Definition of Reality

the words real and reality are not only ambiguous, but highly charged by the narratives in which they may be used.

there must be degrees of reality, because you can make statements that are completely false, partially false, or completely true. opinions of equal worth - it is most politically incorrect to have such views.

I said previously, 'no metaphysic' is a kind of metaphysic, and one which I think is not very satisfactory.

I agree. I don't see how anyone can be without "metaphysics" in the broad sense of the word.

The most obvious example is the complex of deity and afterlife. It's not as if we humans don't care. Did Schopenhauer call man the metaphysical animal? So true!

If you are asking whether what we believe to be evidence is evidence, my answer is, yes. What else would it be, and what reason would we have for not thinking it was?

If this helps, I think you are saying that even if consistency is possible, like that of carbon dating to determine the age of something, that consistency does not point towards an ability to determine what reality is. If the "box" we are in is fake in any way, then we do not grasp what reality is, we simply grasp the box or the illusion of reality.

It falls under examples such as Descartes's brain in a vat, or mad scientist, or other examples like a dream inside of a dream being our experiences. If I have understood your points?

You mean you are happy to discuss it with those who already agree with you? Hmm. Well, you were the one who asked how the distinction was to be established in the first place, weren't you. Apparently, that was not your real concern. Your real concern turned out to be how you could reassure yourself that you were right just in case you had any doubts.

housby
Philosophy is about thinking the unthinkable and then debating it. Not taking an entrenched stance and defending it.

hi housby

while i would strongly empathise with that statement personally, i do not think it is valid, lest it becomes the tyranny of uncertainty. Thinking the unthinkable can be very traumatic ...... and defending stability can be very valuable.

Scottydamion
What is so wrong with admitting we don't have a full deck of cards? It doesn't have to be a slippery slope into intellectual despair.

What is so wrong with admitting we don't have a full deck of cards?

there are many stories in zen buddhism describing the initial effects of enlightenment upon a person. They range from fear, horror, hysteria, uncontrolled laughter, catatonic states, anger and so on.

hi scottydamion

i couldn't agree more. But equally true is that it can be.

I wouldn't call it despair, though i am sure it can feel like that. And it isn't necessarily intellectual either.

How we relate to and understand reality is fundamental to our being. If we go through a revolution such that how we understood the world is taken from us .... then it can easily be traumatic.

A child dies. A lover deserts us. A religious heirarchy is seen as corrupt. Our own country commits an atrocity. We are told by our friends and family and doctors that we are suffering from delusions due to a mental illness. A rational philosophy is shown rationally to be inconsistent and incomplete. All these and many more can be traumatic. When a narrative for understanding the world and ourselves breaks down it isn't necessarily a wonderful moment of enlightenment (especially at first).

there are many stories in zen buddhism describing the initial effects of enlightenment upon a person. They range from fear, horror, hysteria, uncontrolled laughter, catatonic states, anger and so on.

For sure, as you say
.... nothing if you can get there. But it can take a lot of getting used to. Psychosis?

hi jeeprs

well its a longtime since i studied buddhism but i think i do remember the following book containing some examples....

Zen and the Ways: Amazon.co.uk: Trevor Leggett: Books

I don't see how physics is possible without at least an implicit metaphysics.

Invitation to Jackofalltardes, Prothero, Jeeprs et al (plus anyone who wants to join in) on the slightly off thread (previously) discussion on the nature of reality and how we can define it without reference to direct experience. Originally (for the uninitiated) posted on the "What is matter in the quantum age" thread. Posted in this section but it could fit in on many different sections. My original question was, "How do we know the reality of anything without reference to the senses which are themselves workings of the mind, especially in light of quantum physics seemingly saying that subatomic particles seem to pass no test of existence themselves?" Anyone not previously involved in the discussion should perhaps look at the above thread.

Scottydamion
But my point is that if you admit from the get go that our ability to understand reality is fallible, and use that in theorizing about it, it is not such a blow. So there is a sort of "cure" for the trauma by stripping these things of their ability to traumatize (lol, if that makes sense!). By keeping our ideas in check, when we are wrong about them it is less of a blow...

"When a narrative for understanding the world and ourselves breaks down it isn't necessarily a wonderful moment of enlightenment (especially at first)." -- However, learning from that break down is a wonderful moment, and I think starting with and ending with "I may be wrong" is a wonderful result of enlightenment thinking.

jeeprs
I think you're over dramatising.

This is the original post for this thread. I did take the time to go through all 136 postings to the thread What is "matter" in the quantum age? It reminded me of a paper I wrote years ago in a course on the philosophy of science entitled "Is the Concept of Matter Obsolete?" My conclusion at that time was "Yes," based on many of the points made in that thread. What I noticed about the discussion in that thread was that much of it focused on so-called "physical reality," as if that was all there was to reality.

Now the first part of housby's question is How do we know the reality of anything? which I will rephrase slightly as How do we know the reality of any thing? Therefore, to answer that question we must first understand what is meant by a "thing"? Our common conception of a "thing" is that of a so-called "physical object," such as a chair. But what is it about a chair that makes it a "thing"?

Ortega spent many years analyzing the concept of "thing." Of course it has a history going back to the Romans and the Greeks. The Latin word for "thing" is res, from which the words "real" and "reality" is derived and for which the philosophy known as Realism was named. So that to a Roman the expression "real thing" would be redundant.

Now the Romans used the word res as a translation of the Greek word pragma (plural pragmata), that the Greek philosophers used also to mean "thing." However, Ortega traced the original use of the word pragma in Greece, before the philosophers adopted it, as having the meaning "concern" or, ironically, "matter," in the sense that we speak of what "matters" or is of "concern" to us as living human beings.

So what Ortega concludes is that what we should mean by "thing" is that which "matters" or "concerns" us in our lives. It is the "things" that are important in the lives of human beings that have been given names and isolated from the rest of the circumstances in which they occurred. Ortega would say that "things" exist to the extent that they "matter" or are of "concern' to a human being in her life.

It was the Greek philosophers, however, who raised the question about where those "things," and in particular physical things, came from, what was there "origin." The Greek word for "origin" was physis, that originally meant "birth." Similarly, the Romans adopted the word natura, which also originally meant "birth," as a translation of the Greek word physis.

The pre-Socratics speculated that "things" had their "origin," physis, in water, air, fire, etc. However, what the later Greek philosophers did was to change the question of the "origin," physis, of "things" or what they came from, into a question of what things were "made of." And they speculated about "atoms," and "forms" and with Aristotle, "substance." [I won't get into Plato's "ideas," because that would take us too far astray.] It was assumed that what they were "made of" was "unchanging," and so the word physis and later natura came to have the meaning of unchanging "nature," as we often use the term today.

We now know that so-called "physical things" are not unchanging. And we think that, according to the Big Bang theory, there was even a time at the beginning of the present universe when there were no atoms, and even the so-called "elementary" particles were being "born."

Ortega was famous, at least for those who read him, for having said that "Mankind does not have a nature but rather . . . a history." It turns out that even Nature does not have a "nature" in the sense of being unchanging, but rather a history which includes a "birth," a "life," and a "death," as do we. It's time for the science of Natural History to regain it's stature.

I hope that this is useful in clarifying some of the confusion arising from the first question "What is the reality of any thing?" and leads us to a dicussion of the previous question "What is a 'thing'?" Then we can perhaps look at housby's question with "new eyeglasses" to see if it still has any meaning.


Here's looking at you, kids! :flowers: