Reality is relative, not absolute.

Oh dear ! Can nobody understand that arguments about "reality" are futile ? The pragmaticist's position post-phenomenology is that dichotomies like materialism-idealism, subject-object, are analytical postures based on ontological assumptions that may never be substantiated. What matters is "what works" at various levels of prediction and control.

3 Replies

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Oh dear ! Can nobody understand that arguments about "reality" are futile ? The pragmaticist's position post-phenomenology is that dichotomies like materialism-idealism, subject-object, are analytical postures based on ontological assumptions that may never be substantiated. What matters is "what works" at various levels of prediction and control.

Can you finally understand that all that might be nonsense? (I doubt it.)

Some day people may be looking at all that crap with the same disdain you have for what is being said here by others.

REALITY is absolute and objective...not relative.

0 Replies

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Oh dear ! Can nobody understand that arguments about "reality" are futile ?

Of course they are. Reality can kill you and all your arguments, and it often does, in the end... In contrast, no amount of argument will ever make reality disappear.

Quote:

The pragmaticist's position post-phenomenology is that dichotomies like materialism-idealism, subject-object, are analytical postures based on ontological assumptions that may never be substantiated. What matters is "what works" at various levels of prediction and control.

Realism works. Everybody knows that, even you.

1 Reply

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Oh dear !

At last something on which we have common ground. . .

In fact, whenever my wife. . . .
OH....
Yes, dear?! . . . .

0 Replies

@Olivier5,

No. "Reality" doesnt do anything.

2 Replies

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

No. "Reality" doesnt do anything.

Unless you ignore it.

0 Replies

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

No. "Reality" doesnt do anything.

You mean the word "reality", or what the concept stands for/represents?

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

I mean that it denotes a postulated state of "What is the case" and is only used when dissent might occur within a dynamic communication. It has no agentive connotation. It represents nothing. (Ref: the non representational view of languge)

2 Replies

Or...maresy dotes and doesy dotes and littlelamsydivy. A kiddledivy too, wouldn't you.

0 Replies

This argument illustrates the limits of what can be communicated with language.

0 Replies

@fresco,

Quote:

(Ref: the non representational view of languge)

We don't need no reference for that as long as you're here, Fresky.

0 Replies

Once one realizes that the use of the word "reality" with respect to "postulated states of affairs" is always relative to transient contextual communicative need for consensus, and never occurs when consensus is assumed or undisputed, then the full import of the assertion "reality is relative" should be self evident.

This is my final comment on this thread. I thank all participants whether they understand the pragmatiscist's position or not. I recommend Rorty: Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, as the seminal work in this matter.

4 Replies

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

I mean that it denotes a postulated state of "What is the case"

More precisely: "whatever is the case." The term "reality" does not imply any knowledge of said "reality".

Quote:

It represents nothing. (Ref: the non representational view of languge)

Now now now Fresco... If your words are non-representational, what do they mean? What does "denote", "postulated" and "state" mean? Only verbiage? If there's no representation, there's no meaning to language.

0 Replies

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Once one realizes that the use of the word "reality" with respect to "postulated states of affairs" is always relative to transient contextual communicative need for consensus, and never occurs when consensus is assumed or undisputed, then the full import of the assertion "reality is relative" should be self evident.

This is my final comment on this thread. I thank all participants whether they understand the pragmatiscist's position or not. I recommend Rorty: Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, as the seminal work in this matter.

By now, I think most of us "understand" that bit of psycho-speak to be the pragmatiscist's position. What we don't "understand" is why anyone would consider that it makes anything self-evident.

Some theists often give their arguments for the fact that it is self-evident that a god exists. Some atheists often give arguments that they consider shows the absence on any gods to be self-evident.

Why don't people like you wake up, Fresco!

2 Replies

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

Why don't people like you wake up, Fresco!

Well, it's actually kinda self-evident why, aint it, Frank?

0 Replies

@Frank Apisa,

TO FRESCO;

By the way...the first words written in this thread were in your introduction. They were:

Quote:

This thread is in response to a challenge by Frank Apisa

You have not met that challenge!

It may be all an illusion, but to me you are a fellow human and I still love ya anyway.

0 Replies

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

I thank all participants whether they understand the pragmatiscist's position or not.

I find it particularly offensive that you are arrogating the terms "pragmaticist" and "pragmaticism," which are traditionally associated with C.S. Peirce and his philosophy. Your "pragmaticism" is nothing at all like Peirce's. In fact, there's nothing at all pragmatic about your pragmaticism -- quite the opposite, actually.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

fresco wrote:
I thank all participants whether they understand the pragmatiscist's position or not.

I find it particularly offensive that you are arrogating the terms "pragmaticist" and "pragmaticism," which are traditionally associated with C.S. Peirce and his philosophy. Your "pragmaticism" is nothing at all like Peirce's. In fact, there's nothing at all pragmatic about your pragmaticism -- quite the opposite, actually.

Agreed.

fresco wrote:

Oh dear ! Can nobody understand that arguments about "reality" are futile ? The pragmaticist's position post-phenomenology is that dichotomies like materialism-idealism, subject-object, are analytical postures based on ontological assumptions that may never be substantiated. What matters is "what works" at various levels of prediction and control.

Can i ask you, are the workings of "prediction and control" elevated by nondualistic thinking? i.e. Are nondualistic approaches to data better able to predict and/or control events than rhetoric? How affective are they in comparison to the way statements are used in the scientific method?

i know that you've given your final word in this thread, and i respect that, but if you don't address this question in future posts i will view them (and i am aware that my view is probably without value for you) as pointless, ideological posturing.

1 Reply

@Razzleg,

Sure, Razz, you can ask, but....

0 Replies

@fresco,

Once one realizes that the use of the word "reality" with respect to "postulated states of affairs" is always relative to transient contextual communicative need for consensus, and never occurs when consensus is assumed or undisputed [...]

i'm sorry, when has that "postulated consensus-oriented" circumstance occurred?

0 Replies

Reality is relative, not absolute.

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know