Reality is relative, not absolute.

It seems clear to me that human beings exist within the model of reality which they construct for themselves. We interact with our senses and we interpret the data they give us.

The first model we instinctively construct is the "common sense" model in which our brains essentially test the model against external feedback and ultimately against self preservation (survival). This is the model which gives us our daily reality and prevents us from walking off a cliff. If that model fails we die and the model is erased.

We also construct logical and mathematical and theoretical models which we overlay onto our "common sense". This gives us a deeper model of the universe around us which we cannot touch or perceive with our natural senses, but which we can deduce from the next layer of modeling.

But ultimately we only interact with our "model" of reality. This doesn't mean that an underlying physical reality doesn't exist, only that we never interact with it directly.

Because of this, Loren Eiseley called us "The Dream Animal" and wrote a chapter on it in one of his books.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Seems clear enough to me, Fil.

Apparently Fresco cannot find an authority to whom he can appeal to refute what seems to be the obvious…and something many of us have been saying for over a decade on this subject here in this forum.

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@rosborne979,

Once again, Rosborne…all that can be so (and I suspect it is so)…which reinforces my suggestion that Fresco has regularly been dealing with comprehension and attempts at descriptions of the REALITY…rather than with the REALITY itself.

The REALITY itself…whatever it might be…is the objective ultimate REALITY.

(Fresco, I realize e prime was insulted big time in that last paragraph of mine, but e prime is an abomination...a rationalization pretending to be an intellectual exercise.0

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Here is a more short more tangible version of deep learning:

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@rosborne979,

Quote:

This doesn't mean that an underlying physical reality doesn't exist, only that we never interact with it directly.

The pragmatists' question might be "exist for whom ?". Since we cannot interact with "it", who can ? God ? And even if there are aspects of what we call " the physical world" we have yet to "uncover", who can say what proportion of "it" still remains to be uncovered. It could be potentially infinite in extent. Surely this "uncovering" can simply be replaced by the idea of potentially unlimited future constructions between observer and observed. In short what we call "existence" and "reality" both may simply be useful concepts satisfying contextual human needs.

Reading philosophers like Heidegger requires us to radically revise our common sense notions of words like "being" which he contrasts with our linguistic conditioning which traditionally focuses on "beingS". This is NOT to cite Heidegger as an authority (much as Frank would like it to be Wink

) but to recognize his importance in the critical examination of "common sense", which is one driving force behind philosophy.

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@fresco,

Fresco...to suggest in any way that you do not engage in repetitive appeals to authority is denial on your part on a cosmic scale.

Go back to school and learn the difference between comprehension and description of the REALITY...and the REALITY.

You simply have not got a good perspective on that.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

Go back to school and learn the difference between comprehension and description of the REALITY...and the REALITY.

I did. You didn't!
I learned that there was no operational difference and the distinction was functionally meaningless. All that matters is how perceptions inform subsequent action, and how those actions informed subsequent perceptions.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Quote:
Go back to school and learn the difference between comprehension and description of the REALITY...and the REALITY.

I did. You didn't!
I learned that there was no operational difference and the distinction was functionally meaningless. All that matters is how perceptions inform subsequent action, and how those actions informed subsequent perceptions.

You still don't get it, Fresco.

But that's the way it is with religious zealots.

No need for anyone to hold it against you...and I, for one, would love to sit and have a beer while talking about a favorite movie or book.

Or...why I think you don't get it.

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@fresco,

Well Fresco we are back to the pseudo conundrum of the tree in the Forest...

...but the honest Philosopher, which should be the only kind worth paying attention, has to be confronted with the discrepancy on what he claims to doubt while on philosopher hat mode and what he really doubts has a person...

....I am absolutely sure you don't doubt for a minute the flowers in your garden are growing overnight in spite you not being aware of it nor witnessing its process...

..."God" forbid my heart stop beating every time I am not aware of it.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

The best possible most extreme example on just how much this is true could even be addressed at illusions themselves...after all isn't it an illusion a real illusion if it indeed is an illusion ? Illusions in order to be illusions have to be factual...that is to say that X is X not Y. Whatever frame of reference you point to in the first place you just established an absolute. A phenomena whichever phenomena it is, is per se an absolute. The order of phenomena in a chain of cause is irrelevant on this regard as ontology is concerned. All experience is true as experience. What is relative, dependent is the order or context on which X given phenomena occurs regularly.

As means of example and more recently with the proliferation of online games I find it quite entertaining when I hear people make the distinction between their virtual life from their "real" life...it just shows how little control people have over concepts.

I missed part of this when I commented on it earlier. Just wanted to add to my previous comment.

I acknowledge I use that term...making a distinction between virtual life and "real" life...even though I easily can see that my virtual life is a part of my "real" life.

Just a convenience.

For some reason, this reminded me of the expression that if there is a GOD...one of its qualities has to be that it is a supernatural being.

If there is a GOD...it is a part of nature. It is not supernatural at all.

Whatever actually is...no matter how bizarre or beyond our ability to comprehend or describe...is a part of the REALITY.

And whatever it IS...it IS.

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@Frank Apisa,

Hard to disagree with that Frank. Keep it simple. Simple is good.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Oh yes....the flowers in the garden.....the continuity of identity over time....the caterpillar that becomes the butterfly.....the self as a child and the self of the adult.....the persistence of memory ..... Smile

Is not CONTEXTUAL FUNCTIONALITY what it is all about ?

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Even better...the stone head on a sculpture of a man; the plaster of Paris head on a plaster of Paris rendering of a man; the bronze head on a bronze casting of a man; or the (figuratively) concrete head of a man arguing on the Internet trying to defend an inherently flawed concept about the true nature of the REALITY of existence.

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@Frank Apisa,

I wonder what inspiration one could get from Spackle?

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Oh yes....the flowers in the garden.....the continuity of identity over time....the caterpillar that becomes the butterfly.....the self as a child and the self of the adult.....the persistence of memory .....
Is not CONTEXTUAL FUNCTIONALITY what it is all about ?

No one denies process nor does not denying it changes a tid bit of what I said.
Archetypes are eternal. Changes happen within spacetime. So what ?

Does that X configuration in the Rubik's cube has stopped being a possibility when you changed it ? Wont it eventually repeat ?

You see my long term message to you has been that you put to much faith in change with no grounds, but obviously it can't make any sense...I for one have nothing against the idea of cyclic change. That one has grounds and is confined within ratios. It changes nothing regarding Beingness.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Quote:

Archetypes are eternal.

Who said ? Plato ?
The counterargument is of course that archetypes are human functional constructions. Persistence is relative to our lifespan and our physiology.

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@fresco,

Here is the modern version Fresco:

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@Fil Albuquerque,

No...I can't see what statistical speculation has to do with it. "Sameness" and "difference" are defined functionally, not physically. Trivially any two things are both similar and different. Trivially they are similar because they are objects of a single comparison, and they are different because there are two of them.
Heidegger's description of "things ready to hand" and "present at hand" as evoked by a Dasein (a human engaged in the praxis of living) is the primary experientail norm. That is not to say that scientific contemplation of things qua "objects" cannnot be dealt with, but as secondary levels of task operations. Anthropocentric "at handedness" for Heidegger is primary for "thinghood". That gives some insight into cultural classifications of (say) divisions of nutritious material into "food" and "non-food" (e.g. halal). "Things" are "what fit the bill" and their apparent permanence is essentially suggested by the abstract permanence of the words in our (human) cultures.

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@fresco,

You rather want to mean that degrees of sameness or difference have functional contexts on which they operate at peak efficiency...so what ? None of it denies what I am ascertaining here. I don't need to go on about the exact atomic composition of chocolate ice cream to state that I have two chocolate ice creams in the table in front of me. I just don't need a further layer of deeper resolution to perform the function regarding chocolate ice cream...

...how does this invalidates the concept of archetypes in the modern context I just presented you ?
You Fresco and all your gibberish are immortal...be pleased...
Your atomic structure and even world context atomic structure around you belong to a set of orderly placed pieces and functions that has a possibility of arrangement within X space and that will always be possible to repeat long after your present self is gone.

In that sense your archetype, your formula, is your soul, your Nature !

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@fresco,

Interesting and enlightening comment, Fresco. One can see how your references to such "authorities" as Heidegger is more than mere appeal to authority. His notion of things "ready" and "present" at hand is relevant to our discussions of reality with a small "r", i.e., having to do with our actual cognitive efforts in everyday life (the praxis of dealing with life and people--as in our A2K expressions of combative philosophy). Reality with a large "R", on the other hand, is not a valid issue for the aforementioned conduct of combative philosophy--something I've come to find boring in my old age. Reality (with a large "R") connotes "Religion"--as found in the transcendtal notions of Brahma, Tao, Dharma, and even Truth, it is a grand hypothetical, referring to something like a final Ground of our fleeting being. As in the case of the religiosity implied by the use of the grand Absolutes listed above there is virtually nothing we can say. It has to do with the spiritual fervor of religious speculation as opposed to the practical issues of ordinary debate about what is real and what can be dismissed as unreal. The use of God by fundamentalist Christians I have observed has more to do with debate in the context of reality with a small "r". And this is, as far as I can see, not Religion of the form about which we must remain silent.

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Reality is relative, not absolute.

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