Reality - Subjective or Objective?

PoetSeductress

You miss the point. I take "the deity and the atheist" scenario as illustrative of the general problem of "existence". My conclusion is that "existence" is entirely about "relationship". We have relationships with every "thing" we conceive. It is the nature of the relationship with the concept "God" that is different for theists and atheists. My argument is that it is futile to talk about "existence" of "a thing in itself".

Consider ordinary statements like "fairies don't exist" which can be re-phrased "I don't expect to have contact with a being called a fairy, but I am prepared to socially interact with children as though such contacts might be possible"....or consider "chairs exist" which could be re-phrased " I am aware of a general concept which can be applied to certain physical objects such that some of their properties are related to my future needs to rest my legs". (Note that the concept has "fuzzy boundaries" such that wooden boxes etc could satisfy the relationship) Note that "physical" implies relationship and that the property of "permanance" implies "expected persistence of a relationship".

This is similar, Fresco, in many respects to the "operationalism" influential in some social scientific thinking in the 70s. I don't recall its nature clearly, but I do recall the importance of its emphasis on connectons between ideas and practical actions.

Agreed....relationships imply anticipated action. Operations are directed actions.

But I will get back to you on this because operationalism has "behaviouristic" nuances which I would wish to avoid.

Yeah-It's Vic leaning on the bar with his elbows, staring with unseeing eyes at himself, in a mope because his wife has just given him the office.

That's pretty real when you're looking at it and I never mentioned He on High at all either for or against.

I beg your collective pardons.

I was attempting an answer there to PS's question at the bottom of the previous page about reality.

Has the argument any validity fresco.

Spendius,

If you relate to Vic there's "your reality". Since I don't relate to "Vic" there is no reality for me !

JLN,

This issue of "operationalism" is interesting because it did support Wittgenstein's "anti-realism" (meaning is "useage" not "reference")
and can be seen to support the concept of "words" as "action co-ordinators". However, unlike behaviourism which might also reduce words to "speech acts" my position takes on board a "systems approach" which sees "action" as more than simplistic stimulus-response chains.

I am not particularly happy with this answer and this may be because I am aspiring to "explanation" which avoids "aspects of prediction and control".

You suspect that the achievement of understanding (explanation) can involve more than the utilities of prediction and control? This may apply to philosophy, art, and mysticism. But would it apply to science as well?
A provocative issue. It does seem to me that cosmological astrophysics and much of the new physics has to do with understandings that have no discernable practical value for us.

JLN,

If "value to us" is rated in terms of "control" I think you are correct ...and note that "us" also becomes deconstructed in a embedded systems approach at "higher levels" of observation.

Would you be so kind as to further amplify the final conjunct?

Greetings Phil,

A full amplification is a tall order ar 1 a.m (UK time).
I am alluding to Capra's description in his "Web of Life" of embedded autopoietic systems where "life processes" can be viewed at all levels from cell, through organ, individual,society and beyond. "cognition" is seen as synonymous with "a life process" and "words" are taken as as co-ordination nodes at the cognitive level. No organizational level is sufficient to account for its own operation.

If you are interested try "Capra Dublin" on Google for a link.

Fresco, good night. This comment is for tomorrow. I do think, at this late moment (10;56 pm here) that much explanation is "meta" in nature, and these may be more modest than the positivist's notion of "covering laws" (we discussed this years ago, I think). And this seems to fit with Capra's notion of "embedded (nested) autopoietic systems".
This "meta" approach (if this word applies) moves analysis UP into higher and subsuming frames of reference, and stands in contrast the reductionist manner of seeing levels in terms of their empirically underlying "foundations"--e.g. reducing social systems DOWN to biological (and even lower) systems. Is that right?

Fresco / JL Nobody =

JLN,

That is right, and thanks for reminding me of the word "nested". Capra's suggestion that the nesting of fractals provides a theoretical basis for coherence is one of the elegant aspects of the position.

No, I have not visited Google; I should, of course.

Embedded within or through what? What types of systems, etc? This sounds interesting.

Phil,

You do need to read Capra on "structure" to grasp this stuff. It starts with Prigogene's demonstration of spontaneously occurring"dissipative structures" in chemical reactions far from equilibrium. This implies that "life" itself is merely a more complex organizational level of such a structure, This is not reductionist because "pattern" cannot be defined at the physical level any more than you could define "chair" by its physics and chemistry.

The mathematics behind these ideas such as "fractals" and "catastrophe theory" give non-linear (i.e. non-causal) simulation pictures of life like structures. (See for example "daisyworld")
Interestingly to me, intellectual theologians like Polkinghorne have been forced into the position of rejecting the idea of "a deity" as a "prime mover" which is a "causal" concept and instead to consider such a deity as perhaps "tweaking the strange attractors" within a fractal process.

http://www.tcd.ie/Physics/Schrodinger/Lecture3.html

http://members.tripod.com/~Vlad_3_6_7/Complexity-of-Life.html

In relation to 'reality.' it's cousin 'realize' might bring further perspective.

realize v
1: be fully aware or cognizant of [syn: recognize, recognise, realise, agnize, agnise]
2: perceive (an idea or situation) mentally; "Now I see!"; "I just can't see your point"; "Does she realize how important this decision is?"; "I don't understand the idea" [syn: understand, realise, see]
3: make real or concrete; give reality or substance to; "our ideas must be substantiated into actions" [syn: realise, actualize, actualise, substantiate]

Reality (IMHO) is objective, to the individual: self-created and perceived in a subjective manner (realized by the experiencer, through the on-going work in progress).

There is no united conscious reality (at the present time). At that point, it becomes completely subjective and non-compulsory as far as sharing is concerned.

The 'true reality' (which doesn't exist in itself), is neither subjective or objective because it is beyond the limits that perspective applies. Therefore, it is not even what could logically be called 'reality.' It just is.

But we're not there yet, obviously. :wink:

When 'one' is no longer serenaded as 'the loneliest number'--then we'll be getting somewhere.

Good, QA
.I'd comment more, but my server keeps konking out.