How is this definition of "belief"?

There you go again.

I agree that we can't know that reality is subjective. But we cannot know that it is objective either.
Something is considered objective when it exists freely, independent of the opinions and perceptions of a sentient subject. That's what the term means. No matter how much you claim to know that reality fits this description, there is simply no way we can be certain.

If you state that "reality is objective", you are saying that reality exists independent of the opinions and perceptions of any sentient subjects.
But being a sentient subject with no way to bypass your own subjectivity, how can you know that??

JL...I was being ironic as a supplement regarding being subjective about subjectivity...I know what naive realist means n I already said I have a moderate stance on it..I am not a naive realist because I don't stand for the idea that the world can be perfectly described although I believe there is a transcendental noumena a thing in itself...this is middle term. I don't abandon foundation even if I can't say much about it, and I still hope there comes to be a way probably through mathematics to capture some aspects from this transcendental noumena which is the basis for you and I not being talking to a wall...

Without some basis of reality, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Poets were historically the last group who kept claiming to approach or depict something about the essence of reality, i.e. its onthology. This idea of the poet as a prophet or medium was still strong in the early 20th century. For everybody else, onthology has since Kant been relegated to 'no can't do' territory, together with such ideas as perpetual movement or going below 0 degree kelvin.

Nowadays, most poets have abandonned this illusion too, and just try to reflect their personal sense of reality in an esthetically pleasing and sharable way.

As for scientists, they just try to write equations that help predict or at least explain what's happening. Very few of them still believe that these equations are in reality itself. They see them as little more than tools, models or mock ups.

Not quite !
Without cognitive experiences such as meditation together with scientific advances which have questioned the phrase "independent reality", we would not be having this discussion. Non-readers of the literature should note that philosophical claims for an authoritative substrate on which to base "reality" have been demonstrated to be "vacuous" by recent writers.

TO ALL
I have nothing further to contribute to this thread which with a few notable exceptions appears to be going round in circles.

Check my videos previously posted with some attention you will immediately grasp why Humanists often depart from realism to idealism while also getting to know a new emergent direction in Philosophy which is very interesting as is explained in the videos...back to start, the current opposed to Realism from which many Humanists are a part off tend to prefer to speak on "social construction" and "social negotiation" of reality, as a conceptual cultural interchange...they rather centre the world on human observation/creation/imagination who projects reality top down from an organizing conscience as opposed to a real world out there...they question the foundation of reality from a thing in itself independent of human observation and bluntly assume human mind as the solely cause of our phenomenal experiences...my stance is far more moderate as I believe both visions have some good points n could benefit from each other...while I absolutely understand and accept a true world is needed, with true mechanics and effective causes, on which if not actual matter, at least precise quantity's of information are transmitted and computed obeying to some universal principles and rules of nature I also grant and understand that the property's of this objects of our experience are subjected to our interactive relation with them, on which our own apparatus of perception and psychological processes constantly interfere with our knowledge of them for what they truly are...some currents in philosophy rather have one extreme or the other...naive realists are those people who for lack of better knowledge believe reality is exactly as they perceive it and thus that knowledge of things in themselves is perfectly accessible. Such belief is indeed naive...the matter of fact is that Idealist Monist extremists with sentences like "mind creates the world" and "the moon is not really there when you stop looking at it" nonsense like Fresco Cyracuz or JLNobody wont hesitate to call anyone who is not a extremist like them a naive realist for lack of better arguments, even if most of us are only moderates...hope this poorly glued resume may have helped you get the context of the problem, if not ask away.

Yes I know you rather bypass proper answering the question your own assumptions and believes helped raise...just so note I didn't forgot it Fresco.

For those recently arrived and lacking context the question I raised was more or less in the following terms:

If minds do create/observe/negotiate reality who does create/observe/negotiate minds if minds cannot yet be real ?

Thanks, it does help. Didn't know there were still so many people who believe the moon is not there when you stop looking at it... I once had a girlfriend who said funky stuff like that, based on half-baked philo lessons. Poor thing committed suicide 10 yrs later. Bad philosophy can kill.

Sometimes I have the haunting suspicion that Frank sees something I am missing. When it seems that no matter what we say, he recognizes that as Reality. I suspect that he is a closet zen buddhist. Please meditate, Frank, and then come out. We'll still love you.

Frank, I think a " non-naive realist" would be John Searle. He calls himself an External realist and sometimes a Social Realist, putting him between you and me, Fresco and Cryacuz, I think. He would argue that there is a real world out there but some of it is our human construction. Nice compromise when I'm feeling more open.

Although some of those currents give a bad rep to Philosophy and some self enclosed scientific groups tend to confuse a current or a movement with the vast world of fields Philosophy does progress has been made...with surprise many scientists come to realize later on their careers a vast part of their work is directly intertwined with philosophical activity and thus that a good philosophical education is paramount to help their work specially when it comes not to observation or experience but to interpret fuzzy data or complex phenomena...I am just addressing this because your "half backed philo lessons" expression illustrates a wrong social perception on the actual work philosophy does...I feel sorry for your ex girlfriend...indeed disturbing and confusing ill founded ideas can have unintended consequences on more vulnerable more volatile personality's...

It cannot be otherwise, Cyracuz. Try to figure it out.

Well obviously I am seeing that what IS...IS.

REALITY...IS what IS.


Therefore, no matter what it IS...

...it objectively IS.

I have no idea of what the REALITY IS...but whatever IS...IS. And that IS the REALITY.

Whatever it IS...it is objective.

I also think that you have known me in cyber space for many years now, JL...and I am sure you realize that I would feel much, much, much more comfortable simply saying "I do not know" on this issue.

But that would be lying.

By definition, REALITY (What IS) MUST BE OBJECTIVE.

Apparently we don't have the same definition of 'reality'. I can live with that.

I agree; reality is subjective for me and for everybody else.

We all perceive the world differently. We all may practice common language, culture, religion, politics, and the environment, but we all perceive them differently. We all appreciate art and music, but not similar ones; we favor different forms, instruments, singers and music.

Don't worry about me, I would be the first one to defend philosophy as a field. All I am saying is: some think that philosophy's purpose is to mock n' trash 'common sense' through and through, and replace it by a salmigondi of half-backed ideas supported by no evidence whatsoever. They end up confusing people rather than helping them undertand the world. That's not only useless, it is destructive. It can do serious harm to people who take these stupid games seriously.

Take igm for instance. He evidently knows intuitively that there are such things as cars, probably even owns one. This is really ultrabasic: a 4 yr old knows that. Heck, even a dog knows that cars exist. But someone put in igm's mind the completely ridiculous idea that cars do not exist, with some additional misconception that this is really the smart thing to believe, that only simple minds take cars for granted... And so he was dumbed down and confused by philosophy, rather than being helped by it.

Because structures are immaterial, some conceptual tools are required to understand them or even "see" them philosophically: eg the concepts of system, degrees of freedom, etc. These are modern scientific and mathematical concepts, and a true philosopher should avidely learn and use them to understand the modern world, rather than say prepostorous things like: "since my conceptual frameworks does not account for cars, ergo cars do not exist!" And of course, once their lecture is over, they drive their car home, unaware of the contradiction.

Another example of how lazy philosophers dumb down people is provided by the issue of conscience: because we can't yet figure out how conscience is created by neuronal activity, ergo conscience is an illusion... Somehow it cannot exist. And then they consciously think something like: "I guess... What other solution is there? That I am an idiot? NOOOO"

It's exactly like some medieval bishop saying: "since I can't imagine that the earth moves, therefore it doesn't move..." How ridiculously pretentious of them to think that reality must be bound by their imagination!

You are apparently under the impression that REALITY is dependent upon how you and other humans "perceive" it. You have no basis for that assertion.

I do not know if REALITY is dependent upon how humans perceive it.

I repeat: You have no basis for that assertion.

I would recommend to you, Olivier's comment:


But, ci, even if you were correct that REALITY IS DEPENDENT upon what humans imagine of it…or how we perceive it…

…that still would make REALITY objective…

…because that would describe what IS.

There is no way REALITY can be subjective…because if REALITY were “subjective”…that would make the subjectivity the objective REALITY.

Olivier...thank you for that quote.

Welcome, Frank.

Never understood what this discussion about the objectivity or subjectivity of reality was about though. Why can't it be both? Why can't you guys agree on something like: by definition, reality objectively exists, but by definition too, it can only be apprehended subjectively.