Reality - thing or phenomenon?

@Cyracuz,

Photoshop can do amazing things with original photos. Mr. Green

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@Cyracuz,

It adds the capacity to RECORD and watch the tape LATER. Unless you assume that the future can influence the past, taping a vid and watching it say 2 years later provides IMO solid, undeniable proof that objects do not disappear once nobody observes them.

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@Cyracuz,

I suggest "reality" is (simply) a state of affairs with which those present in a particular context agree. In a monastry, "God's presence" is a reality. In Azande culture "acts of witchcraft " are a reality. In modern science "atoms" are a functional reality (only since 1900 we might note, and for how long this will the case, nobody can tell).
Cultures and scientific paradigms inevitably shift and carry their "reality" with them. So to say any more than this is to argue for a hypothetical "ultimate reality" which has psychological rather than ontological status
And if we attempt to take a transcendent step and say that this view (changing states of agreement) describes the "ultimate reality" we lose that essential feature of the functional meaning of the word (to inform our actions and decisions).

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@fresco,

Quote:

I suggest "reality" is (simply) a state of affairs with which those present in a particular context agree.

I don't agree. Therefore this sentence above does not represent reality.

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@Olivier5,

I do agree. Therefore this (Fresco's) sentence above does represent "my" reality.
Cryacuz' OP poses a false issue, the opportunity to realize that it is our heads that are flapping.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Quote:
I suggest "reality" is (simply) a state of affairs with which those present in a particular context agree.

I don't agree. Therefore this sentence above does not represent reality.

Strange as it may seem...I agree with Olivier.

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@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

I do agree. Therefore this (Fresco's) sentence above does represent "my" reality.
Cryacuz' OP poses a false issue, the opportunity to realize that it is our heads that are flapping.

And are we to accept your guess that we each have a separate REALITY...and there is no ultimate REALITY?

Why is that? Why is the possibility that there is a REALITY totally divorced from any human considerations...to be discarded?

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@Olivier5,

@fresco,
Quote:

Quote:

I suggest "reality" is (simply) a state of affairs with which those present in a particular context agree.

Olivier:

Quote:

I don't agree. Therefore this sentence above does not represent reality.

Seems to me like a particular contextual agreement going on - even in disagreement - based on subjective perceptions.

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@cicerone imposter,

Do you really think the universe needs human beings in order to exist, ci?

What about rats? Aren't their observations good enough for the universe to exist?

What about squids? Not good enough for the universe?

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

Do you really think the universe needs human beings in order to exist, ci?

What about rats? Aren't their observations good enough for the universe to exist?

What about squids? Not good enough for the universe?xsa

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

You asked,

Quote:

Do you really think the universe needs human beings in order to exist, ci?

That's a silly question. Why not ask "if the earth didn't exist?" DUH!

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

That's indeed a silly question. Glad we agree on that.

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@JLNobody,

Quote:

Cryacuz' OP poses a false issue, the opportunity to realize that it is our heads that are flapping.

Or perhaps the rats' and mice's heads... So few human beings, so many rats. We can't be doing all the flapping... Rolling Eyes

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@Olivier5,

Humans must exist for a human reality/universe to exist since it's their construct. In principle the same applies to rats and squids.

1 Reply

Yes, rats and squids also have a mental representation of reality "in their head", and I bet you they don't doubt its faithfulness to reality too often in their life. They don't have the luxury of being armchair philosophers I guess... Smile

Mental images and smells and sounds and feelings are all there for a reason: a question of survival. Find cheese, avoid cats.

This mental world of ours, this spatial information management system inside our head, this virtual, sensual reality with its colors coding of light wave length, its cool stereophonic surround sound rendering of air waves, its chemical analytics disguised as the smell of a rose... is both fake on a fundamental (ontological, Fresco would say) level, and truest to the real world out there, most functional for survival, and hundreds of times more beautiful than anything you could replace it with...

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@Olivier5,

Well put.

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@Olivier5,

Now, you're sayin sumtn

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@Olivier5,

Agreement on "mental representations" may be largely due to common physiology, and in the case of humans, a common language. But remove physiology from the picture and the word "reality" becaomes vacuous.

The argument that "the universe can exist without observers" is still a potentially shifting mental picture in the mind's eye of a current observer with an operative physiology. Such a statement may have fuctionality for current actions, and that is all that can be said.

Once again, I point out the difference between psychological status and ontological status.

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@fresco,

Whence the mental representation? Whence the common physiology? Whence the common language? The vacuity lies in the conceit that our inability to accurately describe reality at any given moment is evidence that there is no reality.

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@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

Humans must exist for a human reality/universe to exist since it's their construct. In principle the same applies to rats and squids.

Why is that, JL. Because your belief system says it has to be?

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Reality - thing or phenomenon?

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