Reality - thing or phenomenon?

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Reality is.
But is reality an object in our experience?
Or is experience itself the phenomenon we name reality?

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Type: Question • Score: 11 • Views: 31,103 • Replies: 721

[+4] - rosborne979 - 06/25/2013It's both.
[+3] - Olivier5 - 07/02/2013[quote]When I refer to the yin-yang structure of the world my reference is not ontological, it's epistemological. As Fresco noted, most thinking is with reference to the poles of a dualistic...

@Cyracuz,

It's both.

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I find the conceit that reality only exists in our imaginations to be hilarious.

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Reality is.
But is reality an object in our experience?
Or is experience itself the phenomenon we name reality?

An object needs a subject to know the object.

An experience needs a subject to experience it.

If there is no subject... what then?

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@Setanta,

It might be. But when someone says "reality", what does that word refer to, as you see it?

Is it a thing or object which we perceive in what we call subjective experience?
Or is that experience the thing which the word "reality" refers to?

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Good questions. Perhaps we should eliminate the subjective-objective distinction. Experience is OUR reality. It is what it is, as it is occuring. I guess I am close to being a phenomenalist, but without theoretical certainty.

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@Cyracuz,

That the experience is subjective is not evidence that the "thing" is subjective. If you stub your toe on a rock, you experience of the rock is subjective--and painrul--but that doesn't mean that the rock only exists in your experience of it.

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@Setanta,

I do not disagree. But that is not my point.

My point is that there are two things we could be referring to when we use the word "reality".
One is the experience of existing. In a very real sense "reality is the experience of existence".

From that experience we have an idea of the other thing we may refer to with the word "reality". That is "the context in which experience takes place".

We perceive a difference between what we "subjectively experience" and what "objectively is", and depending on which perspective we start from, one is merely a product of the other.

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@Cyracuz,

I'm very happy for you.

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@igm,

Quote:

If there is no subject... what then?

A surveilance camera would work well in those circumstances...

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@JLNobody,

I agree that experience is our reality.
Leaving intuition out of it, though, I do not see how I can assert with certainty anything about a state of affairs independently of anyone's experience of it. It's logically contradictory, isn't it?

So yes, the subjective-objective distinction shouldn't matter unless we decide that reality is a materialistic object.
If we decide reality is "experience", speaking of something outside experience would be the same as saying outside reality.

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A zen anecdote might help here. Two monks were arguing about whether or not the movement of a flag was caused by the wind or whether the wind was moved by the flag. When a teacher passed by they asked him to arbitrate, to tell them which did the flapping, the flag or the wind. The teacher suggested that their minds might be doing the flapping. Mr. Green

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

I agree that experience is our reality.
Leaving intuition out of it, though, I do not see how I can assert with certainty anything about a state of affairs independently of anyone's experience of it. It's logically contradictory, isn't it?

So yes, the subjective-objective distinction shouldn't matter unless we decide that reality is a materialistic object.
If we decide reality is "experience", speaking of something outside experience would be the same as saying outside reality.

I suspect that you have decided that REALITY can only be what a human can experience.

I, on the other hand, consider that absurd.

Either of us may be correct; either of us may be incorrect; and considering the limits of human understanding...both of us could be correct or incorrect.

But...as I may have mentioned before...if REALITY is whatever the REALITY actually IS...(and I truly do not see how it can be anything other)...then REALITY is objective...

...WHATEVER IT IS.

To try to actually figure out WHAT IT IS...seems a step way, way too far.

But we can say that whatever it IS...that is what it is.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Quote:
If there is no subject... what then?

A surveilance camera would work well in those circumstances...

A surveillance camera doesn't prove there is a subject. The surveillance camera's film needs to be consciously apprehended or it is useless but it doesn't follow that consciousness needs a subject to be conscious of it because if that was the case you'd get an infinite regress.

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

"Consciousness

Infinite regress in consciousness is the formation of an infinite series of "inner observers" as we ask the question of who is observing the output of the neural correlates of consciousness in the study of subjective consciousness."

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

I'll leave the topic there... as in the last thread you did say you are not interested... and I'm more than happy to comply.

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@Frank Apisa,

If it is a "thing"...it is a thing; if it is a "phenomenon"...it is a phenomenon; if it is both...it is both; if it is neither...it is neither.

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@igm,

igm wrote:

Cyracuz wrote:

Reality is.
But is reality an object in our experience?
Or is experience itself the phenomenon we name reality?

An object needs a subject to know the object. An experience needs a subject to experience it.

If there is no subject... what then?

Is that some law that has just been passed?

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@igm,

A surveillance camera can reassure the most philosophically insecure among us about the permanence of things even when there's no observer around.

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@igm,

Previous post amended... new quote added for clarity.

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@igm,

igm wrote:

Previous post amended... new quote added for clarity.

Still isn't clear to me...in fact, it seems self-contradictory.

Here in what we call "the universe"...apparently there was a time when there were no "observers." Does that mean that there was no singularity...no Big Bang...no resulting universe? If so...how come there are observers now?

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@Frank Apisa,

I'm doing this:

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/be-pissing-in-the-wind

I'll leave the subject and stand by my last post.

3 Replies

Reality - thing or phenomenon?

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