@fresco,
The very definition of 'object' can be derived from 'object of attention'. There can be no object without a subject considering it, by definition. In that sense you are right that all object is mental. But that doesn't mean that real 'things' don't exist by themselves when they are not being considered by anyone. And just because the categories, distinctions and divisions we draw between 'things' are man-made does not mean they cannot correspond to something real.
Kennedy didn't hear the bullet that killed him. That bullet was not an object of his attention when he died, yet it existed nevertheless.
Stuff exist. Whether you watch them or not doesn't affect them. The world does switch on and off when you open and close your eyes, fresco.
@fresco,
Not only language; it includes all the experience one has had within the environment in which they moved about, how that has influenced the individual's perception, and how that individual reacts to his/her environment.
@cicerone imposter,
Agreed. Both individual and group factors play a part in the construction of one's "reality".
@Olivier5,
The bullet that left the gun was physically not
qiuite the same as the the bullet that entered JFK*. Equally the JFK at time 1 was not biologically or mentally quite the same as at time 2. Only the linguistic tokens "bullet" and "JFK" don't change, but for pragmatic, functional and social reasons we allow that linguistic permanence to override any dynamic elements of the focal interaction. Those elements are ignored as minor, or
functionally irrelevant with respect to the social context in which the particular "event" is embedded
BUT
Philosophy extrapolates from the particular to the general....from "the event" to a seamless interactive flow of observers and world. Short time scale functional irrelevances cannot be ignored, when consideration goes across or beyond the lifespans of human functionality, physiology or parochial language use. Such an extrapolation, which highlights relativism and dynamism rather than snapshots of contextual functional agreement is the philosophical nail in the coffin of naive realism (i.e of "things in themselves").
Things,
events and
observer states are all ephemeral whilst language tends to persist.
*
See "The Ship of Theseus Paradox" for the problem of continuity of objective identity.
@fresco,
This is beside the point. Change happen to everything. Even the meaning and evocations of the words "bullet" and "JFK" change overtime or from one person to the next. That's a platitude but it doesn't change the fact that stuff exist. Stuff needs to exist in order to change, right?
Something killed Kennedy, however you call it, and however you decide to call Kennedy. This death did not happen by mistake either, it was planned by people who wanted and succeeded in getting rid of him. And in their mind, the fact that his humors were not exactly the same as the day before did not matter much... Nor what transformation would happen to the shape of the bullet on impact.
The world is made not by philosophers, fresco, but by men of action. And they DO make approximations to get what they want. Everybody does in fact. We constantly need to simplify and approximate and focus, or we would be overwhelmed by all this information we're collecting. So yes, objects are simplifications, but useful simplifications.
@Olivier5,
If that boils down to "stuff exists
relative to users of stuff". Then I can agree with you. But "stuff exists"(period) is vacuous.
Change in "stuff" is measured by those observers who interact with it and decide on the significance of such change.
People is not guided by Kant, Gödel, Heidegger and other philosophers to distinguish reality in its different aspects.
And it is incredible how well the discussion comes to end with caricatures of a sheep, meaning that no agreement can be found.
But, what do you think personally about people having the preference to live believing in a fictitious world instead of confronting it and accepting it in its crude status.
Yes, like the question made in the first posting, I don't believe that a handicap dude inserted in a wheel chair is a representation of a genius. A fake stereotype that people accept.
Reality.
I exist, therefore I think.
I understand that before my existence there is a universe that has created and collected information, and that I have become a receptor and new transmitter of that information.
I understand that my senses are my guidance for survival in the physical reality, so I can't by any means, perceive with my senses neither the past, nor the future, and less what is not in existence as an objective mean.
So, when our perception or physical reality is manipulated by the information media, by the cheating spouse, by Kant, or by natural phenomena -like a mirage- it is our personal duty learning to discriminate what is "real real" (physical reality) and what is a "fake" (fake replacing false reality)
Kant can't tell me what reality is, nor Gidel, less Heidegger, forget about Bergson, don't even listen to Fichte, Hegel can't be trusted, Spinoza probably was in drugs, and so forth.
Yes, their opinions about reality are a great input of knowledge to understand this concept, but they are not the final rule, just a guidance.
From here, why people is so easy to be tricked by others in order to make them live in a world full of fake?
@fresco,
Quote:If that boils down to "stuff exists relative to users of stuff". Then I can agree with you. But "stuff exists"(period) is vacuous. Change in "stuff" is measured by those observers who interact with it and decide on the significance of such change.
Stuff exist, period. If not, users would not even exist (since they are also made of "stuff") and no language would exist (language is also "stuff").
Fresco says stuff does not exist.
Olivier says stuff does exist.
I say we really do not know. All of the "stuff" may be an illusion...or merely the function of humans (since they are so important to the universe in Olivier's opinion)...
...or the "stuff" may be what the naive realists think it is.
Why do people have so much trouble acknowledging they do not know the stuff they do not know?
@Frank Apisa,
Quote:(since they are so important to the universe in Olivier's opinion)
You're making this up or confusing me with someone else. I say that 'stuff' exist because if nothing existed, I wouldn't be writing down that something exist, now would I? And you wouldn't be reading it either... Therefore some kind of stuff exists.
@Frank Apisa,
One doesn't have to be a radical idealist (i.e, one, like Berkely, who says that ontological reality consists only of mind or its products). One can--as I do, and perhaps Fresco as well--recognize that the world of
human reality is a product of human brains in concert with whatever else exists. The latter* is ultimately mysterious; all we can know is what we do with it.
*Is this what Kant had in mind with his Noumena?
