Reality - thing or phenomenon?

@Frank Apisa,

You wrote,

Quote:

And they wear poorly on you.

That's a BELIEF! LOL That's what you believe, and you have expressed it as an opinion.

Blind as a bat!

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

But as we all realize by now...Frank (Moi) does not have any beliefs. Name a single “belief” I have offered for consideration!

Reality is objective.
That's a belief you have.

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Don't be ridiculous Frank. Of course you have beliefs like everybody else !

For example you believe you understand what "to know" means even though shelves of books have been written on epistemological problems. You apparantly believe the crude heliocentric model of the earth going round the sun despite it being merely a simplistic picture of the mathematical model which implies they both rotate around a common centre of mass. You believe models such as this are "facts" in the lay sense of "independent truths", when they are actually useful constructions for astronomical purposes.

And then you have the cheek to accuse anybody who does not conform to the layman's view (aka naive realism) as promoting their "guesses" as" facts" when you don't even understand the functional view of facticity.

And you even hero worship an" agnostic" Einstein who certainly rejected your naive realism in a multitude of radical ways, not all of which turned out to be useful. How do you know Einsteins "agnosticism" was not based on his empirical defeat at the hand of quantum theorists over a probabilistic universe rather than (a Spinoza-esque) determinstic one ? ("God" turned out to play dice after all !)

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

You wrote,
Quote:
And they wear poorly on you.

That's a BELIEF! LOL That's what you believe, and you have expressed it as an opinion.

Blind as a bat!

It is an opinion, ci.

Everything is a belief with you.

0 Replies

@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Quote:
But as we all realize by now...Frank (Moi) does not have any beliefs. Name a single “belief” I have offered for consideration!

Reality is objective.
That's a belief you have.

REALITY is objective is not a belief of mine. I have explained why REALITY has to be objective.

1 Reply

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Don't be ridiculous Frank. Of course you have beliefs like everybody else !

No, Fresco...stop being ridiculous yourself. Not everybody has beliefs. And I am one who does not.

Quote:

For example you believe you understand what "to know" means even though shelves of books have been written on epistemological problems.

It is my opinion that I understand what "to know" means...and I have carefully indicated that truly "knowing" something is quite difficult. But I am willing to consider "know" to mean the kind of thing that it denotes in comments like:

I know I am currently in my den typing at a keyboard.

I know the name on my birth certificate is Frank Apisa.

I know I live in New Jersey.

I know this discussion is occurring on an Internet forum called A2K.

If that is not good enough for you...shame on you.

Quote:

You apparantly believe the crude heliocentric model of the earth going round the sun despite it being merely a simplistic picture of the mathematical model which implies they both rotate around a common centre of mass. You believe models such as this are "facts" in the lay sense of "independent truths", when they are actually useful constructions for astronomical purposes.

I am an amateur astronomer...and I understnad the common center of mass. Stop assuming that because I am not as smart as you...I must be stupid. You are very intelligent...and there is a great deal of room between "as intelligent as you"...and "stupid."

Quote:

And then you have the cheek to accuse anybody who does not conform to the layman's view (aka naive realism) as promoting their "guesses" as" facts" when you don't even understand the functional view of facticity.

Try that in English.

Quote:

And you even hero worship an" agnostic" Einstein who certainly rejected your naive realism in a multitude of radical ways, not all of which turned out to be useful. How do you know Einsteins "agnosticism" was not based on his empirical defeat at the hand of quantum theorists over a probabilistic universe rather than (a Spinoza-esque) determinstic one ? ("God" turned out to play dice after all !)

Please, if you do not have something better to offer than that...you ought to keep quiet. Einstein lived not far where I live...and I have enjoyed revelling in his intelligence and contributions. I do not really do hero-worship.

Anything else?

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@Frank Apisa,

You have explained why you believe it must be. I understand what you believe. I just don't believe it myself.

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

I enjoy so much how Fresco and Cyracuz convince me that I am not completely wrong. Very Happy

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@Cyracuz,

Quote:

This is a matter of perspective, as I see it. In the context of old western natural science, I agree with you. You also seem to realize that rationality and logic aside, both answers to your question are assumptions.

Everything is an assumption, Cyr. Some stronger than others.

You mean according to modern science. And it's not western anymore but global now. According to sheer logic, too. It is simply impossible to imagine a universe where life would appear before what sustains life, e.g. A planet, a sun, etc. Of course you are welcome to beleive old fairy tale like the Genesis or any other creation myth where man is created first and the rest later... but modern science is much more convincing for me.

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

You have explained why you believe it must be. I understand what you believe. I just don't believe it myself.

I have never explained why I "believe" anything...so that is simply something you made up. I do not do believing...whether you accept that or not.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Some people stay "stuck" on the bible's literal translation, while others say it's only contextual which tells a story for most illiterate people to understand.

When we observe how religions have taken over people's understanding of "reality," their belief in an afterlife, and man created in god's image, there's not much anybody else can do to convince them otherwise.

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@Frank Apisa,

In other words, you believe in "not believing." LOL

1 Reply

@JLNobody,

Quote:

O.K., "the world out there"--that's what I mean by naive realism. It's all a matter of perspectives and interpretations. Your half-world out there is only half-real. In my interpretive version I am talking about the dynamic interaction between the real universe "out there" and the real universe "in here"...their combination is my real world, a least for now.

I find your irrealism rather naive too. The world out there is not half the world, it is the real thing. The world in your mind is not half the world, it is only a representation, a picture of the world. A mock-up.

If a man dies in his sleep, without waking up, is he still half alive because he didn't die in his mental representation og the world?

In any case, you seem to realize that there is a world out there, outside of our minds. That's more than all the Frescos (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, n) and Cyracuse can say.

0 Replies

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

In other words, you believe in "not believing." LOL

No, ci...I know I do not do "believing."

You seem to think that just about everything is believing.

1 Reply

@fresco,

Quote:

Notice that your demands for yes/no answers are demands for agreement and that is all the usage of the word "reality" is about.

I couldn't care less for agreement. Disagreement is more fun.

Quote:

Insofar that that proposition makes sense for current scientific/paradigmatic purposes . I can agree with it.

Is that a yes?

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Your making the statement "I know" is based on belief - whether it's right or wrong, it's an opinion.

2 Replies

@cicerone imposter,

Frank holds what you and I would call beliefs, but he calls them something else.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

If you are asking whether I have a picture in my mind's eye of a "space" occupied by material entities prior to myself as an observer, which has explanatory relevance to what I observe today, the answer is "yes".

If on the other hand you are asking whether I think such a picture is representative of a "reality" independent of its explanatory import for today's human purposes, the answer is "no".

Realists should note (naive or otherwise) that such pictures are subject to paradigmatic shifts...steady state...big bang....continuous creation....manifold collision of multiverses.....etc, etc. And they should also note that "time" (as implied by "prior") is generally acknowledged as a psychological construct, whose direction may be associated with the second law of thermodynamics but NOT most of physics in which "time's direction can be taken in either direction for the equations to work.

1 Reply

@fresco,

Not at all. The question still was: did our universe exist before life appeared on this planet. Your answer was so convoluted... It looked like a yes but I wasn't sure.

The larger issue is: can something exist even when no human or animal (or "sentient entity/being" - let's not exclude aliens and gods) is observing it?

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Your making the statement "I know" is based on belief - whether it's right or wrong, it's an opinion.

An opinion is an opinion, ci. If some people want to pretend it is more...and want to say it is a belief...that is their right.

I do not do it.

I call my opinions...opinions.

Stop telling me I must call them beliefs, because you do not have the power to enforce that ruling.

0 Replies

Reality - thing or phenomenon?

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