Reality from the view point of theists

When I speak of the "objective" nature of Reality I, like Frank, am referring essentially to its "facticity." For example, when I die and cease to exist Reality will continue, but it is always changing in terms of the forms it takes as with the change it will take when you and I die.
But by objectivity I am not just referring to the opposite of subjectivity; I am not referring to its "out there-ness" as opposed to my "in here- ness". The objectivity of Reality includes my subjectivity. As Searle insists subjectivity is an objective fact, part of the content of Nature. Indeed, my dearest intuition is that, as Krishnamurti put it, I am the world, and so are you.

2 Replies

@JLNobody,

You are slowly walking into a more moderate position JL and I honestly congratulate you for the courage of distance yourself from the madhouse some chose to dive into for sheer stubbornness, indeed it is fair to acknowledge your good nature...regarding specifically what you said, if what you mean is that perception is an important part of the world and the only part we live with then we are in full agreement...our knowledge is certainly limited although not necessarily untrue...which in turn says nothing upon the intuitive recognition that we all have of an a priori need for "facticity" as you wisely put on your last post...

0 Replies

@reasoning logic,

Do you have anything of value to say at all ??? Or do you just lurk around like a raven trying to peak the leftovers of someone else ?
...geeee man you come from bad to worse lately a year ago you used to make slightly more sense then today...

1 Reply

@reasoning logic,

reasoning logic wrote:

Like always Fido you bring extreme value to a discussion.

Value is meaning...

1 Reply

@Fido,

...indeed but not quite as you think...where else would meaning come from if not from the fact that what we experience subjectively having real consequences and an objective base no matter what we previously went on believing ??? Value requires REAL functionality and that suffices for a fair argument...
If a brick goes on falling upon my head I am not expecting to change its meaning on the way down, no matter what I think of it aside "brikness"... If I value my head n I do, I simply step aside ! Laughing

...as I suppose you have been doing the same all around your life in order to be here, when comparing your actions with your talk you n your pals come out as outspoken plain liars...
...I may say the brick is beautiful or ugly that it should be green instead of red...n still none of it prevents the truth at its core for having a real practical effect on how I deal with it when my life is in risk...it means it has property's, n that I am able to recognize some of its effects...

1 Reply

@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

Fido, you refer to the undoubted fact that the starlight we see today may be from stars that no longer exist. This fact, that we see light from non-existent stars, IS part of what Frank refers to as Reality. Your comment says nothing about the ultimate ontology of Reality, but it is what I am referring to as an aspect of Realty's "character." We must keep in mind that when we use the term, "reality", we often mean something different. The result is that we sometimes end up talking past one another and from there we sink into the exchange of insults.

We can refer to reality all we want, but we cannot conceive of reality in an objective fashion because it is, scientifically, relative... It does not have to be all of reality we are talking of by way of quasi forms or ideas... If we are talking of a battle, and it is relatively easier to conceive of a battle, we think, because it is not all phenomenal, as reality is, and because reality is all there is there can be no possibility of classification which is one element of all forms; and yet, with this battle like that battle and we can classify them, the possibility of actually having a true concept of battles is impossible because their variation is infinite...No one can witness a battle of any magnitude, but a general who comes closest to a conception of battle, quasi or ideal has perhaps a better chance... And you can say that a fight between two people is like a battle, but the chances of forming a true concept of the event is hopeless... For witness and participant alike, the ability form a objective idea before during or after the fact is missing, though, that one who may form the best quasi notion of the event may have an edge... I train in martial arts, and I spar regularly, and I watch MMA on television...Even with learning some of the kicks myself, it is difficult to say some times just what I saw while watching and concentrating...With DVR, you can slow things down and repeat them, and often the element of chance creeps in, or so it seems; so that it is impossible to conceive of it.... You can form a quasi concept of a train wreck because it is possible to see one, and know of others so that you know the form fits the class... Still, it is impossible to conceive of a train wrecking because until it has wrecked its possibilities are infinite, and even as it wrecks, though we think we know its possible result, the variables at work square the cube the possibilities and they are in turn squared...

Nothing in flux or amorphous can be conceieved... When phenomena reach the point of being conceived of, they are no longer phenonmena, and phenomena are always infintes... Do you see how it works??? If you have one thing like but unlike any other, and always in flux, nascent; then you can only compare it to something that is like everything in its class and unlike everything and in flux... That guy who said marriage is a like a duel in the middle of a battle had it right because each is more similar than different, and neither can be conceived of except by way of transcendent concepts, and as quasi forms...

2 Replies

@north,

north wrote:

Frank Apisa wrote:

Quote:
Jesus H. Christ, Frank... ARE you losing it...
Not at all, Fido. I am trying to understand what you are saying (or almost saying). Let’s try this again: Are you saying that it is IMPOSSIBLE for there to be an OBJECTIVE REALITY? Please stop telling me what you think REALITY is…or what you think we can or cannot conceive of it…or what Kant said about it. There is a REALITY of existence. Something is going on here…we all know that. Existence is here. Whatever is “going on here” is the REALITY of existence...whatever it is. I am asking you if you are saying, “It is impossible for that REALITY to be an OBJECTIVE REALITY?” I do not consider that to be a stupid question; an inappropriate question; a question that casts doubt on my sanity or intelligence… …it is a reasonable question for this thread. It is being asked in earnest and with respect. Is there some reason why you cannot answer it without all that heat I just heard?

Quote:
There are no objective infinites...
yes there is energy and matter are objective infinities

Glad to hear it... Now prove it... A few pieces of the puzzle is not the whole picture, nor in this case: Object...

0 Replies

@Fido,

Quote:

Nothing in flux or amorphous can be conceieved.

...

...

I suppose you think concepts come out of nowhere and apply to nowhere...if not from reality n for reality, concepts refer to the unreal against what ??? What does "unreal" means or even "concepts" if not expressing any sort of real state in themselves as forms of categorizing stuff independently of being fit or not as you suggest ? Do you understand the question ? ...because it has a trick in it...I suspect not n I suspect I know why Setanta loses patience with you...you are presumptuous and arrogant in your sheep's cloth...there´s a fine difference between clumsiness n idiocy indeed...

2 Replies

@Fil Albuquerque,

...your self designated pseudo intellectual humanistic generation and its silliness is doomed to oblivion...there´s nothing idealistically human in lying n plain levelling everything around...

0 Replies

@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

When I speak of the "objective" nature of Reality I, like Frank, am referring essentially to its "facticity." For example, when I die and cease to exist Reality will continue, but it is always changing in terms of the forms it takes as with the change it will take when you and I die.
But by objectivity I am not just referring to the opposite of subjectivity; I am not referring to its "out there-ness" as opposed to my "in here- ness". The objectivity of Reality includes my subjectivity. As Searle insists subjectivity is an objective fact, part of the content of Nature. Indeed, my dearest intuition is that, as Krishnamurti put it, I am the world, and so are you.

Try to think of it like this: If you have a long piece of string, and you have no way to measure it, how can you say objectively or any other way, how long it actually is??? If you have the only piece of string in the universe, how can you say it is long or short, or even that it is a string... The problem of a unverse that is unbounded by actual measure, and because it is the only example of its kind, our words in regard to it are simply words, and pointless... It is great that atomic theory and applied science can give us the means of guessing at reality, but without the whole thing as an object, and without the ability to classify it based upon other examples, we have nothing... Speculation is not philosophy or physics... In the example of the cosmos, the end of reality, we cannot see it, so we cannot speculate upon it...Change is the single constant in reality, but all concepts which refer to objects, physical bodies as physics does, show what does not change, what values are conserved... And all forms are conserved, just as the element of hydrogen will always be identical with hydrogen... No matter what length your line, it will always be a line and the definition of line will be conserved... The conservation of mass or motion, while presented as laws are in fact true concepts of the physical world... We think by way of concepts... Fact and facticality are notions related to the quasi concept of truth...

The notion of anything existing if we are not there personally to give it meaning is bogus... In regard to objects, or objective reality it is not simply the problem of verification, but one of conceiving of change in process in time, and then of conceiving of anything that is alone, and all and without class... Reality is phenomenal... No amount of quasi forms applied to it without evidence will tell us anything essential about it... Ideas are knowledge... What knowledge has a quasi idea of reality??? Forget the spiritual... Deal with the actual...

1 Reply

@Fido,

...mind one thing about change because you got it all wrong so far...in order for something to change, in the first place it must be something...infinity does not oppose form if anything is build upon it...in fact infinity as a loop is the most stable thing there is around...no change in change after all...do you understand philosophically what a loop is ???
oh dear... Laughing

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

...indeed but not quite as you think...where else would meaning come from if not from the fact that what we experience subjectively having real consequences and an objective base no matter what we previously went on believing ??? Value requires REAL functionality and that suffices for a fair argument...
If a brick goes on falling upon my head I am not expecting to change its meaning on the way down, no matter what I think of it aside "brikness"... If I value my head n I do, I simply step aside ! ...as I suppose you have been doing the same all around your life in order to be here, when comparing your actions with your talk you n your pals come out as outspoken plain liars...
...I may say the brick is beautiful or ugly that it should be green instead of red...n still none of it prevents the truth at its core for having a real practical effect on how I deal with it when my life is in risk...it means it has property's, n that I am able to recognize some of its effects...

Forms are values, and values are meanings... The attempt to say reality, as in all of reality, existence, or even truth has a certain value or meaning is a waste of effort... All things in life have a meaning and a value in relation to our lives... What ever is likely to affect us positively or negatively is given a value, and said to have meaning... Faling bricks have more meaning the more likely they are to hit us, and they can fall as often as anyone wants to raise them so long as they do not hit us... Distant events, like a brick dropped from on high may have little meaning at first, but when it seems more likely to affect us we find great meaning in it... You notice often in life that people cannot take fair warning of distant events in time to avoid them because they give them little value...

It is one reason those who believe is religion, and take it seriously should be denied government... Governing should be the reasoned task of rational people -to look for events with a high likelyhood of happening, or of having a very negative result... If everyone in government is working hard to avoid problems, and change behavior to avoid bad consequences, and you are praying and believing God will save his own and advocating for doing nothing necessary to avoid the situation, then you are worse than an idiot... We can only work with what we know, and we will never know enough of reality to think of it objectively...

1 Reply

@Fido,

Quote:

Governing should be the reasoned task of rational people -to look for EVENTS with a high likelyhood of happening

...after all u admit events do happen...case close.

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

Quote:
Nothing in flux or amorphous can be conceieved.

... ...

I suppose you think concepts come out of nowhere and apply to nowhere...if not from reality n for reality, concepts refer to the unreal against what ??? What does "unreal" means or even "concepts" if not expressing any sort of real state in themselves as forms of categorizing stuff independently of being fit or not as you suggest ? Do you understand the question ? ...because it has a trick in it...I suspect not n I suspect I know why Setanta loses patience with you...you are presumptuous and arrogant in your sheep's cloth...there´s a fine difference between clumsiness n idiocy indeed...

True concepts are the jewels of mankind, and all represent a bit of hard earned knowledge... Even many moral forms, which are quasi forms, represent a certain moral understanding, essentially, of good, and bad...Consider that the word rational comes from ratio, and it is in our measure, our ability to weigh one thing against another that allows reason to work in the real world... Our little bit of understanding of reality which we get by comparison of bits of reality against each other does not apply to the whole of reality at once... We have nothing to compare reality to, no second reality, so it cannot be classed... And all of reality connot be considered without it changing in the process, or without our deliberate self exclusion from the whole...

If truth is changing by the second truth cannot be conceived of... The uncertainty principal applies everywhere... Reality is the river we cannot step into the same one of twice... If on our side, we can conceive of bits of reality as knowledge and as truth; that should be good enough... Having a hair off the dog is not the same as having the dog... If we have a piece of reality we might think there is a reality out there, even if infinite in its possibilities... That is the reality we must accept if we are not going to blow our whole lives on nonsense...

1 Reply

@Fido,

You see Fido it was long established on the thread the discussion is not about what we can know with absolute certainty...you ought to pay a bit more of attention...another thing I think you have probably forgotten from Cantor is that Infinity´s have sizes...I personally see them as loops nothing else...again what would be of infinity as meaning without form an finity which is what you are putting into question...knowledge is just not beautiful literature in a rainy day with a cup of tea ! You are self indulging n you presume to know more in your "not knowing" style...how contradictory is that ? how about turning the flashlight onto yourself n take a good gaze at what u see...

0 Replies

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

...mind one thing about change because you got it all wrong so far...in order for something to change, in the first place it must be something...infinity does not oppose form if anything is build upon it...in fact infinity as a loop is the most stable thing there is around...no change in change after all...do you understand philosophically what a loop is ???
oh dear...

I understand you are trying to grasp infinity as a concept by consider that it may be a loop... In fact, infinity cannot be properly conceived of any more than infinites can be conceived of...Look at it this way: If you were to hold a cube or a sphere in your hand, though you could not see the far side, your other senses would be able to inform you where your sight left off... Such an object is a bit of objective reality, and we could measure physically such objects and make some judgements, and reason upon their relationships and apply that reasoning at some point to larger objects of the same class as though they might be held as objects... If you were to reach a point where you can see the object, and not physically measure it, your ability to be truthful falls with your ability to verify...Some of what we experience in reality has no physical substance what ever...Some times reality, like the Moon, only shows one side to us, and when that heppens we are dealing with infintes... It is a little like saying there must be a objective reality because reality must have limits, as we could say about infinites; but this is a misunderstanding of the word... If you look down a railroad track you can see two parallel line meeting in infinity... Infinity as a word and a quasi concept has everything to do with our limits of perspective in reality and nothing much of reality... Infinites we think must be bounded, but we know our own ability to count and calculate variables makes much that would not be infinite, infinite in fact... Humanity is infinite, and infinite in many respects; and what does that mean??? Reason may suggest that if it were possible to calculate, then at any given moment of a nano second, there is an exact number of human beings on the earth... Does that include any self excluding by inhumanity, or excluded by crime, or so near death or far from life as to be nearer vegitable than meat, and do babies half born count??? You see; infinite means only not-finite... And object we can hold in hand can be considered as finite, and we can presume as much of objects we can see, but to reason beyond that, and even to reason that far is guessing based upon very limited knowledge of finite objects... If you cannot count it or measure it you must consider it as infinite...

3 Replies

@Fido,

...wait wait there just a minute...I am not a classical materialist if that´s what u are implying....although of course I am a "substantialist" in the sense that I believe in reality or that something exists...not necessarily true as "palpable" which again is a function within a system...to my account is quite abstract n I refer to it as Information...

0 Replies

@Fido,

I guess essentially you admitted there´s a reality n on the matter of what we can know or not is already beyond the point as I think there´s no disagreement upon that in so far...

0 Replies

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

Quote:
Governing should be the reasoned task of rational people -to look for EVENTS with a high likelyhood of happening

...after all u admit events do happen...case close.

Event in action are infinites...I have no problem saying there once was a Classical Greece any more than saying there once was a star, though now there is only light...I recognize the impossibility of saying Objective reality which is a certain conception of reality as fixed... Reality is a quasi concept based upon what we know of the real...And that ain't much... Perhaps on a distant planet there are republicans with their heads sticking out of their asses instead of sticking in as here... My limited view of the real which is itself infinte in variation does not give me the power to say there is some objective reality...The possibility is infinite...

You should know, that this subject is one that shut the mouth of Gallaleo... The Pope presuming the infinite power of God also presumed his power to make reality out of infinite patterns... Gallaleo mocked him, but the Pope was nearer the truth... Scientific inquiry would be impossible without the presumption of order so that order might be found, but finding order in this world, and this galaxy and seeing signs of it beyond is not the same has having the order in hand as an object...The object of philosophy is the true conception of reality and there, the preconception of reality is an impediment...Deal with what you know... Do not fear to admit the limits of knowledge...

1 Reply

@Fido,

I'm dumbfounded by the possibility that the two of you understand each other. Congratulations; I'm in the dark.
Fido, I do not argue that an object cannot exist without the presence of an observer, I do think it cannot exist "meaningfully" without a (human) observer to give it (human) meaning.

1 Reply

Reality from the view point of theists

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know