Can we ever really know reality?

If we can't know reality, and we can't know unreality, then we're kinda up **** creek, sans paddle, as far as knowledge goes.

I agree, JL, we need to first settle on a clear definition of what it means to know something.

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@Chumly,

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Show me the predictive nature of the philosophy you espouse, show me the scientific methodologies of the philosophy you espouse and I would be pleased to accommodate your viewpoint that the philosophy you espouse collates with quantum theory.

Paraphrasing Feynman

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Philosophy is to science as bemused tourists are to a foreign culture.

Of course the very essence of science is prediction and control, and the philosopher is attempting to critically view aspects of that activity through various lenses such as "ethics", "epistemology" ,"ontology" and "semantics". It legitimately asks questions about the meanings of operational words science uses like "event","fact" and "observation" in order to establish their range of application and limitations.
Realists take the philosophical position that there is "a universe out there" which exists independently of observer activity. Quantum physicists cannot take such a view, hence the clash with realists such as Einstein. That issue is not about "taking a free ride etc", it goes to the heart of questions about the term "reality". Some have called that philosophical activity "deconstruction" but contrary to cynics, that does not equate to "demolition".

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@JLNobody,

The problem with "experience" is the degree of selectivity of focus or direction involved. "Knowledge" tends to be about a focal issue, and once we call that issue "a thing" we run into the inextricability of ontology and epistemology.

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All indications are we cannot understand REALITY...and we cannot KNOW it either...no matter how those who want to play with words define "REALITY" or "KNOW."

Not in the sense we are discussing here.

If one wants to say one can know reality in the petty, informal sense that Carlos is peddling...and which I acknowledge I use in everyday life and conversation...fine. But in a philosophical discussion of the true nature of the REALITY of existence...we almost certainly do not know in any reasonable definition of either word.

And we humans certainly seem to lack the language ability to describe REALITY in any reasonable fashion...although that does not stop some people from flooding these pages with pretense about it.

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@Chumly,

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Nope, the essence of science is indeed predictive

Look who is talking about essence now... :-)

Science TRIES to predict the behavior of stuff, and that is consistent with Kant. Nuff said.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Quote:
Nope, the essence of science is indeed predictive
Look who is talking about essence now... :-)Science TRIES to predict the behavior of stuff, and that is consistent with Kant. Nuff said.

Nope, science does far more than "TRIES" (sic), and at the risk of argumentum ad nauseam science is indeed predictive and I prove it.

Consider Ohm's Law I = E/R

With this scientifically derived formula, I can predict the amount of current should I firstly have measured the voltage and resistance.

I can also predict that as long as no other variables are changed that the current will be directly proportional to the voltage and the resistance will be inversely proportional to the current.

Now, as to your claim that Kant's philosophy is so-called "consistent" with science, then you'll have to prove that Kant's philosophy is predicative and at the risk of argumentum ad nauseam, I draw your attention back to my to Post: # 5,845,998 as per: "If Kant's claims are "compatible with the scientific method" then where are the third party, double blind, peer-reviewed experiments based on the scientific method, in which the essential predictive characteristic inherent to the foundation of said method, is readily accounted for?"

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@carloslebaron,

carloslebaron wrote:

Quote:
Nope, the essence of science is indeed predictive, it's not just some overly simplistic notion of so-called "Observational results (facts)". I'll go even further and assert that it does not matter if one claims to have applied the scientific method; no predictive ability equals at best incomplete scientific methodology, and at wost pseudo-scientific drivel.

Your position is incorrect.

Lots of recent observed phenomena of the universe was "never predicted" but were amazing views that are causing revolution in our knowledge in science.

Same applies with new learning about our genes. In other words, science always advances with the same old same old: trial and error, in order to succeed.

On the other hand, and going back to the topic itself. We have here a poster who doesn't know if the computer in front of him is "real", however he uses it to write me messages. Let's wait what time he finally will wake up to find out that it was not a "real dream" but a real objective motion of his fingers on the keyboard.

And even more. Many philosophers of the past tried to think about reality as something beyond the objective and subjective phenomena we are capable to perceive or know.

And my question is, if they are right, can someone explain such and existence without the objective world we perceive with out senses?

I truly laugh of the idea of an existent universe not connected to our physical objective universe. People can think whatever they want, but without existing brains they can't think at all.

The dependency in our own existence rules over any thought about something else. We must be REAL in order to think.

Unless someone can prove it different.

Nope, your position is incorrect in that you misunderstand the essence of science, which is far more than simply observational. As such and at the risk of argumentum ad nauseam science I'll prove it.

Consider Ohm's Law I = E/R

With this scientifically derived formula, I can predict the amount of current should I firstly have measured the voltage and resistance.

I can also predict that as long as no other variables are changed that the current will be directly proportional to the voltage and the resistance will be inversely proportional to the current.

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@Chumly,

Are you saying Ohm's law is, like, proven??? A true law of nature so to speak?

Even if that was indeed the case (it isn't), Ohm's law only predicts the behaviour of stuff. It says nothing about their essence / noumena.

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Ah yes, back to the original question "Can we ever really know reality?".

In as much as the question has any merit at all (understandably questionable), then yes science can "know realty" because it is predictive whereas philosophy cannot know reality because it is not predictive. That's not to suggest that philosophy can't be fun, but there are some posters that aver philosophy is in the same camp as science, and that is giggle-worthy.

Happy holidays one and all, and I truly thank everyone for the interesting dialogues!

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@Chumly,

Are you saying Ohm's law is, like, proven??? A true law of nature so to speak?

Even if that was indeed the case (it isn't), Ohm's law only predicts the behaviour of stuff. It says nothing about their essence / noumena.

To my knowledge, Kant never took issue with science or the capacity to predict phenomena, so I don't see where your beef is.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Are you saying Ohm's law is, like, proven??? A true law of nature so to speak?

Even if that was indeed the case (it isn't), Ohm's law only predicts the behaviour of stuff. It says nothing about their essence / noumena.

Assuming you understand the straw man logical fallacy, then it should be very clear that I made no reference in the specific context to some sort of idealized absolutism and I quote you here as per "A true law of nature so to speak?"

It should also be very clear from my text that (risking argumentum ad nauseam) I stated it as a law in the specific context given.

As to your so-called "essence / noumena" (risking argumentum ad nauseam) you'll have to prove there is such a thing before you can claim its absence as per Ohm's Law. Otherwise I could equally complain that Ohm's Law says nothing about my dog Muffy (which is in fact untrue but makes for a funny example, as Muffy's inner workings do follow Ohm's Law in as much as there are very small electrical currents within Muffy, and these currents will be will be directly proportional to the voltage, and the resistance will be inversely proportional to the current).

I could have (and should have to maintain proper argumentation) said "Otherwise I could equally complain that Ohm's Law says nothing about why I named my dog Muffy" but it was more fun to assert that Ohm's Law says nothing about Muffy and point out the problem with my claim.

Well it's Christmas and expect you'll excuse me, if not find it amusing!

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@Chumly,

Merry christmas to you and all.

I don't think you know what you are really disagreeing about. One can be Kantian and a scientist, that much I know. There's no contradiction. I don't need to prove the existence of noumena. The point is precisely that this is a false problem: as defined by philosophy, this notion--the true nature of things in themselves--will always escape us.

It's like stating that a certain mathematical dimension is unknowable, as defined.

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@fresco,

By "experience" I am not solely referring to the interpretive process that accompanies our reflective attempts at making sense of consciousness, i.e., the conversion of consciousness into "knowledge". I'm referring to consciousness as such even in its prereflective phase.

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@JLNobody,

I'm not sure whether we can meaningfully divide the process of consciousness into stages.

Dreyfus in his interpretation of Heidegger's Dasein describes most of human experience as "seamless coping" in which interactional "knowledge" operates at an unconscious level (perhaps what you are calling "pre-reflection") and this level seems to be common to all animals. "Things" only became "conscious" when the flow is interrupted and (human) contemplation might then ensue.

We have discussed the word "knowledge" before. Some philosophers distinguish between "knowing how" and "knowing about" , which seems to concur with the above. Distinctions are also reflected in languages like French, savoir and connaitre.

One way out of this debate is to ignore the term "consciousness" altogether and go for the term "cognition". Maturana ( biologist with Buddhist sympathies) in fact applied that word to "the general life process" which characterized all structural adaptions of living entities contributing to their their survival. The disadvantage of such a model to traditional epistemologists is that it completely deflates and transcends all concepts of "thought", "language", "information" and "sense data".

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@fresco,

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One way out of this debate is to ignore the term "consciousness" altogether and go for the term "cognition". Maturana ( biologist with Buddhist sympathies) in fact applied that word to "the general life process" which characterized all structural adaptions of living entities contributing to their their survival. The disadvantage of such a model to traditional epistemologists is that it completely deflates and transcends all concepts of "thought", "language", "information" and "sense data".

Why do you always try to dispose of usefull concepts? You look like a plumber who would throw all of his tools away, and then proclaim: 'the water is still leaking but my job is done!'

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@Olivier5,

I dispose of nothing. My contextual reference to Maturana was with respect to JLN's interest in Buddhism.
Maturana was interested in defining "life". His view of "language" was that it was a behaviour not confined to humans which he called "languaging".
Such a position necessarily involves re-assessment of the very nature of "concepts" themselves. Maturana was perhaps to biology what Heidegger was to philosophy in terms of iconoclasm and restructuring. Aspects of Maturana's work and that of Merleau-Ponty, were developed by Varela (et al) and encompassed in embodied cognition theory which proved a viable alternative to failed information theoretic models.
If interested you might want to read
Biology of Language: The Epistemology of Reality.
http://www.enolagaia.com/M78BoL.html

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An important implication of (Maturana's position) is that an absolute and objective reality is impossible, one that exist beyond the language that we speak with one another, even if it may seem so when we make each other advertent of something. Eventually we always need other people for the confirmation of our impressions. Solitarily we cannot bring forth objects. This brings us to wonder whether we are facing here a peculiar kind of solipsism. Why is there no room for a ’rock bottom’ of hard facts?
According to Maturana reality is strictly related to the way in which it is constituted in language. As many language communities and sub-cultures exist, so many realities are possible. We may speak of a pluralism. Maturana calls it a ’multiversum’. He emphasizes that together we inhabit such a multiversum.Because of this we should have consideration for the reality that other persons may constitute together, and nobody may claim a privileged access to ’the only real reality’, simply because there is no such a thing. Objectivity is not possible but through the awareness that reality is constituted in our language. Maturana calls such an idea of objectivity ’objectivity in parentheses’.

Goudsmit

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@fresco,

Making endless references to this or that writer is only useful if one wants to locate oneself (or one's philosophy) in relation (similarity or contrast) to another one.

I started reading biology of language and stopped after a while, since i couldn't see the purpose or even the domain of the enquiry. Biology depends on many different 'languages' to work (dna, hormonal, sensorial, etc.) but to think that it can determine language and to attempt to analyze how, amounts to try and reduce cognitive processes to biology. Nice program but nobody knows how to go about it.

Beside, i would argue that the language level is way too high symbolically to be related directly to biology. Children have to LEARN language, and therefore language is not driven by molecules or cells / biology but by society / sociology. A sociology of language makes sense, not a biology of language.

Perhaps i should go straight to the conclusion to see if he finds anything?

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@fresco,

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I dispose of nothing.

Yes you do. You tend to throw away concepts which you find 'problematic' through some unknown process. But concepts are tools. They are only problematic to those who don't know how to use them.

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@Olivier5,

Amazing: his conclusion is identical to his premise:

p. 29 (=p. 2 of the essay): Therefore, since I want to give a scientific description of the observer as a system capable of descriptions (language), I must take the subject dependent nature of science as my starting point.

Conclusion (p. 60): We live, therefore, in a domain of subject-dependent knowledge and subject-dependent reality.

Circular logic.

What you have to realize, al fresco, is that some philosophers are actually fake. Like there are fake cops, fake artists or fake journalists, there can be fake philosophers... And Maturana makes for a great candidate.

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Can we ever really know reality?

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