Definition of Reality

@pagan,

pagan;130873 wrote:

is there a consensus developing in this thread that nothing exists except experience? experience is the only reality and reality is necessarily experience?

.... what about the unconscious? Is that 'experienced'? ...... and if not does it therefore not exist? What about the possibility of existence outside consciousness? ..... does that necessarily not exist?

Or can something exist and not be real!??

The unconscious is a hypothesis based on consciousness. Where are memories when we aren't remembering them? Why do religions/dreams appear to share a structure?

It's my view that there are many valid uses of the words "real" and "reality."

1 Reply

@Scottydamion,

Scottydamion;130630 wrote:

Experience = one's personal view of reality

This implies that there is a reality independent of the view. The view is the reality. See Ortega's Doctrine of the Point of View.

:flowers:

2 Replies

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;130885 wrote:

It's my view that there are many valid uses of the words "real" and "reality."

And what follows from that? There are lots of "valid" (sic!) uses of the word, "bank", but there is only one sense of "bank" which designates what you can get a mortgage from, And if we are talking about financial transactions, it is in that sense of "bank" we are using, and not, for instance the sense of "bank" which means, the side of a river. The relevant use of a word is given by the context of the use. So, the fact that there are a number of different uses of the word (all of them "valid") is neither here nor there.

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@longknowledge,

longknowledge;130902 wrote:

This implies that there is a reality independent of the view. The view is the reality. See Ortega's Doctrine of the Point of View.

:flowers:

I agree. The view/reality dichotomy is deceptive. (In Kojeve's terms: vulgar science.)

1 Reply

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;130912 wrote:

I agree. The view/reality dichotomy is deceptive. (In Kojeve's terms: vulgar science.)

So, if one view is that Earth is flat, and another view is that Earth is a sphere, it is "vulgar science" to think that there is only one reality, either flat earth or spherical earth, but it is refined science to think that earth is both flat and spherical? Is that what is takes to be refined? Believe contradictions.

1 Reply

@housby,

Here's an earthier example. Some of us travel. Few of us travel much. Most of what many of us know and see of planet Earth is provided by television screens, photographs in magazines, books books books. From these indirect sources (as if there were direct), we assemble our network of beliefs about the world. And this network is as emotional as it is conceptual perhaps. Reality as first-person skull-staged OPERA.

0 Replies

@housby,

Here's a suggestion I will throw into the mix. We have often debated whether we really see the stars, or only our image of stars (or any other objects). Therefore, it is argued, if there were no minds, there would be no objects. This, of course, is felt to be absurd, because it seems to mean that the universe itself has only come into being with the appearance of humans who are capable of conceiving it, whereas all science indicates that it predates us by many billions of years.

I think I have a way out of this impasse.

Ideas are not objects. When we say that objects exist as ideas for us, this does not mean that these ideas are 'in our minds'.The way in which the stars are depicted in our minds, cannot in itself be an object of perception. We are trying to picture the situation with the mind being in the brain, and the brain being in our skull. But this is not a real description of the nature of mind, or cognition, or perception, or consciousness. You can study these as objects, of course, but, as objects, they don't contain ANYTHING. They only contain stars (or trees or whatever) when they are alive in you. And what is alive in you is never available to consciousness. It is what makes consciousness possible. It is the ground of being, not one of the figures in it (be it depicted as mind, brain, consciousness, or anything else.)

Think about that for a while.

2 Replies

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;130972 wrote:

It is the ground of being, not one of the figures in it (be it depicted as mind, brain, consciousness, or anything else.)

Think about that for a while.

Good post. I can only add that this "ground of being" should be written under erasure. Because "ground of being" remains a trope, depicted within consciousness (itself a tricky word.)

---------- Post added 02-22-2010 at 05:42 AM ----------

jeeprs;130972 wrote:

This, of course, is felt to be absurd, because it seems to mean that the universe itself has only come into being with the appearance of humans who are capable of conceiving it, whereas all science indicates that it predates us by many billions of years.

I can't speak for others, but my position is not in disagreement with the scientific model. My position simply stresses that this model is a product of discourse and consciousness. It's accuracy is something I would generally trust. In my eyes, there's a mystery that might not even be solvable. Are qualia real? Or are only overlapping qualia real? And how is the overlapping of qualia determined except by a language ?
I'd say we have the scientific model of reality and it works for them. Still, it remains, in my eyes, philosophically naive. It's reductive in order to serve a purpose. An absolute science does indeed seem unattainable. But the concept of absolute science is a light by which to see the limits of the one we can use. It's like District 9. The alien weapons are better, but we don't know how to fire them. So we stick with vulgar science's concept of reality, because vulgar science has at least shown us the money.

1 Reply

@Reconstructo,

well for me the interplay between naive, ideal, info realism, empiricism and others is due to a crazy puzzle. I have yet to come across any one scheme that convinces me to abandon the others. They all have holes in them.

I believe there is a reality that is not being perceived, and we move around and live in it. I believe that the world i see and hear and touch is outside my head and not entirely a mental construct. I believe my view of the world is partly a mental construct, and as such i live in a unique inner world. I believe that science has revealed aspects of reality way beyond my sensory perception. I believe that other people have revealed to me aspects of reality way beyond my sensory perception. I believe that i have experienced things that science could never explain. I believe the world is a very strange and magical place ..... and we as humans are both mad and brilliant in our ability to make it appear normal.

Faced with that, how we get on at all is both a miracle and a necessity.

0 Replies

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;130972 wrote:

Here's a suggestion I will throw into the mix. We have often debated whether we really see the stars, or only our image of stars (or any other objects). Therefore, it is argued, if there were no minds, there would be no objects. This, of course, is felt to be absurd, because it seems to mean that the universe itself has only come into being with the appearance of humans who are capable of conceiving it, whereas all science indicates that it predates us by many billions of years.

I think I have a way out of this impasse.

What impasse is this? It is not as if it is impossible to decide which is right; whether stars are dependent on mind, or whether stars predated minds by many years. Ask any scientists, unless you are afraid of his laughing at you. It is not only felt to be absurd that the existence of objects is dependent on mind, it is absurd.

Have you asked yourself, whose mind it is that the objects are supposed to be dependent on? The first person? And what happened when he died? Someone else took over? A kind of relay race?

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;130986 wrote:

Have you asked yourself, whose mind it is that the objects are supposed to be dependent on? The first person? And what happened when he died? Someone else took over? A kind of relay race?

Yes. It is a relay race of Solipsists. Apparently there are more of them than they thought.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;130916 wrote:

So, if one view is that Earth is flat, and another view is that Earth is a sphere, it is "vulgar science" to think that there is only one reality, either flat earth or spherical earth, but it is refined science to think that earth is both flat and spherical? Is that what is takes to be refined? Believe contradictions.

How about you ask Kojeve what it takes to be a non-vulgar science since Reconstructo is using his term, or better yet stop answering your own questions while asking them.

1 Reply

@Scottydamion,

Scottydamion;131075 wrote:

How about you ask Kojeve what it takes to be a non-vulgar science since Reconstructo is using his term, or better yet stop answering your own questions while asking them.

Is he alive? Anyway, if he is, I don't know how to get in touch with him, nor do I particularly want to do so.

2 Replies

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;131119 wrote:

Is he alive? Anyway, if he is, I don't know how to get in touch with him, nor do I particularly want to do so.

You're so cute when you side-step. :flowers:

0 Replies

@kennethamy,

2 Replies

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil. Albuquerque;131126 wrote:

The problem is not asking if they, the Stars, are real... the problem is asking if you can extrapolate what Real is...can you grasp real symbolically to precision ?

I never thought of that.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;131127 wrote:

I never thought of that.

So, what I ask of X is Y...uhm...:rolleyes:

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil. Albuquerque;131126 wrote:

The problem is not asking if they, the Stars, are real... the problem is asking if you can extrapolate what Real is...can you grasp real symbolically to precision ?

Would it not seem prudent to cover the debate on reality before trying to define it formally? Because it is already seen by us as symbolic, not trying to delve back into qualia though.

1 Reply

@Scottydamion,

Scottydamion;131131 wrote:

Would it not seem prudent to cover the debate on reality before trying to define it formally? Because it is already seen by us as symbolic, not trying to delve back into qualia though.

I get that and agree, but what is a symbol ? How can something be truly represented without fallacy ? ...unless it is this something...unless information itself, it is...

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil. Albuquerque;131134 wrote:

I get that and agree, but what is a symbol ? How can something be trully represented without fallacy ?

Ay, there's the rub! The same question arises in Congress.

1 Reply

Definition of Reality

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