"Objective reality"

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Quote:
"I do not know whether Quito is the capital of Ecuador". Now that is the epistemic sense of the term "possible", and obviously, it is self-contradictory to say that I know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador, but it is possible (epistemic sense) that Quito is not the capital of Ecuador. I am not using the epistemic sense of "possible". There is, however, the modal sense of possible

...all this verbiage from Ken who claims when it suits him "not to speak philosophese" !

In everyday terms, nobody walks around making claims about "what they know" unless they are in particular social situations like schools and courtrooms . "Knowledge", conscious or otherwise, is what we use in the course of predicting the outcomes of our interactions with the world. To the extent that such prediction can never technically be "certain", and often falls far short of accuracy, we can speak of "confidence levels".

This usage factor is the central element of neo-pragmatism which rejects the "correspondence theory of truth" and by association the concept of "objective reality".

I just claimed that I know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador. That claim that I know it is true, since I believe it, my belief is justified, and it is true that Quito is the capital of Ecuador. But I do not believe that I am certain that Quito is the capital since it is possible that something might arise in the future that would give a reason to think I am mistaken. Therefore, I know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador, but I am not certain that Quito is the capital of Ecuador. My confidence level that Quito is the capital of Ecuador is, however, 100%.

1 Reply

@fresco,

Whether I can know or not know whatever IS there to be know does not imply in any sense that there is such a thing as subjective reality given whatever is in my head either is or it isn't...such that if it is the case that the world only exists in my head that necessarily implies it objectively exists in my head...and that if it is the case that there are others wich like me have their on worlds in their heads regardless on the hability they have to share it then they objectively have in their heads whatever is it they have in their heads...and such and such that at best we have a recolection of objective reality's going on in everybody's heads...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

It might be the case that knowledge upon others reality's it is what is to be subjective after all, but that of course not implying that such reality's themselves are subjective in any sense...how could they?

...So, and to conclude, if it is the case that something it is true, then something it is true regardless of whatever we know or anyone knows about it...

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

What makes you believe I think that knowing means being reasonably confident that something is true. People are often reasonably confident that something is true, but do not know it is true. In fact, it turns out that what they are reasonably confident is true is false. My view is that on knows that p only if one is justified that p is true, one beliefs that p is true, and p is true. The fact that I am reasonably confident that p is true is compatible with p being false. So confidence that p is true is compatible with not knowing that p is true.

"Reasonable confidence" and "justified belief" are just two ways of saying the same thing. You, on the other hand, continue to confuse "confidence" with "self-confidence." I've given up trying to teach you the difference.

kennethamy wrote:

My view is that one can know that p is true, but it still be possible that one is mistaken that p is true, so that one is not certain that p is true.

Or, in other words, one can know that some untrue thing is true. That's quite a trick.

kennethamy wrote:

You are, I think, confusing two senses of the term "possible".

What makes you think I confused two senses of the term "possible" when I didn't use that term even once?

kennethamy wrote:

I hope that clears that up.

Not at all.

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@kennethamy,

Quote:

I just claimed that I know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador. That claim that I know it is true, since I believe it, my belief is justified, and it is true that Quito is the capital of Ecuador. But I do not believe that I am certain that Quito is the capital since it is possible that something might arise in the future that would give a reason to think I am mistaken. Therefore, I know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador, but I am not certain that Quito is the capital of Ecuador. My confidence level that Quito is the capital of Ecuador is, however, 100%.

You don' get it Ken. You don't walk around wittering about "the capital of Ecuador" or you would need psychiatric help. Your whole argument is a syptom of "seminaritis" where people who call themselves "philosophers" attempt to take hypothetical utterances out of context and kill them off. Its equivalent to the doctor killing the patient by removing the heart for "closer scrutiny". Think system !

1 Reply

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Quote:
I just claimed that I know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador. That claim that I know it is true, since I believe it, my belief is justified, and it is true that Quito is the capital of Ecuador. But I do not believe that I am certain that Quito is the capital since it is possible that something might arise in the future that would give a reason to think I am mistaken. Therefore, I know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador, but I am not certain that Quito is the capital of Ecuador. My confidence level that Quito is the capital of Ecuador is, however, 100%.

You don' get it Ken. You don't walk around wittering about "the capital of Ecuador" or you would need psychiatric help. Your whole argument is a syptom of "seminaritis" where people who call themselves "philosophers" attempt to take hypothetical utterances out of context and kill them off. Its equivalent to the doctor killing the patient by removing the heart for "closer scrutiny". Think system !

I don't get what? The schoolchild who is tested on the capital of South American countries may or may not know that Quito is the capital Ecuador. What has any of this to do with uttering the sentence, "Quito is the capital of Ecuador". There are a lot of people who know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador, who have never uttered that sentence in their lives. So what? We are not talking about what people say (or do not say) but about what they know, or do not know.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

...but don't you see...."knowledge" is evoked by situation. It has no independent status outside of its usage, whether or not that usage could trivially be part of some form of participation in a hypothetical quiz. Those people who "know trivia about Ecuador" have been placed by YOU as quiz contestants in your head! Think of the garbage you might come up with if you started listing the endless things you might " think you know" .... "that some trees have leaves"...that "there is one inch scratch on the door of your car"...that "Elizabeth II has her breakfast cereal out of Tupperware containers" ... etc, etc, etc ad infinitum. All these require functional specificity. They will not enter your thoughts without such context.

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@fresco,

Agreed...but how come that functional specificity is not objective ?
The fact that others might not know or experience the functional specificity that I am experiencing does n´t mean my experience is less real in any sense...
And even if your making the case that not even I am fully aware on whatever is going on in my head my not knowing does n´t prove that whatever I am not consciously aware is not being experienced at some level...
...that there are events objectively going on that I might or might not know about is the first condition to even start to construct a subjective knowing perspective upon them, which in turn is in itself an objective fact of what I am experiencing.

Subjectivity is necessarily a problem of knowing not a problem of Being...

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

I start from the axiom that no "event" is "objective". It requires "an observer" to specify the "event window" and the "functional significance". See the frogs/dead insects example above for support for this axiom. As humans our common physiology might fool us into thinking that our consensus is "objective", but that fails when we consider other species.

1 Reply

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

...but don't you see...."knowledge" is evoked by situation. It has no independent status outside of its usage, whether or not that usage could trivially be part of some form of participation in a hypothetical quiz. Those people who "know trivia about Ecuador" have been placed by YOU as quiz contestants in your head! Think of the garbage you might come up with if you started listing the endless things you might " think you know" .... "that some trees have leaves"...that "there is one inch scratch on the door of your car"...that "Elizabeth II has her breakfast cereal out of Tupperware containers" ... etc, etc, etc ad infinitum. All these require functional specificity. They will not enter your thoughts without such context.

What "usage" are you talking about? At the moment, I know that there is a very small bit of lint on the carpet before me. I intend to make no usage of that bit of knowledge. However, I know it, nevertheless. Knowledge need not be of any use or of any significance to be knowledge. It just need be known. As G.H. Hardy, the great pure mathematician toasted: "Here's to pure mathematics; may it never be of use to anyone!"

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

Quote:

I intend to make no usage of that bit of knowledge.

But you just did, just like I did about with the Tupperware !

BTW Hardy made a living from it.

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@fresco,

Are you suggesting that X function is not objective even if I am the solely experiencer of that precise function?

My experience of Reality, given functionality depends at least on two events, is the result on how both are brought together, namely on how the objective conditions of the perceiver inter relate with the objective multiplicity of potentials in the event which is about being perceived...I sincerely fail to comprehend why should I have any other understanding but this.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

I am suggesting that the subjective-objective dichotomy is useless in understanding what we call "observation". The uselessness of the dichotomy is underscored by understanding that statements like "the frog fails to observe dead insects" are meaningless with respect to a frog's perceptual functioning. The "event" (of the frog starving surrounded by food) is defined by us. Such an "event" may be called "objective" from the point of view of even a single human observer, but from the frog's point of view(subjective according to us) there is "no food". So can we utilise the dichotomy with respect to perceptual functioning ? No ! Not without evoking some sort of meta-observer who can be "independent of events"....thereby begging the question of "an objective reality".

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

....just to clarify....from the frog's point of view (subjective according to us yet objective according frogs) there is [/i]"no food".

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

( the frog starving surrounded by food)

That cannot happen..

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@Francis,

Apparently it does.

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@fresco,

Well, it's only apparently, as reality is "objective".

Wait! Is it?

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@Francis,

Nope.
Perhaps, in the words of the sainted Albert: "Reality is an illusion albeit a persistent one".

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@fresco,

Can one say then that reality is all bait?

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@Francis,

Sounds as good as anything else I've heard ! Smile

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