there is a fundamental reality

@north,

North,

Consider this.

Billions of dollars are being spent at CERN (the particle accelerator site) to try to account for what we call "mass", or what the layman might call "stuff" or "substance". That means that the use of the term "fundamental" as in "fundamental particles" is relative to particular experimental procedures, and theoretical explanations, but is in no way the "last word" with respect to what we call "reality". To understand the philosophical implications of this you simply need to ask whether there can ever be a "last word", and you can trace a "no" answer from at least as far back as Kant.
This is why your original statement "there is a fundamental reality" which you specifically couched in physical terms is either vacuous, or a matter of belief.

Now as JLN and I have indicated, there may be a level of awareness or vantage point, from which the vacuity of statements such as yours can be "understood". That hypothetical and ineffable state might be termed "fundamental" or even "transcendental", but whether it is a matter of "greater depth" or "the bed-rock" of what might call "consciousness of reality" , cannot even be asked, because asking involves slipping out of that state to the level of usage of words..

(Note that the second paragraph is not required for your understanding of the first).

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Lets just bring in a bit of pop culture and pop science into it to make the discussion and what´s at stake somewhat more accessible to common people...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Quote:

If you have indeed been ignoring me how come simultaneously you have read my tirades ? You make a name for contradictions in one single sentence the usual...

He said he's been ignoring you, not that he put you on ignore.

If you act as you do on a2k in other aspects of your life I am inclined to believe that you have more bruises than friends.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Hey Fil, I encourage you to read Meillassoux's book After Finitude. I think it goes along with what you have been talking about. That which is a primary quality is what is mathematizeable.

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@Ding an Sich,

Hi Ding an Sich appreciate the input, I just goggled it and indeed it seams interesting and worth reading...

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Those who would argue that mathematics is the fundamental substrate for "reality" might like to consider the Lakoff and Nunez conjecture that the origin of mathematics lies within our specific physiology. If that is the case then we are confined to discussing reality relative to us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Mathematics_Comes_From

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@fresco,

Quote:

Those who would argue that mathematics is the fundamental substrate for "reality" might like to consider the Lakoff and Nunez conjecture that the origin of mathematics lies within our specific physiology. If that is the case then we are confined to discussing reality relative to us.

I see Fresco is still under the impression that REALITY can only be what we humans can understand and discuss.

I wonder why that is? I wonder why Fresco cannot conceive of a REALITY that might be independent of what humans can perceive?

You know...there may well be beings elsewhere in this vast universe who are to us what we Homo Sapiens are to Australopithecus. I'll betcha they would get a huge kick out of hearing some of us suppose we are the end-all of knowledge about REALITY...or that REALITY is dependent upon what we do or say about it.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

I wonder why Fresco cannot conceive of a REALITY that might be independent of what humans can perceive?

I wonder why you can. What justifies a belief in such a reality? There is no real evidence of it.

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From the very same link...

Quote:

CRITICISM

In set theories such as Zermelo–Fraenkel one can indeed have {1,2} = (0,1), as these are two different symbols denoting the same object. The claim that there is an anomaly because these are "fully distinct concepts" is on the one hand not a clear scientific statement, and on the other hand, is on par with such statements as: ""The positive real solution of x^2=2" and "\sqrt{2}" cannot be equal because they are fully distinct concepts.".

The apparent anomaly stems from the fact that Lakoff and Núñez identify mathematical objects with their various particular realizations. There are several equivalent definitions of ordered pair, and most mathematicians do not identify the ordered pair with just one of these definitions (since this would be an arbitrary and artificial choice), but view the definitions as equivalent models or realizations of the same underlying object. The existence of several different but equivalent constructions of certain mathematical objects supports the platonistic view that the mathematical objects exist beyond their various linguistical, symbolical, or conceptual representations.

As an example, many mathematicians would favour a definition of ordered pair in terms of category theory where the object in question is defined in terms of a characteristic universal property and then shown to be unique up to unique isomorphism (this was recently mentioned in an article on mathematical platonism by David Mumford[citation needed]).

The above discussion is meant to explain that the most natural and fruitful approach in mathematics is to view a mathematical object as having potentially several different but equivalent realizations. On the other hand, the object is not identified with just one of these realizations. This suggests that the intuitionistic idea that mathematical objects exist only as specific mental constructions, or the idea of Lakoff and Núñez that mathematical objects exist only as particular instances of concepts/metaphors in our embodied brains, is an inadequate philosophical basis to account for the experience and de facto research methods of working mathematicians. Perhaps this is a reason why these ideas have been met with comparatively little interest by the mathematical community.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Mathematics_Comes_From

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@Cyracuz,

There is no evidence for any subjective experience whether it is yours or that of a superior alien entity. I cannot take my experienced reality in my hands and carry it around and show it to a machine that somehow is able to verify my reality. We do not have sense organs that are stimulated by peoples realities and even if we did those sensations would be a new kind of subjective reality that would need to be verified. We may one day be able to recognize a series of electrical circuits, parts or whatever as a good combination that produces a mental reality. But then this would be something understood mentally and apart of a subjective reality that cannot be verified on and on ad infinitum...
( I think I have confused myself.)

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@fresco,

I can't imagine our "discussing reality" in a way not relative to us. But as far as I'm concerned (and here I'm being consistent) that's perfectly O.K. That does not shrink the universe to my little size; it expand me (and you) to the size of the universe--in a sense. I'm amazed by the insistence that mathematics is the language of God (or an objective Nature) as opposed to "human" language, a mere product of human culture. It's all US and we are all IT (again: Tat Tvam Asi).

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@JLNobody,

I appreciate (non-apologetically) that much of what I say makes little sense to anyone fully steeped in dualism. Much of what I say has to be qualified by the phrase "in a sense". One cannot limit oneself by logic when addressing experience nondualistically. To say--in denial of the "metaphysical" subject-object split--that I (and you) are one with everything else (tat tvam asi) is true but non-logical. It's like saying the truth that when I die I will become BOTH "nothing" and "everything" (and even worse, I am (and you are) both right now.
Thanks for your indugence.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

I wonder why that is? I wonder why Fresco cannot conceive of a REALITY that might be independent of what humans can perceive?

Of course I can !. I can conceive of multiple varieties of "reality" but all are species related. That is not an argument for "fundamental reality".

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@JLNobody,

Indeed. The demise of the representationlist view of language (Quine, Davis, Wittgenstein, Rorty etc) implies that any word including the word "reality" cannot be be explored beyond its (human) contextual usage.

On consideration of my reply to Frank above, my conception of a "cat's reality" say, is an anthropomorphization involving a communing with a cat's behaviour. At this point further problems arise because Maturana, for example, suggests that cats do not "observe" mice as such, since they are not users of " a mouse word". The fact that what we call "cats" instinctively couple their behaviour to what we name as "small scuttling things", suggests in a Heidegerrean sense that the "reality" of cat separate from mouse does not arise in the consciousness of either animal. (Existenz lies only in the domain of Dasein i.e humans)
(Nagel's celebrated essay "What it's like to be a bat"was a watershed for such analysis)

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@Cyracuz,

Quote:

I wonder why you can. What justifies a belief in such a reality? There is no real evidence of it.

I was speaking about "conceiving of"...not "believing in."

If there is a REALITY independent of what humans can perceive...it might very well be a fundamental REALITY.

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@fresco,

Quote:

Of course I can !. I can conceive of multiple varieties of "reality" but all are species related. That is not an argument for "fundamental reality".

Well, Fresco...if you can conceive of a REALITY that might be independent of what humans can perceive...can you conceive of the POSSIBILITY that it might be "fundamental REALITY?"

Fresco, by now you should realize that whatever the REALITY actually IS...that is what it IS. That is the fundamental REALITY.

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank you didn't do your homework on the word "is". Wink

Your version of "is-ness" begs the question of ontological independence but you cannot see it. It's a bit like a vacuous claim that "everything in the universe doubles its size every second". Note that we CAN conceive it but since we and the ruler are doubling as well, we cannot prove it or transcend it, and our conception boils down to a "God's eye view".

Am I getting through, yet ?

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank, I feel that I can resolve the impasse here with the suggestion that while there is something we choose to call "reality" it is BOTH what it (objectively) IS and what we (subjectively and intersubjectively) construct it to be. It seems to me that what it IS is both a UNITY ( my mystical bias/perspective) and a MULTIPLICITY at the same time. This multiplicity consists of what Fresco aknowledges to be "multiple varieties [of] species related" expressions, perspectives, or constructions of reality. And that IS what you call "FUNDAMENTAL" reality. That, I think, is an argument for fundamental reality that accepts BOTH your perspective as well as Fresco's. Let's see what he thinks.

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@fresco,

Quote:

Frank you didn't do your homework on the word "is".
Your version of "is-ness" begs the question of ontological independence but you cannot see it. It's a bit like a vacuous claim that "everything in the universe doubles its size every second". Note that we CAN conceive it but since we and the ruler are doubling as well, we cannot prove it or transcend it, and our conception boils down to a "God's eye view".

Fresco…there is a REALITY. It IS what IS.

You seem to want to make humans and the human mind the end-all of what the REALITY of existence actually is.

I respectfully suggest there may well be beings elsewhere in this universe who are to us what we are to the ancestors of humans back 2 million years ago.

Not sure what humanoids of 2 million years ago thought REALITY was, but I think most of us would find any ideas they expressed deficient. I think the ideas you, JL, and the others in your group are expressing are probably just as quaint.

Quote:

Am I getting through, yet ?

Am I????

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@JLNobody,

We need to consider the Maturana point. I can try to commune with the perceptions of other species, but I am unsure whether such attempts also require a covert assumption of an interactive selectivity from a fundamental "something". It may be that the resolution of multiplicity we understand well, remains basically anthropocentric.Having said that I doubt whether Frank can move beyond his use of "is"

EDIT
...as he has just verified by his post above.

1 Reply

there is a fundamental reality

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