Reality from the view point of theists

I'm the member of no church, no matter how cleverly the accusation is couched. In addition, referring to those who don't agree with one's view of reality as "naïve realists" is a wonderful example of what passes for civility among Fresco's set. Fresco has written: To paraphrase Heisenberg the physicist "we can never observe nature directly, we can only observe the results of our interactions with it". So? So what? That does not constitute eviddence that no objective reality exists, and it is not naïve to acknowledge that even though one cannot accurately describe objective reality, one can know it exists. Fresco is peddling the philosophical propaganda which is one factor in maintaining his career. All power to him--but that doesn't make him an authority on the nature of reality.

I don't have a problem with that, and have said as much all along.

Set, "Naive Realism" is an epistemological category. Don't let the term, naive, lead to the conclusion that it is no more than an insult. It is the formal supposition that things are in reality as our senses depict them. The classic example is conclusion that the bent shape of a straight stick in water is actually bent. I often admit that I am a naive realist in my ordinary life, to me the earth is flat, or at least I feel justified in walking down the street as if it were. But in my attempts to be philosophically correct I assume that x-rays and chemical interactions, which I cannot immediately perceive, actually exist....
that is to say, no incivility intended, just disagreement.

I understand the term and it's origin. Don't let that lead you to assume that there isn't contempt and condescension behind it. I am far less concerned with what Fresco calls civility than he is. I have never taken umbrage at what you write, even on occasions when i've scorned it.

Thank you, JL…that was good of you to mention that…and perhaps I have been giving this point you are making short shrift. I recognize that Fresco is working from the perspective that the communication he is attempting to share is subtle…and may be beyond my ability to comprehend.

That does not, however, make it correct.

Something is going on here. Existence IS. It may be an illusion, but even a illusion is existence. An illusion is NOT nothing.

Whatever IS…IS.

I deal with “counter intuition” damn near every day. GOLF is a mainstay of my existence…and there is nothing on the planet more plagued with counter intuitive progressions. In order to make a ball go high, one must hit it on a downward swing; in order to make a ball stay low, one must hit it with a lofting swing; to make a ball go far, one must slow down the swing.

That notwithstanding, however, one cannot suggest that the winner of a golf match is the person with the highest score, just because the higher score will win in almost all other sports. In golf, the winner will be the person with the lowest score.

There simply is no way logically to get to “THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE REALITY”, because even “no objective reality” would then be “the OBJECTIVE REALITY.”

It seems obvious to me (and I think to Setanta, Farmerman, and you) that this disagreement is more a function of Fresco talking about definition and comprehension of REALITY (which almost certainly will be a subjective undertaking)…while we are talking about the REALITY itself…which is objective (whatever IS…IS).

As I suggested, it is time for this to be put to bed. At no point whatever has Fresco been able to offer a reasonable, coherent counter argument to what Setanta and I have offered about the Objective Reality of WHAT IS…without regard to whether or not we know what is; can define what is; or can understand what is. What is…IS. And that “IS”…is the objective REALITY.

I'm going to slightly disagree with Setanta's response to this.

I agree that we can say "Reality is both objective (it IS) and subjective (we know only our experience of it)?

The words would flow trippingly off the tongue.

But we would be wrong to say it, because it really does not express the truth of the matter.

REALITY is objective...what IS...IS.

We do know only our experience of it...but if we are trying to communicate that REALITY is both objective and subjective...we are making a mistake.

Our considerations about the Objective Reality ARE SUBJECTIVE. But that does not make the REALITY subjective. Our appreciation of the REALITY; our considerations of the REALITY; our understandings of the REALITY...and such...ARE SUBJECTIVE.

The REALITY is objective. It is what is...regardless of what we think, understand or say about it.

If the REALITY were made subjective (as in both subjective and objective)...then the REALITY would be that...and no subjective considerations of that could change it. It then becomes the objective REALITY.

Frank has a good point. I should qualify my response to say that descriptions of reality are subjective.

This is fascinating. We have come to appreciate both the subjective and objective facets of "Reality." We are coming to the edge of the dualism between objectivity and subjectivity. Now let's jump.
You already acknowledged that our considerations about "objective" reality are subjective in nature (I prefer inter-subjective), but that does not, you say, make that reality subjective. At the same time, our efforts to demonstrate the ontological status of reality are consistently inter-subjective. Does that not suggest to you that we are dealing with a "subjective" phenomenon--even though we firmly believe "it" IS?
But you go beyond this by assuring us that existence IS (the most useful tautology I can imagine). I like to illustrate this principle by noting that a mirage is a real mirage, but as Fresco and Wittgenstein remind us, we should not attempt to swim in it.
Time for bed.

Sounding like a kid in a science class, I'd just like to add I've seen a mirage. It was Table Mountain.

lets not confuse what mirage means. Its an apparition of water, not water itself

No it's a reflection of something that's over the horizon, caused by clear atmospherics. It's normally portrayed as water in the desert, but mirages occur just as often at sea. In my case, it was Table Mountain as I was sailing into Capetown, you see the mirage of Table Mountain before you see Table Mountain itself, at at one point you can see the Mountain and its mirage at the same time, one on top of the other.

When some of the Greeks and Chinese perceived the earth as an orb, while the rest of mankind perceived it as a flat disc, which was it? Does majority consensus obtain, and it was a flat disc until most people thought otherwise? That was the point of my reference to Juan Fernanddez. The Spanish knew how to find it, the English didn't. That less than accurate description of reality killed hundreds of men--objective reality is unforgiving. Was Juan Fernandez in one place for the Spanish and another for the English? Thought games such as are common in ontology may be entertaining, but ultimately they yield no useful conclusions, and they are just games because they are carried out in an intellectual vacuum which does not consider its own contradictions.

We have not...or at least, you may have, but I certainly have not!

There are NO subjective facets of REALITY…although there are subjective facets of considerations about REALITY. In fact, all the considerations about REALITY are subjective...just as REALITY (whatever it happens to be) always is objective.

Aside from that…jump away!



It certainly does not "suggest" that to me…and it would not matter if it did. Just as it does not matter if you are of the opinion that we are dealing with a “subjective” phenomenon.

Whatever really is…IS. Our considerations about it cannot change what IS...unless the REALITY is that our considerations about it will change it...and then THAT becomes the REALITY. We cannot have it both ways.

I do not know how else to state that.

my point wasnt a discussion of what propogates a mirage but that a mirage ITSELF means non-real. That was my point.
I wasnt being as clear as I thought

Ok, I do that all the time.

Right, FM, a mirage does refer to the unreality of a perception, but as Frank notes about reality, it is real even if it were not. A mirage is a REAL ("non-real") mirage.
And what Frank says about the recreational function of ontology--and I would apply this to virtually all of philosophy--is the function of this thread's discussion. Great fun but of little or no practical consequence. Yet its recreational value is, in a sense, a kind of spiritual re-creation. Deep fun.

If we have no access to what you call "objective reality" what can possibly constitute evidence that "it exists" or that it does not? The status of that concept would be exactly the same as the status of "God" ! And like "God", all we can argue logically argue about is whether such a concept is "useful" or not. I have put the point that the concept is never used in everyday experience except where there is failure of our predictions about our interactions with the world . At that point, "reality" is renogotiated (including self with oneself).

The (not so) subtle point is that "objectivity" is a claim made by those seeking universal consensus. It is a fiction which ignores the impossibility of separating observer from observed. The fact that observers with a common physiology and common purpose may agree about what "the world" tells them does not allow them to transcend the idiosyncratic limits of that interaction

Funny, Frank, I seem to be agreeing with you even when I disagree with you, and, conversely, I disagree with you even when I agree with you. It's a very complex and subtle matter.
You say, rightly, that "There are NO subjective facets of REALITY…although there are subjective facets of considerations about REALITY. In fact, all the considerations about REALITY are subjective...just as REALITY (whatever it happens to be) always is objective."
I can't disagree with that although we might also say that in a sense our engagement with Reality here is only with its subjective dimension or character. We are talking about talking about Reality, about what can be legitimately said about it.
In between our utterances, however, there IS reality, the (virtually noumenal) phenonenon of this discussion and the cosmic context of its occurence...
Oops! I've got to go pick up my brother at the hospital; he just had surgery for a broken clavicle. THAT'S a particular kind of reality, just as was my root canal yesterday.

...the thing is JL, I as others, always have done the distinction between what we talk about reality and the need for such talk to based upon A Reality...you see, talking needs grounds !...(that was the point all along)

Begging the question is assuming what you set out to prove. I didn't do that. What I said was, if you are to compare your 'model' with 'reality', you have to be able to see through to 'reality' aside from 'the model'. Can you do that? I suggest not.

This may sound hair-splitting, but consider this. Science has created the world's most expensive and complicated apparatus, namely the LHC, purely with a view to defining the nature of matter. A hundred years ago, this would have seemed straightforward: reality was composed of irreducible bits, called 'atoms', and it was simply a matter of discovering them. But as is obvious, it has not turned out at all simple. Now the current state of physics posits infinite multiverses, or multiple branching realities, or multiple dimensions of existence, and so on. So the 'fundamental nature' of reality is no clearer now than it was in 1888, except insofar as science thought then that it was almost in view, but now it is clear that it is - as I said - mysterious.