

5 You guess I am guessing.

I do not know whether you know the nature of the Reality of existence, Fresco. I am guessing you do not...and that all this nonsense you are peddling is just the result of wild guessing gone apeshit.

Not sure why you are having trouble with that.

Posted and then pulled another one, huh???

Yes I am having trouble with that because previously you asked...


........ which is in accordance with your choice 1.....


but later you said....

....which clearly indicates choice 4...

(as an aside the delay and "pulling"was caused by cutting and pasting problems).

Fresco...I didn’t play your silly game…and I most assuredly did not pick choice #1 or any other choice, for that matter. What I did was to restate my position.

I’ll do that again:

“I do not know whether you know the nature of the Reality of existence, Fresco. I am guessing you do not...and that all this nonsense you are peddling is just the result of wild guessing gone apeshit.




No…my comment “I have not bought into your blind guesses” does not mean that “I know you are guessing.”

But if it makes you happy, I will reword it to, “I have not bought into what I am guessing are blind guesses on your part.”



Jesus H. Christ, Fresco…let’s try to be real here.

If you really want to discuss something, let’s discuss it.

Don’t play little games that are delusions that you are somehow going to trap me with your superior intellectual abilities.

That ain’t gonna happen. (Or to meet this new standard of wording you are apparently setting for me…my guess is that it ain’t gonna happen.)

If I don’t get back to you quickly on the next post…my wife and I are going out to dinner and watch a ball game soon. Be back in a couple of hours. Don’t miss me too much


I'm having some technical difficulties also, Fresco...so I completely understand your problem in that area. For some reason, every fifteen minutes or so...my computer freezes up when I am on A2K. Not sure what the problem is.

Frank,


This, and your reference to "intellect" says it all. You are not prepared (for whatever reason) to enter into the philosophical spirit of this thread about reality. Such would require you to deconstruct your common senses view of "knowledge". You essentially have nothing to contribute and constant heckling about "guessing" from the audience is surely beneath your dignity by now.

I intend as perhaps my final comments to you on this thread to remind you of the paradigm which works (=truth in your parlance) for me aspects of which I have gleaned from far greater minds than mine. With the exception of No.1 which is held by all non-dualists, some or all of these ideas are held by many others.

1. Observer and observed are inseparable. Existence of the one requires existence of the other.
2. Language , the social currency, shapes "reality".
3. "Self" is evoked by the grammatical requirements of language.
It is a "subject" among subjects.
4. The conceptual qualities of "self" and those of "external reality" mutually change and redefine each other.
5. Language serves the cognitive impulse to predict and control by embodying "concepts" as "words" whose apparent permanence gives the illusion of an "objective reality".
6. "Knowledge" is an expression of confidence in predicting the outcomes of relationships. Such relationships are bound to "concepts" not objective things.

I do not claim this list is exhaustive or fully self-consistent. I do claim that it is an advance in our understanding of the term "reality". Such understanding may come at the price of dropping some of our views about ourselves and our concerns with "ultimate truth"

And I'd like to expand your list with #7: Each individual perceives our reality in very different ways and arrives at unique conclusions about our existence.

I will accept that with the reservation that the language which shapes "perceptual set" is socially acquired , hence we tend agree at the level of "common purpose". However in so far as we also communicate internally (or as I have suggested "selves" with "selves" in committee) "uniqueness" is a viable outcome.

Fresco, that is a GREAT summation. Nothing else be said. But let me enjoy emphasizing the interdependence--indeed, the unity--of Self and other, the most fundamental of "religio-philosophical" insights. It's non-dualism can only be expressed dualistically, and is done so most exquisitely with the yin-yang icon in which each side is necessary to the existence of the other. If we imagine, as we may, a decoupled isolated side, say the light side, of the icon, we DO have an image, but it is totally deficient because it no longer represents, as is intended, the fundamental character of Reality (where each side defines the other). In that respect I seek to realize my Self as a COMPONENT of the World rather than an alienated-independent thing IN (and surrounded by) the world.
When Frank sees and feels this, he will appreciate your contributions enthusiastically.

However, it goes without saying that without society, we really don't exist.

And there's your answer to the question of the social construction, or nature, of human reality.

Fresco…sounds like you, c.i., and JL are satisfied that the nonsense you folks are peddling is world-class and finally reveals to mankind the truth of Reality.

You guys are kidding yourselves.

This is theism in another guise; it is classical atheism in another guise…a bunch of beliefs piled into a heap being peddled by adherents as an ultimate truth.

Go on kidding yourselves. I’m through with this thread, but I’ll be there when this nonsense rears its ugly head again elsewhere.

The best of this particular Credo was the one c.i. added: “Each individual perceives our reality in very different ways and arrives at unique conclusions about our existence.”

Yup…no possible chance that Reality can be something completely independent of our perspective of it…and all we have to do is to arrive at our “unique conclusion” and that is the truth. So for the people who saw the Earth as flat"the Earth really was flat; for the people who saw the universe circling the Earth"the universe actually circled the Earth; for those who see a God directing the activities of man"there is a God directing them; for those who see no gods"there are no gods"and there is no possibility that is all a crock of ****, because to think so would fly in the face of the guesswork you are selling.

A laugh is what you folks are; a hoot!

Perhaps one day you will be lucky enough to grow up and see that saying “I do not know what the true nature of the Reality of existence is…and any suppositions I make about it is nothing but blind guesswork.”

Then you will finally be in contact with the truth you pretend you have foremost in mind.

And for the record"I AM saying that I will not visit this particular thread again!

Exactly. I think I mentioned further back a point of Maturana's, that the so-called "laws of physics", imply a concept of a "standard observer" independent of "the world". By point 1, he (and we) understand that "the standard observer" is a merely utilitarian construction within a prevailing scientific paradigm. (after Khun). There is no "standard observer" . It is "we" who comprise such paradigms...and "Self" (capital S) is aware of the shifting nature of such paradigms.

C.I. that is true, of course, both physically (we can't survive except as social beings) and mentally (we can't survive except as cultural beings).

I enjoy the stick and stone concepts about this topic we call "reality." Dualism and those other fancy names for how we perceive our existence only adds unnecessary mortar beyond language, culture, gene and environment.

There's always going to be somebody, somewhere trying to reinvent reality. It often comes from trying to wrench oneself out of the religious straitjacket which attempts ineffectively to explain the basic randomness of existence. Movements like Existentialism and then Scientology have thrown their hats in the rings but there's a huge monkey-wrench that's been thrown at both of those and they both have ignored being bopped in the head. Most of us love to believe there's some form of metaphysical influence on reality manifesting itself in destiny and fate. It's so unnecessary to be unhappy about not having control over nearly every aspect of reality -- we can create a small part of it and allow others around us create a small part of it, but it's still the fact that we are singular entities, each looking at real concrete things slightly differently.