The Half-life of Facts.

@Cyracuz,

How would you be able to reason and argue with me, if you are a cretin? And how do you know you are not a cretin?

If someone were to fire a gun at your head from behind, your brain and the **** that's in it would be splattered onto the wall faster than you could realize what's happening. Do you think you would be objectively dead, or still negotiating what part of that unperceived bullet reality killed you?

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Your behavior is entirely predictable.
Having failed to demonstrate that I am mistaken, you resort to this, as if you are butthurt by someone suggesting something to you that you cannot process.
I think you have reached your proverbial ceiling as far as this discussion goes. Now go and sit with Frank and all the other children who do not possess a clear enough understanding of language to participate properly.

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Then kindly demonstrate to me how we can detect any kind of reality outside of experience.

Why would I have to do that? My thesis is that there could be parts of reality that we haven't experienced yet. Maybe we'll find them with detectors we will build in the future. Maybe we'll infer them from parts of reality that we have detected. For example, I am convinced that gravity waves are for real. No experiment has detected them yet, but the general theory of relativity, which predicts them, is so thoroughly tested, and so triumphantly affirmed where tested, that I'm willing to accept its not-yet-tested predictions as real. But even if gravity waves will never be detected, that doesn't mean they aren't real. What you are asking me to demonstrate does not relate to what I'm saying.

Cyracuz wrote:

We have no means of proving or demonstrating that there is any kind of reality outside of experience.

Then what do you think accounts for the overwhelming degree of consistency between seven billion individual experiences?

1 Reply

@fresco,

I don't separate philosophy and ordinary, day-to-day life. I also hold those who do in contempt. They are fake philosophers who do not dare to live by their own philosophy. Like you and Cyr are: fakes and cretins. You don;t even believe a word of what you're peddling, and will soon abandon any reference to it when making ANY CHOICE in your life. Your philosophy is pure masturbation.

3 Replies

@Thomas,

Quote:

Then what do you think accounts for the overwhelming degree of consistency between seven billion individual experiences?

I don't know.
I also don't know if this consistency springs out of the fact that all seven billion of us have the same senses, or if it springs out of a common "background". Or it might be something else entirely. Something none of us have thought of.

I am not questioning the usefulness of the idea of mind-independent reality. I am questioning it's status as fact.

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@Olivier5,

Brilliant !

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

Look: a cretin giving orders now! Amazing. Where will they stop?

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Quote:

I don't separate philosophy and ordinary, day-to-day life.

Ok, so you are a naive-realist.

Quote:

I also hold those who do in contempt.

And you feel contempt towards those who would broaden their horizons by challenging their own preconceptions.

Now you just sound like a narcissistic asshole who gets pissed whenever someone performs better than you.

That kind of bitterness will only hurt yourself, Ollie. To us it's just entertainment.

2 Replies

@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Ok, so you are a naive-realist.

Argument by name-calling. So what if he is?

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

You keep calling us cretins.
And all the while you are the only one acting like a cretin...

1 Reply

@fresco,

Thanks! That was nothing brilliant though, just stating the obvious that armchair philosophers are wankers.

0 Replies

@Thomas,

Quote:

Argument by name-calling. So what if he is?

So nothing. But if he makes no distinction between philosophic thought and every-day pragmatic behavior, he is a naive-realist. That's not name calling anymore than calling you a physicist is name calling.

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

I call you cretins because that's what you are. And because you started it first, cretin.

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

That's not name calling anymore than calling you a physicist is name calling.

I've heard philosophers call me a physicist, and I've heard philosophers call me a naive realist. "Physicist" is usually uttered in a neutral tone, "Naive realist" usually in a somewhat pejorative tone. ("You seem like an intelligent guy. How come you're such a naive realist?") So yes, it does amount to name-calling. When was the last time you heard a philosopher call someone "a sophisticated realist"?

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

Quote:

Ok, so you are a naive-realist.

Because I don't keep my life and my philosophy separate, I am naive?

That's called being coherent. In normal English. English for non-cretins I mean.

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@Olivier5,

You are really making me laugh.
But I will stop responding to you now, since jabbing at your upset emotions only to make you more angry constitutes trolling, and I don't like trolling.

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

Get lost, cretin.

0 Replies

@Thomas,

In philosophy ,"naive realist" is a technical term which describes the position that objects exist independently of observers. But given the plethora of empirical evidence from psychology that perception is predominantly active not passive, the pejorative nuance suggested by the word "naive" tends to reflect ignorance of the perceptual evidence.

1 Reply

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

When was the last time the question of "the reality of a wall" arose in your life ?

Every day. My cat likes to play fetch. I throw his toy, he fetches it. If I throw it well, it goes down the hall, which gives the cat a good chase, much to his amusement and mine. If I throw poorly, the toy hits the wall and bounces back, much to our disappointment. We both share a deep appreciation for the reality of the wall.

fresco wrote:

That is a a fundamental point about the transience of context and the everyday usage of the word "reality".

No, it's not a fundamental point about anything. If your version of reality only deals with "controversial" aspects of the world, then what about those things that are non-controversial? Are they more or less "real?"

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Quote:
"Reality" can't be both the perception and the perceived

Can it be the "unperceived"? And if it's unperceived, how can you know that it's real?

By the same means as I know anything is real - through evidence that establishes its reality to my satisfaction. I know the Taj Mahal is real even though I've never perceived it. Do you think it isn't real?

Cyracuz wrote:

And maybe there is. My opinion is that such a world does not qualify to be called 'reality', since 'reality' is whatever we are experiencing.

If "reality" is whatever we're experiencing, isn't that the same thing as "experiencing?" What's the difference?

Cyracuz wrote:

And thinking of reality as a phenomenon of "world being experienced" is consistent with any definition of 'reality' we have, in any language, even if it is not consistent with the intuitive understanding of most humans.

I disagree both with your logic and your etymology.

1 Reply

The Half-life of Facts.

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