The Half-life of Facts.

@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Then you lost too. Congratulations.

Thanks for the congratulations...but I did not lose whatever it is you are supposing I lost.

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Quote:
If there's no reality independent of our perception, what enabled evolution to consistently favor some specific features in our ancestors' physiology?

It may be that evolution favors some specific features in perception. I do not propose to know how precisely that might work.

When you finally get to the point where you no longer propose to know what you truly do not know...

...you will finally be there.

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@Cyracuz,

You appear to play the faith card and the religion card. Go right ahead. I'm comfortable describing myself as a believer in a minimalistic, two-tenet religion. (1: Believe in facts to the extent that the balance of the evidence supports them. 2: Believe in norms to the extent that they increase the surplus of happiness over suffering, aggregated over all beings capable of feeling them.) If this religion of mine is a problem, the problem is yours, not mine.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

You are confusing our perceptions of REALITY (actually, our ability to perceive REALITY) with REALITY.

Don't lay your confusion on me, Frank. Our actual ability to perceive reality is the only ruler by which we can possibly determine if anything is real or not.

There is a difference between a projector and a projection.
That does not mean you can get a projection without a projector.
Perception/reality may exist in a similar relationship.
I'm not saying it does. I'm saying it might.
We cannot know.

Quote:

You, on the other hand, are limiting REALITY to only that which humans experience or can experience.

Why???

Because that is all we can be definitely sure certain exists. Everything else is fantasy!

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

My point is that each of these can only be determined by experience. That you exist and experience is a prerequisite for determining any of these things.

I don't think any realist denies that. But just because I can't determine what reality is, it doesn't follow that there is no reality. For example, consider the sentence "There are n birds flying in the air right now". I wouldn't know how to determine the value of n that would make this sentence true. Does it follow that there is no such value? I think this conclusion would be absurd. And yet it seems to be required by your, excuse my language, paradigm.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

When you finally get to the point where you no longer propose to know what you truly do not know...

...you will finally be there.

Been here for a while. Don't see you here though. You're over by those claiming to know that which cannot be known.

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@Thomas,

No, Thomas, it would not be a problem.
I have my own beliefs, and I'm not afraid to admit it. Those beliefs aren't being discussed here, though.

My only point with the religion comparison is that if a person refuses to acknowledge that "absolute reality" is an assumption, and thinks of it as fact or truth, justifies this by faith. Perhaps it is just faith in their own misconceptions of what 'fact' is.

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

It may be that evolution favors some specific features in perception. I do not propose to know how precisely that might work.

You don't have to. As long as you acknowledge its mere existence, you acknowledge that it's part of reality. And as long as you acknowledge that evolution happened independent of our consciousness --- which shaped our consciousness by way of shaping our bodies after all --- you acknowledge that there exists at least one piece of absolute reality.

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@Thomas,

You are using "perception" as though it were equivalent to "cognitive experience". Perception can be envisaged as an interactive process between inner and outer "states". It is mediated by "experience" (in humans via language) to the extent that the process can be "interfered with" by contextual cognitive requirements.( see for example: Green and Swets classic on "Signal Detection Theory"). "Reality" is about "payoffs", or "what matters" in the domain of experience.

As far as "evolution" is concerned, it lies exclusively within a biological paradigm. But that paradigm is insufficient to explain the enhanced "environmental control abilities" of humans relative to other species. Biology may seen as a necessary substrate for some of the essential mechanics of perception but not a sufficient one for cognition. Nor can we utilize concepts of "logic" or "reason" to account for cognition since they are products of it.

You are essentially using a covert reductionist view of science which implies the ultimate reality of axioms. I am countering with the transient utility of axioms.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

You are essentially using a covert reductionist view science which implies the ultimate reality of axioms. I am countering with the transient utility of axioms.

I object to you calling me a covert reductionist. I am a loud and proud reductionist.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

But just because I can't determine what reality is, it doesn't follow that there is no reality.

Agreed. But I only know that because I experience reality.

Quote:

"There are n birds flying in the air right now". I wouldn't know how to determine the value of n that would make this sentence true. Does it follow that there is no such value?

Yes. But that does not mean there are no birds flying in the air right now. It just means that we don't know how many, and so the question "how many birds are flying right now" has no factual answer.

Quote:

I think this conclusion would be absurd. And yet it seems to be required by your, excuse my language, paradigm.

It's not so much a paradigm as the temporary suspension of one; the notion of mind-independent reality.

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Quote:
But just because I can't determine what reality is, it doesn't follow that there is no reality.

Agreed. But I only know that because I experience reality.

It seems we're in an infinite loop.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

And as long as you acknowledge that evolution happened independent of our consciousness --- which shaped our consciousness by way of shaping our bodies after all --- you acknowledge that there exists at least one piece of absolute reality.

The notion that consciousness evolved out of an unconscious world is another paradigm. Given the apparent mind - body relationship, it is not unreasonable to say that evolution works on the mind as much as it does on the body. Who's to say which shaped which?

Quote:

As long as you acknowledge its mere existence, you acknowledge that it's part of reality.

I acknowledge the existence of evolution theory, yes. And I acknowledge that the theory is part of reality. Incomprehensible to anyone without human language, but still part of reality.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

It seems we're in an infinite loop.

I bet that's how a dog chasing his tail feels. Ultimately, our only justification for assuming "absolute reality" is that we experience reality.
In the next breath you turn around and say that there is "absolute reality" because we can experience reality.
No wonder it feels like a loop.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Negotiation +common need +common physiology.

Negotiation about what?

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

I bet that's how a dog chasing his tail feels. Ultimately, our only justification for assuming "absolute reality" is that we experience reality.

Perhaps you would, and maybe in your reality it is. But if your reality is whatever you're experiencing, it need have no effect on my reality, so what should I care?

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

My point is that each of these can only be determined by experience. That you exist and experience is a prerequisite for determining any of these things.

No, you're saying that experiencing is reality. If you're just saying that reality can only be known through perception, you're not saying anything that Berkeley didn't say over 200 years ago.

Cyracuz wrote:

Unless, of course, you subscribe to the notion of "absolute reality".

I have no idea what that term means. You can fight with Frank about that one.

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Who's to say which shaped which?

The geological record, the genomes of countless species, and the findings of neurophysiology. Together, they establish a clear record of our consciousness emerging from our brains, our brains being organs of our bodies, and our bodies having descended from much simpler, one-celled bodies that were incapable of conscious perception.

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1. Reductionism is philosophical nonsense because "the whole" defines "the parts" not vice versa.

2. Those who want to dabble with "consciousness" are first advised to consult this archive of over 7000 academic papers on the subject.
http://consc.net/online

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@joefromchicago,

Negotiation about what constitutes a mutually agreed statement of "what is the case" usually with respect to "what to do next".

1 Reply

The Half-life of Facts.

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