Reality is relative, not absolute.

@JLNobody,

Earth seen from Pluto is no less real then Earth seen from Earth...
...layer up or layer down absoluteness is the same...the illusion is to suppose the opposite.

You are surrounded by nothing but sheer pure stupendous indestructible absoluteness all around you.

...hopefully this will shake your old age boring resignation... Wink

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@JLNobody,

Quote:

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"--

Never thought I would find something you wrote to be more worthy of the description "blather" than what Fresco writes regularly, JL...

...but you have outdone yourself here.

There is absolutely nothing about discussing the ultimate REALITY that in any way ought be considered to connote religion.

It can be discussed...and you two often do discuss it. It ought not to be discussed the way you two do...offering assertions about it nature...what it contains and what it does not.

It can be discussed logically by simply finally acknowledging that which seems unbearable to you guys...that whatever the REALITY is...that is what it IS.

We seem unable to comprehend what it is...we seem unable to come to it using logic...we cannot describe it...

...but once we concede that it is whatever it IS...

...we have established that it is an absolute...not a relative.

I defy either of you guys to create a scenario in which the REALITY is not objective...is not an absolute.

Do it if you can...or be man enough to acknowledge that you cannot.

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@Frank Apisa,

And don’t for one second suppose that Fresco’s constant appeals to authority are not actually appeals to authority.

If he were to cite what one of those authorities theorize…and say he agrees or disagrees…that would bring it into the discussion without being an appeal to authority.

Fresco doesn’t do that. Fresco brings the authorities into the discussion essentially saying, “Jones says such and such…therefore…such and such is the case.

Giving him a pass on that is simply more blather on your part, JL.

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank, after submitting my last post, I thought that it was largely unclear, what I thought you may have meant by "blather". But I see that you were referring to my support of your nemesis, Fresco. I was saying, admittedly not too clearly, that Hiedegger's reference to things-at-hand was a policy committment to what is empirically real or actual as compared to what is metaphysically hypothetical. I get the feeling that your committment to Is-ness qualifies it as among the religious absolutes like Truth, Tao, God (with a capital "G"), and Dharma. I don't consider that to be a disparagement of you any more than would Be-ing be a disparagement of Hiedeggar's form of existentialism.

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@Frank Apisa,

The problem as always Frank, is that you bring nothing to the discussion but your own ignorance. You exacerbate that ignorance by attempting to denigrate acknowledged original thinkers in these matters by assigning them to the trash can you simplistically call "fresco's authorities". Actually, if you assigned them to the category "thinkers whom Frank hasn't got a cat in hell's chance of understanding" you would at least be honest.

Nobody familiar with Heidegger would take him as omniscient, given his links with Nazism. What he did accomplish however was a clever sidestepping of ordinary language, and in doing so was able to point to aspects of our "being" which had hitherto remained obscure. In short he sidestepped the normal philosophical mode of analysis about "subjects contemplating objects". Thus to talk about a word "reality" and assign it to the category "objective thing" is about as futile as as trying to cut butter with butter.

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@JLNobody,

JL...the reason I called your post "blather"...is because it was blather.

You and Fresco want to suggest that you know what the ultimate REALITY is...mostly by telling us what it isn't.

There IS something going on here. I am...that I know. Unlike you two, there is nothing I can with certainty about the circumstances...other than I am here.

It may be that your guesses, which you never offer as guesses, are correct...in which case, I am part of a whole...and not an "I" at all.

It is sad that two intelligent individuals as you two are not able to get past your egos and acknowledge that you do not know...and your suppositions about what is happening MAY BE TOTALLY WRONG.

Not doing so...is, in the context of this discussion...BLATHER.

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@fresco,

Quote:

The problem as always Frank, is that you bring nothing to the discussion but your own ignorance.

No, Fresco...I bring quite a bit more than that...but I understand you cannot even acknowledge that.

No problem. I get a kick out of it.

Especially when you act the fool using all that babble.

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@Frank Apisa,

Yes I understand your fly fishing mode. Its your way of fooling about on philosophy threads without needing to do any work. That's why you are on ignore most of the time. This thread however was a response to one of your pseudo-challenges and as such it has generated some interesting exchanges of clips and references irrespective of your non-participation.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Is this "is" the same as this "is" ?

A famous politician once said:

Quote:

It depends on what your definition of is is

I may be paraphrasing. But what the heck. He's a politician. You can't count on him for truth.

We should have no need for the term "absolute reality"
Reality is what it is. Whether we can describe it or not.
The thought that 'reality' or 'absolute' may be relative is more than an oxymoron. It is moronic thought.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Yes I understand your fly fishing mode. Its your way of fooling about on philosophy threads without needing to do any work. That's why you are on ignore most of the time. This thread however was a response to one of your pseudo-challenges and as such it has generated some interesting exchanges of clips and references irrespective of your non-participation.

You are as wrong about my "non-participation" as you are about the nonsense that the REALITY is relative.

I've challenged you in two threads to present the makings of a relative REALITY...and you have come up with nothing. I understand why...because it is an impossibility. Whatever you can invent...can be shown to be an absolute.

You've painted yourself into a corner...and now are pretending it is not a corner...or that this is what you intended all the time.

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@neologist,

Quote:

We should have no need for the term "absolute reality"

I agree.

Quote:

Reality is what it is. Whether we can describe it or not.

No. Reality is what is agreed about in particular contexts involving like minded participants. Christians tend to hold "the reality of Jesus as the Son of God" to be axiomatic. And so it is for them.!

Quote:

The thought that 'reality' or 'absolute' may be relative is more than an oxymoron. It is moronic thought.

No. The thought that the meaning of the word "reality" is anything but relative to its contextual usage is a simplistic common sense position at odds with the philosophy of language..

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

. . . No. Reality is what is agreed about in particular contexts involving like minded participants. Christians tend to hold "the reality of Jesus as the Son of God" to be axiomatic. And so it is for them.!

I am a Christian. But I understand my perception of the reality of Jesus is just that: a perception.
But a dad blamed good perception, I'll aver. I'd stake my life on it.

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@neologist,

Are you really going to agree with Fresco...that what IS...isn't what IS?

C'mon, Neo.

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Read the post he was responding to:
http://able2know.org/topic/247211-13#post-5911253

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@neologist,

Why say "just A perception" ? Perception is all we have and it's an active dynamic process. I am an atheist but I assume that your theistic perception informs your ongoing praxis of living and your self integrity. Indeed the very essence of its "reality" is that it is rarely questioned as it is part of your "being". You don't have to "stake your life on it" because it is integral to "your life". Removing it would constitute a different "you".

I think I have discussed the point above that the word "reality" is rarely used outside the artificial philosophy situation except in cases where consensual agreement is being questioned. We don't question the "reality" of non-controversial concepts like "trees". Only the philosopher points out that words like "tree" stand for human concepts and language uniquely facilitates our prediction of our interactions our quasi-permanent world. (Yesterday's tree is functionally the same as today's tree and tomorrow's tree even though its structure is changing all the time at the physical level). The philosopher might also point out that a major psychological attraction of the concept "God" is precisely its transcendence of change by assigning to it a permanent eternal quality.

1 Reply

@fresco,

Quote:

The philosopher might also point out that a major psychological attraction of the concept "God" is precisely its transcendence of change by assigning to it a permanent eternal quality.

This is true but have you given a deep thought on why it is so powerful ?
Just imagine what infinitely open change would imply...no regularities of any kind, no cyclic change whatsoever...full open change with infinite diversity in quality would render the Universe pure chaos...absolutely unintelligible.
Now to go on about your one liner, because in spite of your criticism of Frank economy in words and ideas you are just as guilty of not speaking about nothing else but social agreement on the meaning of reality, again, to go on it, what is the alternative ? Isn't our pragmatical everyday experience, our own agreement informing us at every moment that the world we live in is regular to the point where agreement is possible ? The very fact that we can communicate with each other stands in the way of your own idea that there is no special order in the Cosmos...

if we simplify the idea of "God" to pure mathematical unity in reality, which is the most abstract notion of "love"/"relation", then perhaps there is more to talk about on the matter then it meets the eye...we don't have to go on mocking the Abrahamic fantasy to make a case for a rational idea of God. Just like Spinoza Einstein himself had one.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Well you may have a point. I would merely argue that humans appear to be relatively unique in their ability to predict and control their world via human language. They also appear to be unique in their psychological requirements for a deity to fill in their "control" gaps. We are uniquely "ordering creatures". That is presumably all that "intelligibility" is about.
Now our form of communication may be no more than an extension of the communication process common to all life (Maturana) or it may be a "quantum leap" of level potentially possible for other species. I don't think it matters whether we classify it as a matter of degree or a matter of difference.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

The great irony of our time is that there is no greater no better no more solid defence for the idea of God then the belief on the premiss of Science itself.
Hoping the world is intelligible is hoping God is true...

...in the end of the day one can't help but laugh while the circus marches on...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Quote:

Hoping the world is intelligible is hoping God is true...

Indeed, but science does not require nor postulate that the world is intelligible.

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@fresco,

Quote:

I would merely argue that humans appear to be relatively unique in their ability to predict and control their world via human language.

There is no way an intelligent person can reasonably go from that to the ASSERTION: Reality is relative, not absolute. Further, there is no way an intelligent person can reasonably suggest that anything you have said here...including that babble in your OP...substantiates the ASSERTION: Reality is relative, not absolute.

You said in the beginning you were going to meet my challenge to present anything that resembled a reality that is relative...and not absolute.

It cannot be done...and by now, surely you recognize that. But you are still insisting you have met the challenge.

That is a sad thing. It makes me upset with myself to realize I am getting a such a kick out of watching you pretend you have.

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Reality is relative, not absolute.

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