What does "real" mean?
The idea of real or reality comes up frequently on the forum, often in relation to quantum mechanics. It has struck me the concept is not usually defined explicitly or carefully. To me the way it is used often seems wrong-headed. I have spent a lot of time thinking about the concepts of being and existence. I think reality is related to those ideas, but not the same thing. Here are some definitions of "real" from sources on the web.
Ill define reality as the state of being real.
My position - I dont think the idea of real has any meaning except in relation to the everyday world at human scale. Reality only makes sense in comparison to what humans see, hear, feel, taste, and smell in their homes, at work, hunting Mastodons, playing jai alai, or sitting on their butts drinking wine and writing about reality. Example - an apple is real. A memory of an apple, an imagined apple, or the taste of an apple may or may not be real. I can say that without doubt, but also without any specific knowledge. This is seems-to-me etymology, developed without historical or linguistic evidence. Its a priori knowledge, by which I mean its because I say so.
I dont intend this discussion to be about philosophical approaches that support the position that reality does not exist, e.g. solipsism, anti-realism, or radical skepticism.
And, no. Im not talking about real numbers.
- Having objective independent existence
- Having existence independent of mind
- Occurring or existing in actuality
- Existing in fact and not imaginary
- Of or relating to practical or everyday concerns or activities
Ill define reality as the state of being real.
My position - I dont think the idea of real has any meaning except in relation to the everyday world at human scale. Reality only makes sense in comparison to what humans see, hear, feel, taste, and smell in their homes, at work, hunting Mastodons, playing jai alai, or sitting on their butts drinking wine and writing about reality. Example - an apple is real. A memory of an apple, an imagined apple, or the taste of an apple may or may not be real. I can say that without doubt, but also without any specific knowledge. This is seems-to-me etymology, developed without historical or linguistic evidence. Its a priori knowledge, by which I mean its because I say so.
I dont intend this discussion to be about philosophical approaches that support the position that reality does not exist, e.g. solipsism, anti-realism, or radical skepticism.
And, no. Im not talking about real numbers.
Comments (505)
Even within philosophical discussions, I think "real" is generally just a term to describe the inner world of the person speaking. It's a projection of a personal predisposition unto a public conversation about private experience. This perhaps goes back to my critique of your interpretation of the Tao Te Ching.
Would you not then say that elections and other particles are not real since they do not concern our day to day lives? Or have I misunderstood?
1. The Eiffel tower is real
2. Sri Xi Jinping is real
3. Monsieur Sherlock Holmes is not real
4. Fairies are not real
Why?
Quoting Agent Smith
So, what am I, chopped liver?
Quoting T Clark
Your #1 definition is closest to what "real" sound like to me. The expansive physical properties of the world which make up the 'solid ground of our being' are real. Our "reality" is tested on those properties. "Testing" has, over time, reduced the scope of the "imaginary world" of spirits. True enough, many people count spirits as real, but fewer now count on their alleged power--physical, chemical, and surgical cures beat out magical cures.
Sherlock Holmes and the old fashioned Celtic 'fairies' are not real because (per Clark #2) they have no existence independent of mind. Zeus, Brahma, Allah, God, Beowulf, Hogwarts, et al are hatchlings of the imagination. They are not real -- they have no existence apart from mind.
The reason why I bring up these "non-existent beings" is that they may be very important to us (Jesus, for example). Their place in our imaginations can be very central -- and may be as real as actual persons--maybe more so.
That we value what are imaginary beings is... real. It a paradox.
True mon ami, true!
The reason God isn't real is not because He doesn't exist!
come again?
It follows from what ya said, monsieur!
:up:
Austin, especially in Other Minds, addresses "real".
But is it a real one? When you ask if it is real, what are you sugesting? No, it's a fake; it's an illusion; it's a forgery; it's a phoney, a counterfeit, a mirage... What is real and what isn't is decided in each case by contrast; there is no single criteria.
Are you saying there is no external world outside human experience? I don't think you are, but I'm not sure. I could make the case that is true if I had my Lao Tzu hat on, but that wasn't my intention in this thread.
In discussions of the Tao Te Ching, I remember you commenting that any interpretation by a modern westerner would not be credible. I don't remember any other critique you made.
A case could be made that phenomena that don't behave according to classical principles don't exist. I'm not sure I would agree with that.
One of the reasons I came up with the criteria for reality I did was that in several discussions posters claimed that quantum behavior at atomic and subatomic scale called into question the reality of phenomena at human scale. I reject that idea.
Not quite? I don't like the binary question. I think individual human experience determines our perception of what we think is "reality"; why else would we all disagree so much and with so much brash confidence? Our personal algebra leads us to beliefs about reality that solidify over time to the point of being nearly unmovable. Whether these ossified perspectives have anything to do with some "objective" external world would, then, logically, be something we couldn't know about. Theoretically. Based on this given framework. So, within this view, how can I move to the point at which I have knowledge about some sort of external objectivity?
Quoting T Clark
I don't think I said that; just that a modern westerner, when reading it, is trying to interpret an ancient esoteric text, translated from an ancient and obsolete language, the content of which is arcane and mysterious to ears hearing it thousands of years later through an unknown amount of filters that have distilled it to what you're reading in the English in the year 2022. Anyway.
You have misstated my position. I wrote:
Quoting T Clark
Quoting Bitter Crank
I think this expresses the position I was advocating very well.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I wasn't necessarily endorsing any of the definitions in the list I provided. I was just trying to give an idea of the range of what people normally mean.
I have no problem with what you've written. I've made the case many times that the idea of objective reality is a convenience that allows us to talk about the world we live in. I think it also reinforces an important and reassuring idea - that our world is consistent and endures over time. That's probably indispensable for animals trying to predict the future.
Quoting Noble Dust
I don't have any problems with that. As I wrote in our previous conversations, I don't see it as an insurmountable obstacle.
I'm not sure whether or not this contradicts what I wrote. I suspect not.
SO you say Quoting T Clark
...while Austin shows that it has different meanings (uses) depending on context - it's not a real dollar note, it's a forgery; it's not a real tree, it's an illusion; and so on. The pattern is "it's not a real X, its a Y". Austin goes on to add a tool for analysing metaphysical notions of "real", by finding a more appropriate word, or dismissing the argument if one be not apparent.
So, to implement this:
Quoting Noble Dust
To understand what "real" is doing here we ask what it is to be contrasted with, and what other term might replace "not real". Use pattern is "it's not a real X, its a Y" - "it's not a real world, its... what? imagined? fake? counterfeit? Nothing seems to fit. So we can pass such an unfounded musing by. Language on holiday.
All well and good. The point of departure for me is, despite all I've said, that an objective reality does, most likely, exist. So it would appear I'm now disagreeing with myself. I'm fine with that. What's important is that whatever seems to be "real" to me is, again, a product of my own personal world. The possibility that something "more real" might exist outside of my perception is not only plausible, but probable, given my own failure (within my own limited framework) to perceive or derive any sort of plausible objective relativity. My own inability to derive the objective says nothing about the reality of the objective; and the sheer way in which we speak about philosophical problems presupposes the existence of the objectively real. Call it apophatic Theology if you like. We are dumb creatures of hubris.
Quoting T Clark
I don't either, but I feel the need to make us aware of it.
Almost seems a deflationary version of 'the real'. I like it.
Quoting T Clark
I am sympathetic to this. I don't find myself needing or using the world real much in the 'real world'.
Quoting Agent Smith
Curiously Sherlock Holmes creator, AC Doyle, did believe in fairies in a rather notorious episode of credulity. The Cottingley Fairies hoax of 1917.
Of course faeries are real. I keep finding their skulls in my garden.
This "idea" is pragmatic, or existential.
Here are some of my own attempts ...
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
So I use "real" to indicate some X is ineluctable, subject-invariant and/or which exceeds-our-categories.
In quantum mechanics realism usually refers to counterfactual-definiteness, which is "the ability to speak 'meaningfully' of the definiteness of the results of measurements that have not been performed (i.e., the ability to assume the existence of objects, and properties of objects, even when they have not been measured)."
The simplest way to explain this is by analogy to a coin. If a coin is randomly flipped, but hidden from view, we regard it as nonetheless having a definite state (i.e., either heads or tails) independent of measurement. We might not know whether the coin's state is heads or tails, but there is no contradiction with it having a definite state.
In quantum mechanics, the analogous quantum coin can be randomly flipped (placed into a superposition of heads and tails) and seems not to have a definite state independent of measurement. That's because assuming it does have a definite state (given other plausible assumptions) leads to contradiction per Bell's Theorem. However when measured, the coin will have a definite state (per the famous collapse of the wavefunction).
Quoting T Clark
As you should. No physicist questions the reality of the experimental equipment that they are using when performing these experiments, or of the measured outcomes.
True that. I completely forgot, but perhaps my subconscious didn't. Muchas gracias.
This too is how I tend to view 'reality'. What is 'real' to someone, e.g. experiencing hallucinations, is only real to me in that I understand the person believes their 'sense', 'perception'. Also, any belief or delusion that they are God or have a special status or knowledge e.g. receiving messages from the television.
However, the actual content of this mental state is not 'real' to me; I can't access what the other person sees.
Quoting 180 Proof
I like this. It reminds me of something I discovered yesterday when talking to @Agent Smith.
His profile has numerous quotes, including:
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
Philip K. Dick
I wondered at the time whether it was something Dick said, or one of his characters. Either way, the actual message is transmitted.
Whether fictional or no, the content is 'real'. This time it is accessible. We can read and 'feel' it...there is a mental connection. Of course, our own experience/interpretation can be compared and perhaps found wanting by others but it's real, no?
Quoting Banno
[ my bolds]
I keep meaning to read Austin. This makes sense to me. I hadn't thought of it this way before, thanks.
The deciding factor in specifying 'reality' is by contrast, 'not what I shall have to show it is'.
Interesting that Austin suggests we can find a less 'fatal' word to replace 'real' depending on context.
So we don't die on the hill of a single meaning.
Trying to think of an example: [*]
Is that for real? > Is that true?
Perhaps substitution detracts from the sense? Does the truth lie in the 'tone' or emphasis of disbelief...?
Why do we make a mountain out of a molehill?
[*]
Quoting wordhippo
For me when I ask myself what is "real".. I think of that which is "true". That which exists.
1). I know my subjective experience is true. I have feelings and emotions. They exist. (my mind)
2). I know I am an object. My body exists. I am observable.
3). I know that others are objects in the physical world/universe. They are observable.
4). But I also know that these objects (people) are also subjects like myself (they have a mind).
The issue is:
Only if you agree with all four of these statements you and I are the exact same thing qualitatively and quantitatively from every perspective. We are equals. It would be ethical and rational.
If you disagree with statement 1: i have a mind - then who would you be communicating with right now? It would also be hurtful to my own feelings saying I have no mind of my own. It would not be ethical
If you disagree with statement 2: I have a body - then where am I? (Not rational)
If you disagree with statement 3: others are objects - then where are others bodies? Where are they? (irrational again)
If you disagree with statement 4: other objects are subjects: then again you would be (unethical) where are other people's minds?
That's what is true/ real.
I don't know how to explain that.
Well, philosophers have criticised Descartes on this idea. The Cogito isn't necessarily correct as 'I think therefore I am', it might be, 'there is thinking.' An "I" is being presupposed.
- Cogito, ergo sum
From Wikipedia
I can imagine a scenario wherein my thoughts are not mine. I've certainly met many people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia who claim that the thoughts in their head belong to others. But I imagine we could go broader with mere skepticism.
In the same way that comedians can be depressed.
You can be both flaky and rational, no?
It was just an excuse for an alliterative quip. I take nothing much from this.
Si, si señor/señorita!
:smile:
Pretty poet potential, perhaps? :flower:
There is a problem, no?
And to try to make sense of them, nested as they are...
All ideas, if we want them to be useful to us, should be used in relation to human understanding and limits of investigation. If not then we are dealing with an idealistic version of the idea,which is pseudo philosophy and epistemically useless.
Reality and what is real are defined by the ability of elements and their structures to interact with each other and being registered by our observations.
There is nothing we can say, hypothesize or theorize beyond that "ability" of "real things". Of course we can drink a beer or two while suggesting things about it but no serious Philosophical discussion can be held without having a robust, epistemic , starting point. (So I agree with your guidance to avoid metaphysics).
-" A memory of an apple, an imagined apple, or the taste of an apple may or may not be real. "
-A brain state is real and can be observed. If you imply that the "apple" isn't real, I will agree because there is no physical object (apple) involved in those scenarios. The claim "the apple isn't real is a "strawman" related to the statements "a memory, image, taste of an apple" since none of those mental representations are contingent of a physical apple during that experience.
So the mental experience of an apple is real, but a physical apple doesn't exist in there.
"The map is not the territoryaccording to Alfred Korzybski and that is a common mistake we do. In our case physical objects are "the territory" and the map is our mental representations of them.
Well isn't there two scenarios here...pathologize your thoughts not being your own or spiritualize it?
For example if you told someone " My thoughts are not my own they are part of a greater whole (a god). They could either be like "yeah right this guy thinks he's god. He's obviously delusional" and they could pathologize it as some bipolar disorder or a schizophrenia or some mental illness.
But he didn't say he "was" god he only said his thoughts are part of god. Just like the same way our body is part of the universe. And then well it would be less prudent to admit them to a psychiatric hospital without further enquiry. Just in case this person is not a schizophrenic but a sage or scholar that has studied/ searched for such a thing.
We could ask them what this god is like? And why we should even care? What's the consequences of a god for us? Is it a good god or a bad one?
And if such a person were to give good enough reason and ethical principle to believe, and or to demonstrate that reasoning in practice then maybe it is worth believing?
Is that not what Muhammad (Islam) and jesus (Christianity) tried to do? Demonstrate proof of a god or that their thoughts were with some god?
If they were alive today I wonder would we call them Schizophrenics and lock them away?
If reality only makes sense in relation to human sensations, then why wouldn't you be concerned with the sensations themselves, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling? If the sensations are what are real, then we have two conditions, that which is sensing, and that which is sensed. Why do you proceed only toward that which is sensed, the apple? If we start from human sensations, shouldn't that which is sensing be just as real as the thing sensed?
Agreed. Reality is that which corresponds to a sensation in general; and that, consequently, the conception of which indicates a real being in time, that is to say, a representation of that sensation, and the sense it makes is proportional to the manifold of representations contained in the conception, and the relation of them to the sensation, and to each other.
Quoting T Clark
Because I say so, yes, and it is knowledge a priori that I say so, but knowledge of reality, by means of sensation, is of empirical objects, so not a priori knowledge. That which is not from any sensation whatsoever, on the other hand, but is nevertheless a conception, as a representation is a real being in time, and is a priori necessarily, and if an object can be predicated as belonging to that representation without contradiction, that is knowledge a priori.
Quoting T Clark
Agreed, in principle, the caveat being the state of being real does not necessarily imply reality. Non-reciprocity kinda thing, doncha know.
So.....what does real mean? It means that which satisfies the criterion of being in a certain state, and that state is representation in time.
"Real", as is used in English is an honorific word, adding little substance to what is being discussed. If a person tells you this is the "real deal" or this is the "real truth", it would be an error to think there are two kinds of deals or truths.
It's a matter of emphasis.
Are unicorns real? Well, they're not objects in the world, but people can surely speak about them without much problem, within an appropriate context (mythology, storytelling, etc.)
I think this is an issue in which the use the word often obfuscates the phenomenon it is trying to discuss.
And this is not as science fiction as one might think at first.
They did some experiments where they artificially stimulated mice brains to give them artificial memories. These mice then changed their behavior due to these memories. See here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-successful-artificial-memory-has-been-created/
If I manipulate the electrical activity of your brain such that you get thoughts of wanting a pineapple topped pizza right now, are those your thoughts? The though would be indistinguishable from any other thought you had.
We may soon have the technology to take what were once theoretical philosophical questions, and turn them into very practical ones.
Agreed. Discussion of anything presupposes its being real or possibly real enough to discuss. But then...what does it mean to discuss, and the dance continues.
Yes, I agree. Real has lots of different meanings or shades of meaning. For what it's worth, it was not my intention to exclude imaginary or conceptual phenomena from this discussion. On the other hand, I think "Is that tree real" is a different question than "Is that a real tree." Seems to me the first causes more philosophical agita.
As I've said enough times to drive even me crazy, I don't think whether or not objective reality exists is a question of fact. I think it's a metaphysical question with no truth value. Please everyone, I don't want to go into that here. On the other hand, the question "Is this apple real?" asked as I hold up a normal everyday apple, has a meaning and an answer. Not to keep you in suspense, yes, the apple is real.
Probably because of the sense of permanence and solidity regular people feel and don't see the need to undermine with philosophical folderol.
I have been accused of being a pragmatist.
Quoting 180 Proof
"Ineluctable" is defined as "Not to be overcome by struggling; irresistible; inescapable; inevitable.
Impossible to avoid or escape; inescapable, irresistible." And yet, here we are struggling and resisting. I guess that makes us philosophers.
I suspect the problem resides in our not knowing well enough how to categorize "purely" mental objects. But then, this rock I see here, is partially mental, at the very least.
And so, it is not clear...
I'm trying to decide the best way of dealing with the ideas of "real" or "reality" are, given quantum mechanics. The options, as I see them 1) Reality only applies at the classical level. 2) Reality exists at the quantum level, but it is a different kind of reality. 3) There is a broader meaning of "reality" which encompasses both classical and quantum scales. 4) There is no such thing as reality.
I'm willing to go with 3 as long as we keep in mind that it has to remain consistent with our everyday reality. I'm not even sure that's possible.
Quoting Andrew M
I wonder if that's true.
Yeah, that, or, we dont bother with them in the first place. The senses govern our lives, right?
I think it might be reasonable to include hallucinations and delusions as real. They certainly exist here at everyday human scale. That's one of the things for discussion in this thread.
Quoting Amity
I see you are making a distinction between delusions and experiences associated with reading fiction. If I understand correctly, the difference is that fiction is open for examination by everyone while delusions are purely personal. I'm not sure I buy that distinction.
I think "real" and "true" mean very different things. I came across a discussion of the difference on the web while putting together the OP. Truth applies only to propositions. If you buy the correspondence theory, the truth of a proposition is determined by its consistency with reality, but that doesn't mean they are the same thing. I don't think that's a nitpicky distinction.
I sense that, I don't know anything. A bit like a zombie, what with Halloween coming up and all.
Thanks, although I found the back and forth inoffensive.
There was one person who screamed over and over that he wasn't real. Turned out, he'd been convinced that he was a character in a video game, which just the kind of bizarre shit Katamine produces.
So of course, the philosophical question that comes to one is: how do I know I'm not on Ketamine? What criteria would I use to determine that?
I think this definition is a good one. It gets at some of the confusion about the reality of quantum events. What's real is what's "registered by our observations."
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
This makes sense, although I'm not sure it answers all the questions. I think for some, it is not only the mental state that is real, the imagined apple is too.
Except when that's clearly false? You and I, discussing whether the Bermuda Triangle is a thing, with a mysterious ship- and plane-eating property, cannot be assuming that it is real: that is the question we are addressing.
(1) Is it possible that the Bermuda Triangle is a real thing? Is the idea consistent with the laws of nature as we understand them, for instance? Is there some suitably naturalist explanation for the disappearance of ships and planes thereabouts?
(1a) Our understanding of nature may be correct to the extent of ruling out Bermuda Triangles.
(1b) Our understanding of nature may be incorrect at least in ruling out Bermuda Triangles.
(2) If the existence of a Bermuda Triangle is consistent with our understanding of nature, or if our understanding of nature incorrectly rules it out, then the question remains whether we live in a world that has a Bermuda Triangle. It may be possible and thus real somewhere, just not here.
But now consider the actual Bermuda Triangle, marked off as a region of the Atlantic ocean through which ships and planes pass, and within which ships and planes are lost at roughly the same rate as any similarly heavily trafficked coastal region anywhere in the world.
With that in mind, to say that the Bermuda Triangle is not real, is to say that there is not something to be explained, but nothing, there being no statistical anomaly in need of explanation. The set of things to be explained exists but is empty.
I didn't say that the sensations themselves aren't real.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't think the sensations are "what are real", i.e. all that is real. I think they are the measure, or at least one measure, of what is real.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Are you asking if we, our selves, are real? It's a good question. I didn't address that in my OP, but I didn't intend to exclude it from the discussion.
I used to think of reality as having a relationship to existence as having a relationship to being, where "the real" refers to lived experience, existence refers to judgments of statements, and being does not refer but is the most fundamental -- one might be tempted to say there's a Hegelian relationship between being and the other two. Something rougly along those lines.
Recently having been revisiting Levinas I came across a term he uses: the there is. The opening paragraph of chapter 2 in the Levinas reader, a pdf which I found through the graces of google:
To stretch my mind a bit -- I might say reality is related to the self in the selfs projects or pictures, or more fundamentally, in the selfs enjoyment of grasping the world for itself -- and being able to do so without falling into the usual traps by use of the there is. But here, reality isn't playing the linguistic role that @Banno sets out (which I'm also drawn to -- honestly those were my first thoughts. OLP has had its way with me! :D ) -- and here's where I'd say I think we get along, because as he says reality plays many roles, and it depends upon the philosopher. It's just a matter of setting it out.
I didn't say and I don't believe reality is what corresponds to sensation. I said reality only makes sense in comparison or relation to sensation. Yes, my way of saying it is vague and weaselly, intentionally so. I wanted to leave it open what exactly the relationship is.
Quoting Mww
Sorry. This was intended as a joke.
Quoting Mww
I don't understand.
You may be right, but it comes up often in our discussions here on the forum. That's why I started the thread.
Quoting Manuel
Yes, this is the kind of question that usually comes up when we talk about what is real. I haven't taken a position one way or another.
An alternative philosophical question - to what extent is the delusion real?
You are right to be sceptical. It is a distinction that I only became aware of as I wrote.
Not sure I can explain but here goes anyway:
The words on the page of the Tao Te Ching or the Bible are open to interpretation as literature.
We can read and share what the words or The Word mean to us if anything.
Hallucination: a sensory perception not accessible or real to those other than the sufferer.
Delusion: a fixed, false conviction in something that is not real or shared by other people.
Both hallucinations and delusions can and should be assessed and treated where possible:
https://www.verywellhealth.com/hallucinations-5222084
https://www.verywellhealth.com/delusions-5113070
It's important to recognise the distinction between different kinds of reality and their consequences.
For health reasons, if nothing else.
Aren't delusions unreal by definition?
I don't think I understand the distinctions you're making. After some thought, I generally think of "being" and "existence" as the same thing. As I noted in the OP, I see "reality" as being related but not the same. I didn't define how they are the same and how they are different because I'm not sure I can. Maybe I think of "existence" and "being" as more abstract than "reality." "Reality" is somehow more normal.
Quoting Moliere
I don't understand this.
That's one of the questions on the table.
I recognize the distinction you're making, but I'm not sure I buy it, at least not from a philosophical point of view.
Delusion:
"An idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument."
What about the definition are you questioning?
OK, call it a pragmatic point of view. Philosophy as a way of life...
You don't need to buy it.
Oh, I may not either -- but I think I got a gist at least. And I'm just stretching, really -- attempting to make use of concepts more widely than in their interpretive home (while mid-reading no less -- so there be danger here!)
I'll try to un-jargonize the above here --
Reality is that aspect of being we notice. I'm cool with just drawing a distinction between being and reality -- good enough for me.
Being is that which has no distinction. If it were distinct then it'd be individuated then it wouldn't apply to some existence. There are no predicates, but the very basis upon which predicates can be stated. Reality, then, is that which is cared about.
And, more generally, we are free to set out what we mean by reality. It changes depending upon the philosopher.
Quoting T Clark
Since science is epistemic, not ontic, I don't see what "QM" has to do with "reality" as such (i.e. map (QM) =/= terrain (reality); therefore, interpreting one in terms of the other seems to me a category error), and puzzles me why (the Mods allow) so much pseudo-quantum graffiti to deface these fora.
"What is generally accepted as reality" is not necessarily the same as reality as viewed from a philosophical perspective.
No, but I'm allowed to express an opinion.
Or maybe it is the aspect of being we can notice, even if we don't right now.
Quoting Moliere
Funny - "that which has no distinction" is what Lao Tzu would probably call "non-being."
Quoting Moliere
Agreed. I guess that's the point of this discussion - if you're going to use the words, make sure you let us all know what you mean.
I agree, which is one of the reasons I brought this whole thing up. How much of quantum "weirdness" is metaphysics and how much is physics?
Interesting.
Sure, I would agree that physics is epistemic.
Would you say the same thing about the things studied by biologists?
Husserlian phenomenology makes a distinction between the real, the sensate and the imaginary. For him , the real refers to something like a spatial object in empirical nature. The real object is actually a concatenation of memory, anticipation and sensate data. We never actually
experience the object as a fulfilled unity so the real is an idealization, and is contingent and relative. The real is based in part on immediate data of sensation , but what we actually experience in sensation changes from
one moment to the next as a Heraclitean flux, unlike the real , which we assume to have extension, duration and persistence. Imagination is memory of actual
sense sat ( and the real, which is constituted at a higher level from this primordial experience of the world).
well, they are sort of similar -- since being applies to everything that is, it's not like we can say it's like this or that thing. It's everything. And when I look at everything -- what on earth is in common? Nothing.
Quoting T Clark
I'm fine with this way of talking too.
"Aspect" is probably the wrong word, now that I'm thinking on it. Sounds like "property", and it's probably better to say "mode": A kind of way which we encounter being. Ways? What is a way? (Dasein's comportant...)
Quoting T Clark
Heh. It'd be nice, but I think that usually we just assume we know what we mean with "real" -- and that's not too weird, either. We don't go about proving reality, more often than not. Maybe whether a statement is true, but not reality. Reality doesn't admit of proof or disproof. And if that's so, is it even amenable to reason?
It's almost more weird to set out the term in the first place :D -- which is why such talk gets so confusing, I think. Too many possibilities at this level of abstraction, and without some kind of text or tradition or something -- it's just not definable. It requires some philosophic tools to define. But in so doing we are already sort of begging the question in defining it by defining it by such-and-such as being real.
To bring this back to quantum weirdness -- It's fascinating unto itself, but yeah, I take it that most QM-weird discussions are -- perhaps unknowingly -- begging the question, and pointing at this weird thing to say "Look, if this weird thing exists, then my weird thing exists"
What's the difference?
That's the subject of this discussion.
Mostly 'metacognitive dissonance.'
Quoting Manuel
Yes, even more so.
You stated that what is usually considered to be reality may be distinct from reality as viewed from a philosophical perspective.
Can you not articulate what the potential difference is?
I dont understand. If there is a discussion, there must be something to discuss. The presupposition is the necessary conceivability of the object of the discussion. It is impossible to discuss that for which there is no conception. What is clearly false in any of that?
-
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Im not addressing anything other than limitations for the state of being real. The B.T. may not be a thing that devours real objects, but it is necessarily a real conception, insofar as if it werent......how could we be discussing its properties? Cant be a property that doesnt belong to something, right?
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Can a set of things to be explained be empty? The set of explanations of things that exist may be empty, but that thing to be explained must be a member of the set of all things.
But Im not a set kinda guy, so....
As I noted, that is the subject of this thread.
Okey dokey.
I only meant that we can talk about the set of statistical anomalies that the Bermuda Triangle is thought to be a member of and then discover that it is not.
There's a story, probably apocryphal, that Frederick the Great once gathered his court scientists and philosophers together and asked them to explain why a dead fish weighs more than a live one. They went around in turn each offering a theory, and once they had all offered their explanations, he pointed out that it does not.
It's interesting you say this. I would say I do not 'know' these things to be true although I have reasonable confidence in some of them. I don't take my feelings as an indication of reality. We feel deeply and wrongly and capriciously all the time. It might be 'true' that I am experiencing anger, for instance, but what realty is this emotion corresponding to or produced by and what alternative, equally true emotion might have come to me instead?
To say something is observable is to privilege empiricism and to make assumptions about the observer and what is being observed. How does one rule out idealism, for instance?
I generally make assumptions that the world I see and appear to interact with is real - as far as this word goes, in TC's sense (human scale only). I don't think it's easy or useful to do otherwise. But I don't imagine I have access to truth or reality as such, just a pragmatic response and some tentative models of reality that work reasonably well.
:cool:
Quoting T Clark
Yeah, my bad. I was speaking from an ontological perspective (reality is....), you were speaking from an epistemological perspective, (making sense by relation). We each are justified in our perspectives, in that your making sense of reality is far down the methodological line from my sensation of it. You cannot make sense without my sensation, and my sensation is worthless without your relations.
Taking the theme further, realist logic has it that a given statement has a truth value regardless of the whether that value is known, and so uses two truth states - true and false. Antirealism uses three truth states, true, false and a third that is neither - we might call it "undecided".
So we can ask, given your quantum coin, should we make use of a realist or antirealist grammar?
Quoting Andrew M
So the statement "The coin shows heads" implies a contradiction by Bells theorem, as does the statement "the coin shows tails", and prima facie we drop biconditional logic as a description of how things are (Putnam's realistic view) or we include measurement as fundamental to physics (shut up and calculate) - see Quantum Logic and Probability Theory for a discussion of the options, which become very complex very quickly.
But this is to wander off into speculation best left to physicist.
The term 'real' is used in various ways and to some extent it may come down to commonsense picture, or that which is confirmed intersubjectively. Even within psychiatry, while there is some acknowledgement of cultural beliefs and differences, there is an adherence to a general realist worldview. This is the basis for ideas of what is delusional and, for example, if one believes that they have magical powers they are likely to be seen as delusional. To some extent, there may be a shared understanding of delusion in the psychiatric and philosophy perspective in Western culture.
I also go with 3.
Quoting T Clark
I just meant in their capacity as a physicist. The quantum mechanics issue is ostensively about counterfactual definiteness, not factual definiteness.
However the tension you raise with option 3 is especially acute with the Wigner's friend thought experiment. From the friend's point-of-view, she observes a definite result. From Wigner's point-of-view, he observes interference effects which indicates indefiniteness.
If I could check something - Wigner's friend agrees that Wigner sees interference effects; and WIgner agrees that his friend sees a definite result?
That is, they agree as to what each of them sees.
Arguably, there is then 'a way that things are', but one that has two differing, yet agreed, descriptions.
I appreciate the comment!
Quoting Banno
I think a realist grammar is fine. We are already used to sentences like the Liar and "The King of France is bald", with different strategies available.
Quoting Banno
See also the TPF discussion here on quantum logic. But it's worth noting that it has never replaced classical logic for reasoning about quantum systems.
So instead of dropping biconditional logic, I'm inclined to view statements like "The coin shows heads" as requiring an understood and shared context. If we understand that the quantum coin's state can be continuous (as represented by a qubit) rather than discrete (as represented by a bit), then a statement like "The coin shows heads" will be true when the coin is in a definite heads state and false otherwise. Similar to the statement "The traffic light is green" where green and red don't exhaust all the possible options.
Yes. In terms of the thought experiment, Wigner can wait ten minutes, then enter the lab (collapsing the lab wavefunction) and the friend will report having seen the definite result ten minutes earlier which Wigner can now verify.
Quoting Banno
Yes, that's correct. But it's worth noting that there is not universal agreement about that. There was a lot of discussion on the Nature paper, "Quantum theory cannot consistently describe the use of itself" a few years ago. Scott Aaronson blogged about it at the time.
That's a clever, intriguing paper. Thanks. So where I above supposed that there may be two differing but agreed descriptions, the paper argues that there may be disagreement between what each observer deduces that the other observer sees; but Aaronson suggests this relies on the contradiction of a measurement not measured.
We've an assortment of differing uses for similar terms floating around now. There's the realism/antirealism of ontology, the realistic view espoused by Putnam, and the realism of counterfactual - definiteness you mentioned. it's not going to be easy to keep these distinct in a forum such as this.
Per Chalmers, ontological realism just says that statements of idealism or materialism are truth apt. Ontological anti-realism denies this.
It's probably best to give a quick definition of the kind of realism you want to talk about.
I missed your reply. As I said to Mww, I think that the problem here is the issue of "purely" mental entities, that is, thinking about objects absent being in front of them.
Then there's also issues pertaining to fiction, Harry Potter and so forth, which enter the conversation. There's also the issue of memory, of not remembering if an event "really" happened the way you recall it.
The one place where the issue does not arise, or at least not nearly as frequently, is when we speak about an apple in front of us, or a tree, or a road and so on.
If we talk about something, and we understand each other (roughly), then we are speaking about that thing being talked about, even if that thing has no world-correspondence. So, we speak of fictional entities, or mythical ones, or even fake entities (fake money, fake products, etc.)
But there are "real" fake things, there really is fake currency and products that are not as comes as advertised (buying fools gold, thinking it's actual gold) . So, I fail to see the problem being much more than linguistic.
Well, I wouldn't have got there but for you and Austin! To compare and contrast how the word 'real' is used in a variety of contexts is fascinating. I now need a dummy's guide to Austin!
The full list below, I later discovered that each item is linked to its own set of synonyms.
For example:
Adjective
Of, or concerned with, the actual doing or use of something, rather than with theory and ideas
Includes practical, existential, empiric and dozens more.
Each in turn can be clicked on to reveal...yes, even more!
Lost in words, you will never be lost for words...unless you are...for quite some other reason.
Quoting WordHippo
'Having all its feathers' - Really?!! :chin:
:smile:
Did the repetition wear you down?
TC picking up some political techniques; avoidance of questions à la robotic Truss.
TC either can't or he can but won't.
The question then is: Why won't he?
The answer: 'That's the subject of this discussion. I won't discuss it'.
Why not?
And so on...
TC is having fun. Along the lines of:
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
[ emphasis added]
It is an enjoyable thread...listening to and learning from different perspectives but where does it lead? Is it meant to lead anywhere...increased understanding or confusion? Both and more :sparkle:
:cool:
Understood, thanks. Some aid in distinguishing the real from reality, then?
As my ol buddy Janis Joplin once said....of great social and political import....regarding Frederick: So....of all the scientists and philosophers gathered around the throne, unless Kant was off on some sabbatical, he was most probably the one told his philosopher-king the fish weight had nothing to do with its being alive or dead. Kant dedicated pre-critical papers to Frederick; Fredrick influenced Kants appointment to the chair of logic and metaphysics at Konigsberg. Kant thought Frederick the epitome of enlightened monarchs; Frederick thought Kant a hero for supporting Newtonian physics, which was anathema in purely philosophical circles, the gap between the two having yet to be critically established. But it put Prussia firmly on the continental academic map, so Frederick was all for it, plus, locally, it bruised the Pietist ego, which couldnt possibly be a bad thing.
The point: no matter how the mind wanders to come up with stuff, another mind can do things with it the originator hardly intended.
Right, that's the point. We consider whether or not the thing being measured (through sensation) is real, and we naturally conclude that if we are measuring it, it must be real. But prior to coming to this conclusion, isn't it necessary to do our due diligence toward understanding the thing which is doing the measuring? If the thing doing the measuring isn't real, then what validity does "if we are measuring it, it must be real" have?
I came at this question from a philosophical rather than psychological perspective, although I think your point is relevant. As you note, "adherence to a general realist worldview" is a baseline against which other ways of thinking about reality can be compared. That being said, I don't necessarily exclude delusions, hallucinations, or other mental processes from consideration as real. I left that question open in my OP.
I've read through an explanation of Wigner's friend twice and can't figure it out how it applies beyond just plain old "quantum weirdness."
I think you've laid out the types of situations that have to be evaluated in determining what is and what isn't real. As I noted, everyday, humdrum reality is my benchmark. The others should be evaluated in relation to that. That's what's important to me. I don't think the other situations, e.g. mental states or fictional phenomena, matter as much in themselves.
Not necessarily. It's meant to go where it goes. Which it seems to be doing pretty well from my perspective.
It's a pretty standard thought, at least in eastern philosophies, that the self is an illusion.
I don't have any problem with what you've written. I'm not saying the memory of an apple is not real. Is it "ordinary, humdrum reality?" Let's see... I guess if you put me in thumbscrews or on the rack and forced me to make a definitive statement as to what everyday reality is, I'd say it is something physical, something made of physical substance, matter or energy, something you can observe directly with human senses.
Thank you for forcing me to say that. Your use of torture devices is forgiven. I didn't realize that's what I think till I wrote it out.
Clarity for the questions maybe?
We can talk about "the smallest real number greater than 0" but there isn't one, despite our lovely predicate. We get into a muddle if we make that thing and then say it doesn't exist, because non-referring expressions are annoying. But we don't have to do that. We can show that the set determined by such a predicate must be empty. Or we can skip to how we do that, by showing that there is a positive real number smaller than any given positive real number. No non-referring expression needed.
Good question and one we never quite get past even if we ignore it or sweep it aside.
* Belief Independent
* Authentic
Conflating them will only lead to confusion
This marketing of the 'real' is to me related to authenticity culture which for some years has been a defining quality in marketing lifestyle options, especially the 'hipsters' who, when they were more of a thing, pontificated about the authenticity of products like beer, music or clothing. Perhaps the vestigial traces of 1970's 'be real' imprecations.
Andrew Potter wrote an interesting book on this:
https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-authenticity-hoax-andrew-potter/book/9780061251351.html
As with other replies here, applying Austin's approach clears things markedly. Notably notions of reality being just ideas or just sensations... There's a marked tendency to confuse their supposed indubitability with reality. But if you would understand a real idea, with what woudl you contrast it? What is an unreal idea - one from the sixties? If you would understand a real sensation, then you would also understand an unreal sensation... but what would that be? In asking such questions one comes to see that the notion of "real" is misapplied to sensations and ideas. Whole volumes of bad philosophy are removed by such considerations.
Probably right. I suspect part of this strand is even less defined - 'real' as somehow pure or good; it's opposite being not just artificial, but insalubrious, less moral.
As in....infinities with respect to mathematicians, and universals to philosophers? Can we say that which refers to every single thing of a kind is non-referring?
Muddle indeed, circumvented to some extend by modifying the domain of the conception. Limiting existence to the empirical, being to the non-empirical. That way, a thing can be, without the necessity of existence, its being conditioned only by time.
The real in real numbers was originated by a mathematician, equally well-known....if not more so....as the father of modern, or at least post-Scholastic, philosophy. Odd, innit?
Quoting Tom Storm
Quoting Banno
Yes, I know the difference between real and real. I posted the photo because I thought it was amusing.
I agree.
I was simply showing again how Austin's approach might be helpful.
Never thought you didn't, I was pointing to a consistent use of real/authentic as a hallmark of superiority in many contemporary sub-cultures. Something this thread keeps reminding me of. :wink:
Were you thinking that we can't see the effects of quantum weirdness with our own eyes?
Then how would you even begin to talk about sensations like hearing, seeing, etc., if there is not something doing the sensing? If you have an aversion to the term "self", that's one thing, but isn't it still necessary to assume something which is sensing, in order to make sense of sensation?
Sometimes people confuse their ideas with reality, as with the Ketamine use I was describing. A person thought he was a character in a video game.
I wasn't disagreeing with what you wrote. My intention was to expand on this part of your post:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The eastern philosophical skepticism about the self does exactly what you said. It undermines our confidence in our understanding of reality.
I don't know what an unreal idea is. They guy thought he was a character in a video game. That was an idea which he took for reality.
Since you have no criteria for determining if you're presently on Ketamine, you don't know if the world you think of as real is just an idea.
I first noticed that when I was about 16. It's not bad philosophy. It's just part of being human.
Indeed and so we might arrive back at idealism - what criteria do we use to demonstrate that the physical world is real other than intersubjective agreement? Not sure kicking a rock Dr Johnson style will cut it. Do you have an approach to this?
...and that's the point made by Austin's strategy. Until you have a term with which to contrast it, "real" has no meaning, does nothing except perhaps misguide.
So a useful example of this in action might be a 'real' 5th century BCE attic vase versus a fake one. How would this fare - the real god versus the false gods? Can real meaningfully refer to an abstraction, or must it be demonstrable?
I guess we have real characters in a Dickens novel.
Kinda. In "This ball is red," "... is red" is a function not an object, the characteristic function of the set of all red things. Of course we also want to quantify over functions, so that means taking them as objects, as in "Red is an easy concept to learn."
That functions don't refer when used as functions shouldn't bother anyone; they're not supposed to refer.
The annoying cases are "Santa Claus", "Sherlock Holmes," that stuff.
At one time, my greatest fear was of not being able to tell reality from fiction. When I began to realize there is no criteria for that, I headed into a crisis.
I decided that my explanations for what I experience will always be in flux. My anchor is the content of my experience. It's kind of like a deal I made with myself. It works. Plus I'm no longer afraid of being insane. That helps.
I see.
Quoting Tom Storm
As you've acknowledged; real, meaning authentic; is not the main subject of this thread. Even so, your dyspeptic take on authenticity reminded me of an article by Stephen Jay Gould, probably my favorite writer. It's called "Counters and Cable Cars, included in his book Eight Little Piggies. Heres an excerpt:
Heres a link to the article on the Internet Archive. Youll have to sign in, but theres no cost. You can use your Google account.
https://archive.org/details/eightlittlepiggi0000goul/page/238/mode/2up
Sorry, I just really like the word "dyspeptic." It feels good to say it. Also, when I use it, I imagine you scowling.
Taking the concept of reality out of the equation for a moment, I believe we can assert with confidence that there exists variation in the way things are organized in the universe; meaning that we can be certain that there exist things different and separate from themselves and our bodies - the distribution of whatever it is that makes that which we call the universe is not isotropic. Even if this variation is real or not, it exists (no matter what real means, there is variation); it is undeniable, even from the human perspective, since the fact that there are things different from me implies that I am different from them - none of the schools of philosophy can exist without variation/difference/variety. In fact, any kind of organizing process, if that makes any sense, is unable to exist without variation - for how can there be any kind of organization in an absolutely isotropic quality/entity/substance? Now, to me, it seems this variation is ubiquitous across all levels of organization that pertain to the sciences, math, and logic, and I would say there is nothing more real than that, but again, it might not even be.
... chocolate?
Yes. Fictions, or interpretations, may consist of 'truth-telling lies' which (can) indicate realities.
Yes, that's right.
Quoting T Clark
Plain old "quantum weirdness" is when a system is in a superposition of state 0 and state 1.
Wigner-grade "quantum weirdness" is when Wigner's friend in the lab is in a superposition of having measured state 0 and having measured state 1. From the friend's point-of-view, the wave function has collapsed whereas from Wigner's point-of-view, it has not.
Hmm. So was some sort of consensus reached as to which view was correct?
No. Renner addresses criticisms, including Aaronson's which is the "agent's brain" sentence below. Assumptions Q, S and C are what Aaronson describes in his post as "(briefly, QM works, measurements have definite outcomes, and the transitivity of knowledge)".
Quoting Testing quantum theory with thought experiments - Nuriya Nurgalieva and Renato Renner (section 6)
Thanks.
Me too!
Interesting. Never heard this term before: 'truth-telling lies'. In a text, they would constitute substantive content (material) but also the subjective thoughts/ideas (mental/spiritual ) of the author.
Readers bring their own realities to the table. All real, no?
Where else might we find 'truth-telling lies'? A stretching of the truth or reality.
I found 'paltering': the devious art of lying by telling the truth is not just for politicians; we all do it.
Quoting BBC Future
Knowing what is 'real' and how to challenge the misuse of facts...developing critical thinking...having the courage to stand up against the lying and the manipulative...we could all do more...to progress rather than regress. Education right from the get-go; telling stories and discussing them. Pretty much what we do here.
Quoting T Clark
A circular definition, not particularly helpful.
Expanded here:
Quoting WordHippo
The latter would include hallucinations and delusions as previously discussed.
Quoting Amity
What else could it be, oui mon ami?
'What is an unreal idea'?
That got me wondering if the opposite of 'real' is 'unreal'. Should it be nonreal, irreal...?
Sticking with 'unreal', there's a long list but I've cut it down to three:
Quoting WordHippo
clicking on the links:
1. immaterial, mental, spiritual, intangible
2. extrinsic, acquired, artificial, learned
3. nonempirical, theoretical, subjective, faith-driven
Next up, what is an 'idea':
Quoting WordHippo
An 'unreal idea', then, is what?
1. a mental image of an object
2. an acquired way of thinking
3. a subjective result of mental activity
To be contrasted with a 'real idea'. What is that again?
Pick and mix. Compare and contrast. But we're missing context. Have we any examples?
Any ideas come to mind? Real or unreal? :chin:
I haven't covered sensations but, given the above, how is the notion of 'real' misapplied to ideas?
Whole volumes of philosophy, bad or otherwise...could be removed and we would still be non the wiser.
Which philosophers are more 'real' than others?
Of course, all of the definitions above come from a non-philosophical site.
Are they more or less helpful than something from the SEP or similar?
Enter 'idea' and you get 1965 hits. Talking of which...
Ok. ...is red functions as a predicate in a proposition, then. The function of a predicate is to describe the subject to which it belongs, such that this ball has at least one certain identifying condition.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Yeah, but were only concerned with this ball..... The statement says so. Rather simplistic to say the least, but if I hold out my hand with a ball in it, and tell you in no uncertain terms this ball is red, the last thing youre going to do is consider the set of all red things, just as I did not upon determining something certain about the ball. And you, all youre going to do is say, yeah, ok, I see that (iff the ball appears red to you), or, yeah, ok, Ill take your word for it (iff the ball does not appear red to you).
But youre trying to show me something, and youve done that well enough for me understand what youre saying. I must say though, its far too complicated and quite an unnecessary elaboration of simple human constructs to be of any beneficial use. Or, as a question of mere interest, of what benefit could it be?
I mean....Santa Claus does refer, and without any annoyance I should think, if the sticker on the gift-wrapped present says from: Santa. And if considered from the standard subject/copula/predicate logical propositional format, any conception contained in a predicate, and is thereby the object of it, must refer to its subject.
So I wonder....whats the point in deviating from the standard? What profit is there in it, over and above whats already there?
Sorry I took so long to come back to this. Such an articulate/coherent thought you present here. Your question is a good one.
To say something is observable I don't believe privileges empiricism because if it did then we would not be able to observe "belief" in action. Yet we observe belief (personal truths of others/reality according to them) all the time.
You can observe a person behave in accordance with their values even if you have no empirical evidence that their values exist/should exist. For example, you can observe a person go to a church, mosque or other religious institution and pray to their God. You can understand through their actions that they must really believe in such an entity - otherwise they wouldnt pray, despite the fact that you yourself may not believe in such a god. You have no empirical/objective proof outside the fact that that person is an object with a phenomenon associated with it which you are observing.
One can argue that that is or isn't "empirical" evidence or subject to "observation". That choice is yours to make.
How does one rule out idealism you say? My answer to that is why would you want to rule out idealism? Idealism stands as a goal, a noble one at that. Idealism stands for a world which can be better than it is now. It stands for evolution, for progress and for improvement. Without a sense of idealism, without a hope for the ideal, we are left broken, defeated and feeling worthless. We are depressed, disenchanted and dangerously close to suicidal ideation instead of the ideation of a better life.
We must inspire good ideals in others to prevent them from succumbing to depression and suicide. If we value their life that is. Which we should. :)
Santa Claus is a real fictional character, but not a real person. When the tag on the present is signed "from: Santa" that's supposed to mean it's from the person Santa Claus; no one thinks they're getting a present from a fictional character. Since there is no person Santa Claus, signing a tag that way is pretending that there is such a person.
That's what I mean when I say "reference": an expression that picks out one of the objects in the world. Santa is not one of the objects in the world, so the expression "Santa Claus" does not refer. We pretend it does.
The sense in which a predicate "refers to" its subject, to what it's predicated of, is a matter of syntax not semantics. It's the "of" in "red is true of this ball." Not the same as the expression "this ball" referring, semantically, to some particular object.
As you say in your first line, you've taken the concept of reality out of the equation, which changes everything. As I see it, your interesting description of the world we live in is just a different way of looking at thermodynamics. You need stuff moving from areas of relatively high to areas of relatively low concentration for anything to happen. That's physics. The idea of reality is ontology, metaphysics. As I understand it, metaphysics is not something that can be verified empirically. But that's a long song I've sung many times here on the forum.
Wait. What is metaphysics?
Thanks for the response. I've always thought of this kind of paradox as a game physicists play, not really signifying anything substantive. But I'll admit to being relatively naive when it comes to quantum mechanics, so let's not get into that discussion here.
You are forgiven.
I started out discussing what "real" means. Then, in the passage you quoted, I indicated that "reality" is the noun form of "real." No circularity at all.
As I noted previously, I find this affectation annoying.
Yep. Keyword....real. All I was going for all along.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Technically, all its supposed to do is explain how the present didnt get there all by itself. It answers the question, who is this from? before it needs to be asked. The reasons for using an imaginary character, if only to circumvent the asking...... thats another topic, and sorta beside the point anyway.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Thats fine. I, on the other hand, find nothing wrong with using mere conceptions to refer, and with them, I dont have to pretend. The onus is on me, nonetheless, to insure the conception I use doesnt freak out whoever Im talking to.
Wonderful faculty....imagination. Always in use, seldom given its due respect.
Quoting Mww
For some cases, the issue is direction of fit. It is one thing to imagine a way of proving Fermat's last theorem, and then spend years actualizing that proof, and another to have written out some mathematics you mistakenly imagine is a proof of Fermat's last theorem. Fermat himself seems to have imagined a proof, which he did not write down, but if he had he would probably have recognized that it was not a proof after all.
:up:
Quoting Benj96
Sorry, I was referring to philosophical idealism (all that exists is consciousness and materialism is just mind when viewed from a particular perspective) as per Schopenhauer, Berkeley, Hegel, Schelling, and these days Kastrup and Hoffman)
Ah okay. Understood. Well in that case I believe idealism and pragmatism (what is realistic) operate in contention with one another. You cannot have idealism without realism they are opposites. Mutually dependent..
Does that clarify my position a bit better? If not speak your mind and we are free to discuss it further :)
OK. Standard rational methodology: hypothesis, reason, conclusion.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Non-standard rational methodology. Or, which is the same thing, standard irrational methodology. Imagining a way to prove, which presupposes a method, is very far from imagining a proof, which doesnt.
The norm in humans is the standard, which makes the proper direction of fit go one way. If the conclusion contradicts established criteria, as in the case of pure mathematics, or fails to conform to observations of Nature, in the case of the empirical sciences, the hypothesis is falsely premised. Back to square one, change the premises in the hypothesis....carry on.
But youre right. There are two ways of doing things. One adheres to the rules, which may be sufficient for an end, whatever that may be, the other is the exception to those rules, which is sufficient only for acquaintance with the difficulty, or downright impossibility, for that end. Being aware of the exceptions should serve to inform as to what not to do.
You can wedge direction of fit in there somehow, if you wish. I dont see what good it does; we already do all direction of fit says anyway.
Disclaimer: Im up on this modern linguistic jazz just as much as Im up on set theory, so I have a self-prescribed out.
Apolpgies.
:smile:
I knew you were clueless! :roll:
What kind of an idea don't you have?
I have an idea.
Let's start a YWHNIC.
'Yes, We Have No Idea/s Club'.
You can be the Founding Father and I can be Mummy :scream: :hearts: :monkey:
Our first offspring must be a song and dance.
Lyrics to the tune of YWHNB: ( they keep changing the words anyway, let's have a philo version)
Allons-y!
May your offspring floruit like, as they say, nobody's business!
Well, you can join in too. With your flair for language, you can take the first verse :cool:
'Floruit' - I thought you were flourishing your français but non, it derives from Latin.
Good call, as they say.
Mind and take care...of your [s]bananas[/s] ideas... :nerd:
Never mind reality. Sing 'Is that all there is?' by Peggy Lee.
Why? :snicker:
Why not? But enough already!
GOTO the Lounge. It's where it's at :cool:
:cool: Why not? Well, I can think of a number of reasons not to sing e.g. if I'm hiding from a lion.
Arrêter! Bugger off to Deep Songs. This post will now self-destruct :fire:
[quote=Ms. Marple]Most interesting.[/quote]
Keep it comin'!
-" I think this definition is a good one. It gets at some of the confusion about the reality of quantum events. What's real is what's "registered by our observations."
- I share the same opinion. After all what is real or not, what is true or not, what is knowledge or not, etc are our personal evaluations limited by our our empirical nature and our current methods/technology of investigation. So I find reasonable to avoid absolute or ultimate claims on aspects of the world that we a. don't have access and b. can't verify if those aspects even exist.
-"This makes sense, although I'm not sure it answers all the questions. I think for some, it is not only the mental state that is real, the imagined apple is too."
-Yes, I have interacted with people who make that claim. I think its an ambiguity issue. In my opinion they should identify the differences between a Real physical apple and an mental representation of a "real" apple. By identifying their properties we wil be able to justify or not the use of the term real for both cases.
I don't really have an opinion on whether or not an imagined apple should be considered real or not. What's important for me is the recognition that the further you get from things we can see with out eyes or hold in our hands, the more tenuous the connection to "reality" is.
Its a logical fallacy to equate the ontology of two different things (Map/Territory).
We can't go anywhere by walking on a map,like we can not satisfy our appetite or receive nutrients by eating a mental impression of an apple.
All boils down to the meaning of the concept of "real" and how useful our usage is to avoid fallacies of ambiguity.
Agree. After almost 200 posts . . . :roll:
, is considering only a restricted use of "real". This definition does not serve to sort a fake masterpiece from real Picaso, a counterfeit from a real bank note. These might be physically indistinguishable.
All that says is that what real means is how we use it. Hardly something which which one would disagree.
Again, Quoting Banno There's your answer.
I think we are in a good path with the people I interacted so far!
But further, if you would provide an account of some concept, best to provide an account of all its uses. That way you will avoid the danger of misapplying a limited account to a general case.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
One does not define a common usage, one observes it. If one begins by defining one's terms, one is in danger of not addressing the common usage. Indeed, that is what you have done here, with "real", by limiting your sample.
.
Quoting Banno
- In any dictionary almost every word has more than one definition ! As you pointed out , the world "real" can be used to address "Genuineness" too (not just state of existence/non existence).
So in order to avoid talking past each other we all need to inform our interlocutors on the meaning of the word we are using.
-"One does not define a common usage, one observes it. If one begins by defining one's terms, one is in danger of not addressing the common usage. Indeed, that is what you have done here, with "real", by limiting your sample. "
-No, no , no. Its essential to limit your sample (of common usages) or else you are in danger of having a vague conversation about anything....not a specific something.
We define the term by pointing TO the "common usage" we use. ITs impossible to ignore it since its our starting point.
i.e. your definition of "real" (being genuine) doesn't challenge the existence of a "mental apple" but another quality (of genuineness) we project on physical objects that we don't question their existence. By defining the ontological aspect of the term, I remove this specific common usage from the conversation.
Therefore any proposed universal definitions of "reality", "truth", "existence", "equality" etc can only be prescriptive rules of language for standardising the public expression of individual judgements that are made on a case by case basis. Such universal definitions don't describe their future applications before the respective future judgements are made, and the outcomes of said judgements aren't dictated by the a priori universal definitions - only the expression of such judgements can be said to be determined a priori by the universal definitions.
Rather, the context serves to restrict the use of the term. What Austin noticed is that "real", and various other terms of philosophical interest, is defined negatively, by contrasting it to what is not real. It's a real painting, not a fake; a real bank note, not a forgery.
He's not setting out a definition but describing a use.
That's how to deal with language effectively, in contrast to mere stipulation.
? am not sure we are compatible as interlocutors.
You wrote "Nickolasgaspar is considering only a restricted use of "real". This definition does not serve to sort a fake masterpiece from real Picaso, a counterfeit from a real bank note. These might be physically indistinguishable."
T Clark OP was about "real" or "reality" so I guess he intended to address the ontology of what is real....not the genuineness of a "masterpiece".
He even listed a list of definitions of "real" addressing different aspect of Ontology.
I quote.
" Having objective independent existence
Having existence independent of mind
Occurring or existing in actuality
Existing in fact and not imaginary
Of or relating to practical or everyday concerns or activities"
I never addressed Austin's posts.
If Austin's addresses other meanings of the term outside of Ontology, then he is out of topic.
-"That's how to deal with language effectively, in contrast to mere stipulation"
- Introducing usages having nothing to do with the specific branch of Philosophy is not an effective use of language...far from it. Again this thread is about Ontology, not language.
Btw
-''Neither Austin nor I defining real as genuine."
- I never accused you for doing so. I just pointed out that your remark was out of topic. Whether the definition we examine is this thread doesn't serve to sort fakes from masterpieces is irrelevant.
Quoting T Clark
Austin is addressing ontology. The stuff I cited comes from one of his articles on the ontology of other minds.
And there are other problems with your definition. I was merely surprised that found it satisfactory.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
@Nickolasgaspar is right that my purpose in starting this discussion was to examine "real" and "reality" from an ontological perspective. On the other hand, several people have looked at other possible meanings of the word. This late in the game I have no objection letting the discussion go where it wills.
-" "Is that tree real" is a different question than "Is that a real tree." Seems to me the first causes more philosophical agita."
-The first is a philosophical/scientific question while the second is a purely scientific question.
I don't really know why you insist wasting time on an irrelevant topic(2nd question) when we can discuss the standards and criteria by which we can identify real entities in our world.
-"Austin is addressing ontology. The stuff I cited comes from one of his articles on the ontology of other minds."
-Its not fundamental, It comes way after the essential question "what exists" and its irrelevant to T CLark's OP. We could address that question on i.e. what distinguishes a real apple from a wax replica or a plastic one or a painted one or a pear that looks like an apple, or a red Christmas ball, or an apple that tastes like a banana....etc etc etc. I don't know why one would ever be interested in a discussion like this, but we could try it.
-"And there are other problems with your definition. I was merely surprised that ?jgill
found it satisfactory. "
-My definition is scientific, so it can only appear "problematic" to specific ideologies, not to a pure Philosophical inquiry based on our current Epistemology on how we define and identify existence.
The problem with that specific definition of the term real(as you stated is that a real tree) is that it has a huge spread, meaning that different entities in existence have different characteristics and most probably the answer can be gained by doing science(not philosophy). What is there to gain when our conclusion on i.e. what makes a real apple will not apply to any other entity of this world. How the "gained knowledge'' of such study can add to our our wisdom?
The power of Science and Philosophy is their ability to produce Law like Generalizations and Theoretical Frameworks descriptive of processes found in this world. Classifying entities(real from fake) is also a great tool for our Philosophy, but its a Scientific tool that enables us to philosophize. In any case its not the goal of philosophy.
There is a philosophical aspect in that question (what makes something a real "something".) but it can either be a very short conversation or an endless one with nothing important to gain.
My eyes are trained to search for this pattern (-"bla bla bla ") and all those([quote="Tom Storm;751002"]) get in my nerves! lol
After all I doubt there is anything interesting in my writings to read. I won't be offended if you ignore my posts Tom, seriously. (maybe I could use B or I)
Sure; and that is what Austin has given you. I had supposed you had seen this, seems I was mistaken.
I've noted previously how folk seem to adopt a narrow view of ontology and then suppose that "that's not ontology" constitutes an argument. I find that most puzzling. So the use of "ontological" seems to have slide from the study of existence to the study of physical stuff.
I'd taken the OP to be related to the thread "Does quantum physics say nothing is real?". Now the idea that nothing is real cannot be made coherent; if not being real is to have any use there must be stuff that is real - a corollary of Austin's point.
What is?
Your post needs a good edit.
See my comment to T Clark, above, concerning odd restrictions on "ontology".
Any member of this domain by definition attains the descriptor "real", putting it in descriptive contact with all of reality's other members.
This entails that a causal or interactive relation distributes across the whole of reality, through which members can interact across shared structure.
Objections to this principle self-contradict invariantly, as they all propose a disentangling of reality as constituting a shared medium across which members interact, from the descriptor "real"; e.g. anything proposed to be real outside reality would not be real enough to affect reality owing to not being a part of its shared structure.
https://ctmucommunity.org/wiki/Reality
-"What is?"
- Its philosophically null to talk about whether "that is a real tree" instead of "is that tree real". Classification is essential but not interesting in the case of an apple, a tree,a table etc.
Your comment to T Clark can not change the philosophical weight of this question. People's view of ontology is irrelevant to whether a question is on topic or not.
-"Your post needs a good edit."
-You need to avoid logical fallacies in your arguments! You keep making vague statements like this one, or like "your definition of real has problems" but you avoid being specific. Why do you insist in talking about language instead of philosophy?
-"I've noted previously how folk seem to adopt a narrow view of ontology and then suppose that "that's not ontology" constitutes an argument."
-Again people's narrow view of ontology doesn't make an argument from Ambiguity Fallacy part of this conversation. The question about Genuineness doesn't address the fundamental ontological question about what is real...plus its a boring one since most people usually promote Category Mistakes that valid arguments.
Starting with a definition was my attempt to avoid wasting time on conversation about a different usage of the word...but here we are I guess.
So do you think its possible to proceed to a more interesting topics like i.e. what is the fundamental nature of existence? What are the criteria of "being real"? Why my definition has problems?
i.e. Ultimate reality, Ultimate Knowledge, Ultimate truth, etc. By doing so they assume they can bring idealism in a philosophical discussion and assume things under the label of "metaphysics". The truth is that we have zero epistemology supportive for such idealistic concepts, so its impossible to have a meaningful philosophical discussion. Neither these assumptions or their potential conclusions can make us wiser which is the main goal of Philosophy.
Seems there are problems in following the line of discussion here. That was @TClark's comment, not mine. I thought it odd at the time he made it, but let it go.
The rest of your post is in the main mere diatribe. It wasn't my intent to piss you off. Folk are so touchy. But I don't see anything of value in your approach.
I put the questions in the wrong order. the correct order is the following.
"- Its philosophically null to talk about whether "is that tree real" instead of "that is a real tree".
Its not odd. The first question is what his OP was addressing and the second is essentially what you are attempting to address by using a different meaning of the word ''real".
-"The rest of your post is in the main mere diatribe. It wasn't my intent to piss you off. Folk are so touchy. But I don't see anything of value in your approach. "
-I am not piss me off, I am pointing out that you are wasting both our time on a meaningless aspect of the word real, that's all. Folks are not "so touchy", Folks just expect honesty and meaningful discussions.
-"But I don't see anything of value in your approach."
-What is my approach? T Clark posted an OP. I provided a definition on what we mean by the term real/reality in Science and your only criticism was that my definition was clear and specific , not vague and general because it didn't include irrelevant definitions!
Then you criticized my definition of real as "having issues" but you never explained those issues.
I don't get what your goal is.
I mean you have my definition and I have posted you a list of questions relevant to this thread. Why aren't you addressing the issues you find in them and lets just keep out the irrelevant concepts I didn't include in my definition for now.(Unless you can demonstrate their essential role in it).
I don;'t agree. Austin is certainly addressing the ontological question. I am sorry that you appear nto to understand this. Perhaps if you read the article.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
This:
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
It's mere pretence to claim this is a scientific definition. It is as "vague and general" as any thing else on offer, since it fails to set out what counts as an element. As I did explain earlier, what counts as a simple is dependent on what one is doing. Basic stuff.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Not of which I am aware. Again, my intent is not to piss you off, but if you post on a philosophy forum there is a presumption that you are open to critique. Goes with the territory.
-Good for him but it is irrelevant to the OP which I decided to address. Only I can decide for myself what to talk about. I respect the structure of this forum and I choose to post my comments on a specific subject under a relevant OP.
Your disagreement won't change something. We are talking about the fundamental aspect of ontology (what's real) while you are addressing categories and labels. "Is a tree real" is a far more essential question than the criteria something should obey to be categorized as a tree.
I would read Austin's opinions if the act of categorizing things was part of the thread and if I was interested in it.
-"Reality and what is real are defined by the ability of elements and their structures to interact with each other and being registered by our observations."
-That is not "my approach". That is how we define reality in Methodological Naturalism(science). Our methods and their limitations are what allow us to describe our world. its not a matter of personal preferences, but what we can objectively demonstrate to be the case.
The True philosophical meaning of reality includes everything we can observe and verify around us. The idealistic (Pseudo philosophical) approach is to speculate about realms we are unable to demonstrate.
-"It's mere pretence to claim this is a scientific definition. It is as "vague and general" as any thing else on offer, since it fails to set out what counts as an element. As I did explain earlier, what counts as a simple is dependent on what one is doing. Basic stuff."
-If you know the principles of Methodological Naturalism you should be able to understand that our Descriptive Frameworks are the product and limited by our Methods of Observations and Investigation. So by definition the things we perceive and verify objectively with our senses and technical apparatus is what we identify as reality. Any claim beyond them is Metaphysics. Any worldview based on those metaphysics is Pseudo philosophy.
Nothing mentioned above is vague or general. The criteria and definitions are pretty specific.
-" but if you post on a philosophy forum there is a presumption that you are open to critique."
-Red Herrings are not critique but fallacies. I posted a definition and you criticized it for not including irrelevant additional meanings. I proved that I am open to critique by asking you again and again "why" you think my definition has issues. Instead you keep posting "what" you think not why you think that.
Again science can verify the existence of a process or entity by detecting its interactions with other observable entities/processes. This characteristic is what allow us to accept something as real. Undetectable entities can not be distinguished from nonexistent so we can not include undetectable/non existent entities/process in what we call "reality". I don't know how one can disagree with that.
I have tried this approach before it appeared to helpful to some people.
Quoting Banno
-Red herring. Austin Normative Philosophy on Ontology is irrelevant to our Epistemic Approach on what is real.
-"It's mere pretence to claim this is a scientific definition."
- Soft Ad Hominem due to personal incredulity. Learning the Auxiliary principles of Methodological Naturalism will help you to understand why this is a scientific definition.
-" It is as "vague and general" as any thing else on offer, since it fails to set out what counts as an element."
- Again, Science defines what an element is.... from quantum scale to chemistry and biology. My definition is not vague just because people ignore a basic scientific use of the term. The proper thing to do is to ask for additional info, not to reject the definition all together.
"Throwing the baby with the bathwater" is a logical error.
-"As I did explain earlier, what counts as a simple is dependent on what one is doing."
-Red Herring. What counts as simple is not part of our discussion.
I hope this list helps you see your errors in your argumentation.
Is there a truth value to "Objective reality is not a question of fact."
If there is a truth value to the above statement, does that not show objective reality does exist?
If there is no truth value to the above statement, what even is the meaning of that statement?
if by Objective reality we mean that External Empirical Regularities and limitations are objectively observed and verified (by us the observers) in processes all around us, then yes, we can accept and trust claims as objectively descriptive of reality.
Yes. It is true objective reality is not a question of fact.
Quoting PhilosophyRunner
No. The truth value of a proposition is not sufficient for proof of existence. Truth value is nothing but logical relation to the LNC and resides nowhere else than propositions. Proof of existence, for humans, is experience.
Objective reality is merely a conception, a thought by which the manifold of possible existences is contained. The manifold of possible existences does not make objective reality itself an existence, from which follows necessarily, re: proof of existence, that the manifold of all possible existences is an impossible experience for humans.
Objective reality is not a question of fact, because no mere conception is ever a fact. Objective reality is a metaphysical idea, technically a category of pure reason, hence whether or not there is an objective reality is a metaphysical question, re: is an aggregate of all possible existences itself a possible existence, which will have a truth value relative to the premises in the argument, given the condition that any argument grounded in possibility, cannot be argued as fact.
Does the notion of objective reality seem real to humans in general? Sure it does, and thats the point of the OP, innit?
Is not a preposition that is true, linked to a fact? That fact really objectively exists, if nothing else.
I don't think you can have a true preposition that is not linked to a fact.
I just see this as itself stating a fact about objective reality. You are not saying that you subjectively experience this but others may subjectively experience differently. You are claiming an objectively fact about reality that objective reality is not a question of fact.
That every change is a succession in time is true. An instance of this change is a truth linked to a fact; any instance of any given change is a truth linked to its fact, but not every instance of every change can be a truth linked to its fact. No inductive inference is factually provable antecedent to its experience. Analytical, or tautological, truths have no possible ground in fact, but only in logical form.
Quoting PhilosophyRunner
Facts dont exist; they merely represent the relations under which physical objects exist, in accordance with the intelligence that affords such determinations. It is a fact that..... just says some conditions relative to physical objects are such that their negation is contradictory.
While, conventionally speaking, true propositions are related to facts, but it is not necessary that they do, insofar as it is not necessarily a fact that makes a proposition true. Philosophy proper does not concern itself with convention.
I admit I am lost about what Banno is saying. I don't think it is a red herring, i.e. a rhetorical device. Seems like he sees what Austin has to say as ontology, while I don't see it. He's talking about a different kind of "real" than I am.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
As you and I have both noted, that is not the meaning of "real" I was setting out to discuss.
I've read what you've had to say about Austin, including the quote you provided, and I'm with @Nickolasgaspar, I don't see how it's relevant to the aspect of "real" I set out to discuss. I have no objection to including it in this thread, but I don't want to mix up the issues.
Quoting Banno
"That's not ontology" constitutes an argument if the subject of the discussion is ontology.
Quoting Banno
Yes, my frustrations with that and similar discussions set me off on this one. My participation lead me to formulate what has come to be known as "the Clark Reality Principle," i.e. The idea of real has meaning only in relation to the everyday world at human scale.
That is not a standard definition of "reality." I listed several examples in my OP, although it was not my intention to limit discussion to those definitions in the list. I think your definition can be a useful one. It's similar to one discussed previously in this thread:
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
I'm with @Tom Storm on this. Your way of formatting, as opposed to using the quoting mechanism provided by the forum, often makes it hard to follow your posts which are, as he noted, interesting and useful.
I think in absentia of the principle Nickolasgaspar and I put forward, people don't have a coherent idea of reality. An "independent" existence of the surrounding medium isn't defensible, and what we imagine must ultimately depend on that medium just as the objects we identify as taking on an actuality do.
You wrote "Reality is by definition the containing medium of anything you're able to interact with." I wanted to point out that is not the case. As I noted, I think your way of seeing reality is a useful one.
You can say any word means anything you want, that don't make it so.
Definitions of words are established by humans based on a consensus of usage. There are good and bad definitions, but no true or false ones. Yours is a bad definition if for the only reason that no one else will know what you're talking about.
Nuff said.
As I said, I am with him on that too! Its just a habit and have to work on that and it needs time, especially when there are people interested in what I have to share with them !
You are contradicting yourself; claiming that there are no true or false definitions rests on objectively true definitions with which you make the claim.
Quoting T Clark
My definition is objectively true, and you've got no reason to think other people won't know what I'm talking about when I offer a different definition of a word since we communicate in common definitions.
Its more of an element of distraction than misleading so I will agree its not a rhetorical device but still an logical error according to the following definition: "A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important question."
I found myself trying to keep his feet on the fire(on the topic) while he keeps insisting in merging an irrelevant meaning of the term.
What a good question. No fair. I don't think it so much changed my thinking as made it clearer what I actually think. It tested my ideas by making me use them in different contexts. I started out with a fairly limited claim - that what we mean by "real" and "reality" only has meaning in relation to everyday human experience. I think that's a metaphysical position, so I wasn't looking to see if it was right, but if it is useful. I gained confidence that it is.
That's how I use a lot of the discussions I start. It's like putting a canoe I just made in the water to see if it leaks. No, I don't make canoes. But I do make metaphors.
Quoting T Clark
Pretty sure I still subscribe to this version too.
Quoting T Clark
Well, that's disappointing. One more try, perhaps.
Let's look at "Does quantum physics say nothing is real?". Austin's strategy is to ask about the use of the word "real" here, looking for an alternative phrasing that sets out what is being said - as explained previously.
Quoting Banno
So we parse "Quantum physics say nothing is real" as something like "According to quantum physics, it's not a real thing, it's a..."; and ask what we are to put here - fake, forgery, illusion...
We know what to put in the cases cited previously, but it is far from clear what we might put here. What this might show is that the words "real" and "unreal" have here become unmoored. They are here outside of a usable context.
What is offered by Austin is not a definition, but a method to test proposed uses. What we have is an antidote to the philosopher's tendency to push words beyond their applicability.
Perhaps seeing this requires a particular conception of philosophical problems as knots in our understanding, to be untied, explained, or showing how to leave the flytrap. but the fly has to want to leave....
There may perhaps be a sense not covered by this, a sense that is "absolute" in some way; but Austins method sets the challenge of setting out clearly what such a sense would be. But this:Quoting Nickolasgaspar does not provide such clarity. Nor do other posited definitions in this thread. Of course, it is a good idea to be clear about what are our elements and what structure we propose and to talk about what we can observe, but this does not constitute reality. Nick takes things a step too far.
So what Austin provides is a way to spot bullshit philosophy. You can take it or leave it.
On another point,
Quoting T Clark
"That's not ontology" is a statement, not an argument. To make it an argument you would need at the least an additional premise of two to demarcate ontology. If ontology is at least partly about what is real and what is not real, Austin's strategy is certainly a bit of ontology.
The third article, page 44 and on. His style is droll; if you do not find it amusing skip to the bottom of p.54. Other similar arguments can be found in the index.
The key is, when you claim that something (everything) is not real, the onus is on you to clarify what it is you are suggesting.
It's an empirical method, really: given the suggestion that such-and-such is not real, it is worth asking "how can we check?"
That seems to be the key point for me here. The application of words where they fail us, where they no longer have utility. And Midgley's notion of 'plumbing' seems to take a similar approach to conceptual schemes which are pushed beyond their limits and create confusion.
The limiting of "real" to the everyday looks promising until one considers more outlandish cases - is that a real moon of Saturn or a spacecraft? Is that a real statistical correlation or a mere anomaly? Is that a real philosophical objection or an expression of one's frustration?
The words "existence," "being," and "reality," are valuable to me. I don't want to get rid of them. There is a world I live in everyday. It exists. It is. It's real. There are other ways of looking at things and I even find some of them helpful and interesting. I think I've shown that with my interest in the Tao Te Ching. But when you get to the bottom, when it's lunchtime, there is a world. I don't see that Lao Tzu would have any problem with that.
Do you suppose otherwise? Or are we in agreement?
As I noted when you first brought this up earlier in the thread, I don't think it necessarily contradicts what I've written. It think it deals with a different set of issues related to real and reality.
No, I don't think I can. I think we're both in the same situation. Neither of us has shown we really understand the others position. Our arguments have sort of run in parallel without ever really crossing.
Quoting T Clark
I don't agree. I think I have shown you how to turn the intuition expressed in the OP into something substantial, but that you haven't quite seen it. Please, have a read of the article.
It is not unusual that you and I don't see eye to eye on this type of issue. I don't see how your or Austin's formulations contribute to my understanding. Let's leave it at that.
Just noticed this while replying to TClark.
I find Sherlock Holmes vaguely annoying. Holmes relies on confirmation bias. He reinforces what he surmises with further conjecture, seeking to fortify them rather than refute them.
He only gets away with it because he is a fiction.
I surmise that Doyle worked along similar lines, seeking to bolster his belief in fairies at the bottom of his garden rather than disprove it.
So the answer is that neither Holmes nor Doyle were so "ruthlessly rational".
(Edit: Once you start to seeing confirmation bias in detective fiction, you will no longer be able to enjoy them. Sorry. )
Tom's question cuts to the chase.
Much better than my previous question as to where the thread was leading.
I doubt that TC's mind is that amenable to change, even if it might look that way. He takes a firm stance.
The canoe cannot and will not sink.
Quoting T Clark
In general, it seems previous 'hostile' exchanges serve to trigger some kind of mental block.
Stubbornness sets in.
Quoting T Clark
The title: 'What does 'real' mean?' is broad; the OP offered different definitions.
No wonder different sets of issues were raised; all worthwhile and relevant even if summarily dismissed.
But, again, what of it? The testing of own ideas in discussion is fine but sometimes it is really about confirming what you already feel you 'know'.
The reality of what happens in so many threads...is that posters don't change their position.
Even if others offer alternative views, dogmatism can persist even as people think they are open.
Ears are closed to real listening.
C'est la vie.
The only context which I took as relevant is the one mentioned in the OP: (mis)usage vis-a-vis onrology on TPF. All the "ordinary language semantics" blather these last several pages seems to me besides the point raised in the OP.
I think it's best to lay our cards on the table showing how we intend to use problematic (i.e. specialized) terms in order to make ourselves better understood. This I try to do (though, admiittedly, not always effectively). Again, in case this was missed ...
Quoting 180 Proof
Context: ontology (and related, more specific topics e.g. facticity, alterity, agency, etc). Interlocators are free to accept or reject, supplement or replace my usage with a less defective alternative; maybe, then, I/we might learn something else about or gain more clarity on the topic at hand.
Anyway, stipulative, or working, definitions, I think, suffice for non-fallacious (non-equivocating) philosophical discussions. It seems, more or less, you agree, TC?
Indeed. This would have been a good start. Instead of which a host of definitions were laid out:
Quoting T Clark
Then it was narrowed down to: Quoting T Clark
How helpful was this? The state of being human and real includes language use. So, I object to:
Quoting 180 Proof
What was the point raised in the OP?
Quoting T Clark
How is talking about ordinary human language not relevant to discussing the idea of 'real'?
What am I missing?
Again, Tom seems to state more clearly my question:
Quoting Tom Storm
What does that mean?
This seems to me the idea raised by the OP.
Quoting Amity
I don't think"the idea of real" is relevant but rather that the term itself "is not usually defined explicitly or carefully" and I'd add in the context of discussions on ontology here on TPF. Talking about "ordinary language" here is like discussing playwriting craft in a review of the latest performance of Hamlet interesting, maybe, but besides the point as far as I'm concerned.
Quoting Amity
Here's some "ordinary language semantics" for you: follow the links in the post to which your quote of mine refers for the context (i.e. how I use "real" when discussing ontology).
OK. You don't need to be smart-arse-ish. The links took me to another thread on the subject of 'reality' and your responses, italicised below:
'What is your understanding of 'reality' ?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/554443
[my bolds]
How does this 'measure' test how we think and how we live other than via words related to observation? That is the reality in which we live.
Talking about 'blathers' that discussion lasted for 13 pages, ending with another point of view:
Quoting Cheshire
I preferred the simple, straightforward:
Quoting 180 Proof
Nice talking with ya', really.
Later...
But Jack Torrance thinks the bartender is real.
He's not, though.
Are you implying that I'm the most ruthlessly rational figure on the forum?
If you don't analyze my motivations, I won't analyze yours.
Because there's no way he could be there. They're on top of a mountain in a Colorado winter snow storm.
Jack is hallucinating.
Quoting T Clark
The first goes a long way in supporting the second, Ill wager.
Jack does believe the bartender is real. He has an extended conversation with someone who isn't there. Happens all the time. :grin:
You are contradicting yourself.
Sure, but it's clear @Banno sees his responses as relevant, so I have no objection to his bringing them up, I just don't understand how they are.
Quoting 180 Proof
I do agree, but, as I noted, I think Banno sees his definition as ontological, which makes me think I don't get his point.
Reality is habitual hallucination, whatever that means... :-)
Well, my post was intended as tongue-in-cheek. I doubt Banno sees me as particularly rational. As for me, I can be rational, but I'm often not, although I don't think I'm ever irrational.
It's nasty, snotty comments like these that make me avoid your posts.
Tis a veritable playground here, aye.
Seriously. Ever had an itch?
??? Ever been bit by a dead bee?
Bees dont bite.
Just wondering whether the itch you had...assuming you admit to it....was real. And if it was, would it at the same time, be a member of reality in the way a statue or a 57 DeSoto, is.
I haven't really taken a position on which specific phenomena I consider real and which I don't except for apples. I guess I tend to think of reality in material terms, but that doesn't mean I reject the reality of things like itches.
No deal. The driving force behind anyone's OP is always of interest to me.
As I noted previously:
Quoting T Clark
Really?! Are you sure that is the real reason you dismiss my questions and describe them so?
'As I noted previously...' - a standard repetitive response that would seem to serve you well.
I'll leave it here.
Very well. But then, do you not have to resolve the logical dilemma of material things connected with a immediate and necessary causality, but itches, and the like, that are not? Seems the more consistent to reject as material reality that which has no connection to a causality, while acknowledging its being real, insofar as if it wasnt real, with respect to the case at hand......where would you know to scratch?
Most fun Ive had with a thread in ages, so, thanks for that.
If you twist my arm, I will say yes, itches are real. It's just that when I talk about reality I'm usually thinking about material things. That was the main theme of this discussion for me - we can argue about what is and what isn't real, but at the very least physical things, including apples, have to be considered real or the word "real" doesn't mean anything.
Thanks and you're welcome. I've really enjoyed it too.
Agreed.
Hence, the non-reciprocity I brought up way back. Reality is the real, but the real is not necessarily reality.
Carry on, then?
Quoting T Clark
I was thinking more about my previous response to you. I wasn't really satisfied that I had said what I meant. I think the bolded text in this response I made to a comment from @Mww is the best summary of my thoughts I've written.
If one analyzes the concepts of "real" and "reality" from a strictly subjective/human point of view, I think one of the most natural conclusions is that what is not real can be subject to transformations carried exclusively by the mind. For example, an imaginary apple can be imagined as a small apple, as a medium-size apple, or as a humongous apple; similarly, it can be given any colour, taste, shape, texture, etc - it is an imaginary apple, and as long as the mind considers it an apple, it can be altered to any extent. In contrast, that which is real, requires the use of (skeletal) muscles in order to be changed or transformed. A real thing cannot be altered at whim using only our mental capacities; it is required that we exercise our capacity of movement in order to affect it. So, if we want humongous, real apples we would need to carry a series of movements which end result would be humongous apples; for example, cross-breeding and artificial selection. Given this interpretation of what is real and what is not, one is left in doubt about if ideas are real or not. One might be inclined to think that they are not since ideas can be transformed at ones will without the use of any (skeletal) muscles; but careful examination reveals that one can change other people's ideas through one's movements and vice versa. So, ideas are real because, following this interpretation, they can be altered through ones movements.
Because saying it twice is not funny. But still, I giggle because I share that same frustration with T Clark.
On a more serious note and putting aside what I said earlier about "real" here, if a word is causing more obscurity than clarity, perhaps its best either to drop the word, or using it sparingly. We can get awfully tangled up in arguing about the meaning of words as opposed to arguing ideas.
I dont disagree with your definition but is it not somewhat limited? What does it give you the realness of quotidian objects like apples, chairs and presumably bananas?
Setting aside questions of philosophical realism, does this understanding of real not lend itself to a form of verificationism? Its only real if you, and presumably others, can experience it as a physical object?
The big fights about what is real seem to happen in a different space Platonism, UFOs, the voices inside the heads of people with psychosis, demons, gods, etc.
Im looking at a glass of water in front of me which is presumably real. Last night I dreamed of a glass of water. I picked it up, I drank from it and I put it down. It seemed real too. Until I woke up.
Would that it were so.
I avoid the rain by staying inside. Hence, it is not ineluctable; and not real.
The voices in my head, one the other hand...
One wants to say that reality is what is the case, what is true, and there is a truth in the idea that reality is what does not go away when you don't believe it. Reality is what our ideas and words bang against. We're unable to put what it is into words without spouting nonsense.
And yet we are certain of it.
If you think it better,it is not metaphysical position at all.It is in fact true.
Reality and what we perceive as real is totally attached to the way our physiology is. So indeed real has meaning only in relation to humans.
As to your thread question,for me our reality is a form of the actual reality indeed.But there must be numerous of other forms also.Depending from the observer.
So we are sure that there is "Something" that we see as real.But it is real only to us.Notice that doesn't make it less real.Still is!But it is just one way of how that "Something" can be presented to the observer.
What we humans call real is ,imo, just a version(or a frame) of what actual "real" can be.
Yes, it is definitely limited. Intentionally so. I think this sets a lower limit on what usages of "real" and "reality" can be considered meaningful. If a conception of reality doesn't include everyday objects, it's useless. It's a test I can apply. Applying that test, I can reject the idea that quantum mechanics undermines the idea of reality not just for subatomic particles, but also for apples and orangutans. And that is what set me off down this path.
Quoting Tom Storm
I recognize the issues you describe here as worthy of discussion, but they are not the ones I set out to address in this thread.
We don't know the status of matter that isn't being measured. If that fits your conception of reality, then you're good to go.
I have argued against the idea of objective reality in the past. Even so, I think it is reasonable to believe, or at least to act as though, there is a reality which is mostly stable and enduring for everyone under everyday human conditions.
What is the status of the apple when I pick it up and take a bite?
True.But you have to acknowledge also that this is totally filtered by our human physiology,our senses and brain.
It would be too egoistic for humans to think that their physiology is the only "right" or possible one ,that can or has been created in this vast and timeless universe.
Yes ,other possible forms of reality can't be known by humans and probably we shouldn't care about them at all then.Just focus on ours and end of story.It is a view indeed.But that still doesn't make our reality the only right one.
It's an apple.
Yes. @T Clark asked "What does 'real' mean?", and when faced with an answer, backtracked to saying, "No, I asked what does 'physically real' mean".
So now we have the pretence that what is real is only the stuff of physics. Scientism reinforcing itself with poor analysis.
But the concepts of "real" and "reality" were created by humans for use by humans to describe a world of human experiences. They only have meaning in relation to us.
And what we cannot know at all cannot form part of our understanding. The only response one might make to it is silence.
Anything you say about what cannot be said will by that very status be wrong.
You have misstated my position. I have said several times in this thread that "real" and "reality" are metaphysical concepts and are not subject to empirical verification.
But that is not right.
We do say that it's a real painting, not a forgery; that it's a real apple, not plastic; that Spiderman is a fiction, not part of reality. These are not metaphysical statements, and they are empirically verifiable.
It seems to me you have trapped yourself in a misguided approach to the topic.
Yeah but that "Something" outside of us that we are also part of it wasn't created by Humans.But we know there is.So let's suppose a different creature with different mind and physiology appear.The same "Something" would be real for it also.They would be part of the same Something,and they would understand that something exists except themselves.So they might not be able to name it as real but they will know is there.
Even in humans before we develop language and name what we perceive as real,still we could understand that Something exists.We could feel it and act like that.We just couldn't name it.
That's exactly what science does though.Explore what we can actually know.It isn't limited only to what can be said.At the very end we can never know the borders of science.And after years what can and what cannot be said.So you can never be sure about what we cannot know.
So better that science doesn't follow the silence path that you suggest.
No need to go around this again.
But not all that we can know. A small consideration...
What is important here is to realise that saying things like " Reality only makes sense in comparison to what humans see, hear, feel, taste, and smell" and "Reality is ineluctable", and "Reality and what we perceive as real is totally attached to the way our physiology is" we are not doing science.
Indeed, we are not doing much of anything.
So you want not to talk about where you went wrong. Fine. :wink:
Can you explain me what your disagreement is to the above statements?You find them wrong?
By the way I didn't discover America here.These are well known views that in fact many many scienctists support.Are they not doing science either?
That's what I've been doing in this thread. See my previous posts.
Reality is not defined by what we perceive. We perceive stuff that is not real, and there is stuff that is real yet unperceived.
How else is defined if not by what we perceive??We perceive stuff that are real indeed.But it is not the only way of how these stuff could be.I still can't understand your disagreement here.
Your sentence above says nothing about how you think real should be defined then and sorry but i will not read all your posts here as to find it out where you mention it.If you wanna tell me ok if not it's still fine.
Why suppose that reality can be defined?
Tell me, how would you tell that you had found the right definition? To avoid circularity, you would have to know what reality is, apart from that definition. In order to know that you had found the right definition of reality, you would already have to know what reality is.
But if you already know what reality is, why do you need a definition?
Pfff..What exactly was that know?We go back to the definition game again?So we can't define perfectly what reality means so let's shut up and not talk about it at all.Hmm in fact we can't have absolute definitions about anything at all now that i think about it.So let's shut up in general and remain in eternal silence.
I expected more from you.
No, not at all. You can stipulate a definition if you like; but be honest about it, realise that is what you are doing.
Better to analysis how we use the term, as in https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/749380
I know that reality is the real and the real is realty and the..... forget it..
Quoting Banno
Nice. This is a point I keep coming back to in my own thinking about this.
Quoting dimosthenis9
Do we not have to set limitations on this conceptualization of science? We need to guard against scientism. Science provides us with tentative models of reality based on the best available information we have at a given time. It shouldn't make proclamations about truth. In science things are not 'true' as such they are 'not false'. Yet.
How i do that exactly?Again to the statements i made above you disagree?if yes tell me where.
That's where the magic in science lies.
I think we need a pause here.
It says nothing.Stop the games here please.So it can't be defined totally so that's it??we cant say anything about it?Make like it doesn't exist? That's your thesis?
SO back to Philosophical investigations §201; there is a way of understanding what is real that is not set out in a prescriptive definition, but shown in the way we use the word in our language games...
and hence Austin's analysis, transcending* @T Clark's request for a definition.
* I'll confiscate that word from the continental philosophers and use it tongue in cheek.
Quoting Banno
Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.
Manuel had seen that coming.
Once again stupid definition games that you just use and some other members here as to hide behind every time you run out of arguments.Putting Witty ahead as authority.Well sorry but Wittgenstein never said what you imply in many of your posts that we shouldn't discuss at all issues and concepts that aren't perfectly defined.
I ask you specific questions and you give me back silly generalizations.
Quoting Banno
And that way also make us understand our reality as we do know.
I'm not saying that, although @T Clark may be. I'm saying that we don't always need to start with definitions - indeed, that we cannot always start with definitions.
A moment's consideration of the nature of definitions will show this to be so.
My dear Banno.I value your opinions( despite the stubbornness and the irony that they are inhaled) but at that post exchange we had at this thread,you did waste my time and in fact i wanted to do something indeed.
If you re read our conversation you fucked me up for good.Going me from one generalization to another without discussing about the actual "juice" at all.And now this..
Quoting Banno
Another irrelevant generalization that says nothing about what i asked or wanted to talk about.So we might not always need to start with definitions,i agree ..anddd?
Anyway let's drop it.
Well not really.I don't have the fuel for that and is really late here. i have to go to bed.Plus i don't think a misunderstanding took place here.Questions were simple and specific.
You just told me what real shouldn't be considered (which I also disagreed) but nothing about what real should be considered then after all for us humans.
Turning it into definitions once again.I care much more about the actual concepts that words try to describe.And they don't have to be defined perfectly as to still find out things about them.
We lose the forest for the tree with all that endless circular definition game that takes place constantly here on TPF.Anyway i m sure we will discuss about it again.
When it is raining outside, you cannot "avoid" that it is raining outside "by staying inside". Btw, your example doesn't concern ontology, Banno, which, in the context of my remarks, isn't relevant.
Yeah, it is ontology. The claim was that what we can't avoid is what is real; we can avoid rain, cold, pain, poverty, and poor thinking; hence none are real.
Not me.
That's a white supremacist gesture.
I don't use it anymore.
What edit?
Pretty much. You forge ahead your own way, buddy.
This line of discussion leads towards the topic of irrealism; for we can at least claim
A. Each individual has a different conception of reality, that is incommensurable with respect to each and every other persons conception of reality; different individuals aren't using a common basis of understanding when they each refer to 'reality', for their understanding of reality is relative to their unique perspectives.
But if A is true, then how does one avoid the conclusion of irrealism?
B. Each individual has a different reality; there isn't a shared reality that individuals are occupying and describing.
On the other hand, each of us will probably insist that we possess a concept of 'shared reality', if only because we communicate to each other and to ourselves in a common language whose semantics aren't publicly defined in relation to the perspectival judgements of a particular individual at a particular moment in time and space.
But isn't even this supposedly aperpsectival concept of 'shared reality' relative to perspective, and thus not a defence against irrealism?
If this is true, it is impossible to explain how it is that there are commonalities in every humans understanding of reality. No human ever, in any culture in any time, ever jumped up in the air...and didnt meet with the inevitability of coming down. While some of them may indeed reason differently than others as to why they all always come down, the common basis of understanding the reality that they will, remains, no matter the why.
That there is a common basis for any humans understanding is simply that each one of them is human. Irrealism, on the other hand, wants to thwart the rules of understanding, the common basis of it, by granting exceptions to the rule the authority to negate the rule. This absurdity disappears by restricting reality to a mere general metaphysical conception, re: , constructed and apprehended by humans alone. Then those silly marks bracketing the word, which carries the implication it isnt a valid conception in the first pace, can disappear as well.
Now, it may be the case that humans arent using a common basis for understanding when they each refer to the content of reality, what can be said about that which belongs to the conception, that which is subsumed under it without contradiction, while the concept of reality itself remains untouched.
-
Quoting sime
Irrealism, re: Goodman 1978, is just another speculative metaphysical theory, having less logical support than its predecessors. Rather than the parsimony of many conceptions of one worlds reality, the theory suggests there are as many worlds as there are conceptions of the reality of them. Rather than granting the validity of the notion my experiences in this reality are different than your experiences in this same reality, it just might be the case my experiences relate only to my world but your experiences relate only to your world.
A possible defense against irrealism begins, then, with the fact that experiences....or perspectives if you wish.....belong to and are processes of the owner of them, predicated entirely on understanding. The world, and the singular reality of it, whatever it may be, reduces to naught but the necessary condition for all of them.
Not that irrealism is unjustified under its conditions; just that its less justifiable under others.
The silly marks are there for grammatical, not philosophical, purposes. I was referring to the concept of reality, not reality itself.
No need to explain. I hold with most of your position in real/reality philosophy, reject any position calling for those silly marks bracketing those words, in everybodys grammar philosophy.
So at the end you think that "our real" is just one form of how real can be presented? One of numerous other possible forms that can be?Or you mean something else?
But there are other ways to resolve "the conflict". Either the cases are equivalent and can be transformed from one to the other as in the geocentric/heliocentric example, or one account is wrong or insufficient, as in the Herodotus/Thucydides example.
Inventing the paraphernalia of worldmaking is surely overkill.
"Our reality" consists in every possible "form of how real can be presented". Analogously, chess consists in every game that it is possible to play, whether or not they are ever played, and not just instantiated by a single representative (perfect? ideal?) game of chess..
No. Every "possible form that can be" known and unknown.
See above (and links at end of my previous post).
Yeah but our reality is just one of the possible forms.That's why is named "our".Not all possible forms together,as the use of "consists in" might make someone think.
Analogously we play just one game of all the possible games that can be played in chess.
Anyway i think we have an agreement at the core of your argument.The rest(like the word consists that i objected or your corrections)seem more like wording details that don't change much the essence.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/751787 (@ the bottom)
So objectively speaking, is the Earth moving or not? Can objectivity be relative?
Well since you take the actualism side as i understand from the links,then we merely agree.I don't see our reality like a combination of all possible realities that could exist.But more like just one version(frame) of many possible others.At least we share the belief that we just talk for one world and its reality and not for many others.
There are an infinite number of possible descriptions of the world. This just seems like a trick to get people who are afraid to have an actual opinion about reality off the hook.
Both an observer on the earth and one in orbit around the sun will agree that, for an observer on the earth the earth remains stationary, while for an observer in orbit around the sun it moves. Movement is relative to the frame of reference and can be translated from one frame to another. Basic relativity.
You and I sit opposite each other at a table. On my right is a knife, on my left, a fork. The fork is on your right. Does that mean there is no objective truth as to the location of the fork?
Yep. The true ones do not disagree with each other.
The world is what is the case, which is a subset of the possibilities.
Goodman's view - the world is a composite of different possible descriptions - adds unnecessary entities in the form of multiple worlds.
But it is a curious twist.
There are an infinite number of true descriptions of the world.
I think we frame our interactions with the world as if we're having a conversation with it.
When I look for things, for instance, it's like I'm asking the world questions. When I find the answer, it's like the world answered me.
A true proposition is a case where I've heard the world with fidelity. False ones are cases of mistakes or deceit, where someone is lying about what the world said.
The unexpressed proposition signifies that the world has answers that no one has heard yet.
This seems like a poor analogy given that for an observer anywhere other than on the Earth, the Earth orbits the Sun. The illusion of Earth being stationary in relation to the Solar System is only made possible by the insufficient degree of observation that is necessarily brought about by being confined within the Earth system; it is entirely an artifact of this limited perspective .
Relativity indeed lacks the concept of objectivity in being a family of conditional propositions of the form
x --> p(x), where x is a given frame of reference. As conditional propositions they are mutually consistent as you point out, and since the theory of relativity does not assume the existence of any particular frame of reference it isn't descriptive of any particular world.
On the other hand, we like to think that multiple observers exist who occupy one and the same universe in different frames of reference. The problem is, if we accept the reality of different frames of reference, say x' and x'', then relativity implies the unconditional conclusions p(x') and p(x'') that appear to be mutually inconsistent if interpreted as referring to one and the same world, e.g the Earth moving and not moving.
So to restore consistency it seems to me that one must either reject in a solipsistic fashion the existence of other frames of reference, or reject relativity, or accept the conclusions of relativity as referring to different worlds.
See the context.
Quoting sime
So what's your answer to Sime?
Quoting sime
I'm not going to deal with this yet again. The Principle of Relativity does not say that truth is relative to the observer. It says that truth (physical law) is the same for all observers.
It appears simpler to maintain that we have differing views of the same world, and that apparent differences of opinion (belief) can be explained. Otherwise our overwhelming agreement becomes difficult to explain. If we each construct a different world, how is it that you are replying to my post?
More manic musings. If we can number the statements of a description, then after Godel* we might surmise that we can find a true statement not in the description; and that the description is either incomplete or inconsistent.
Goodman might be seen as opting for multiple, inconsistent descriptions.
Perhaps most of us might be seen as opting for one, incomplete description.
If it is part of the description, then it is false, and the description is inconsistent.
If it is not part of the description, then it is true, and the description is incomplete...
It depends on how you define "objective". The closest we can get to objectivity in my view is the
view from nowhere in particular, or the most generalized and informed view, according to which I would say the Earth is revolving around the Sun along with the rest of the planets and other bits and pieces.
I disagree, I think it is necessary that it is a fact that makes a proposition true. But I think that is for another discussion, perhaps a "what does "fact" mean" discussion.
Everybodys entitled to disagree as they see fit.
Isn't one account of objectivity simply a 'shared subjectivity' or perhaps that of the intersubjective community of agreement. The view from nowhere is the same as the Punctum Archimedis, right?
Quoting Janus
Better to think of it as the view from anywhere. It's what is the case such that if I were in your position I would see the same thing. It says that if I were on your side of the table the knife would be on the right; it's the movement I would agree is occurring if I were in your frame of reference.
Quoting Tom Storm
Agreement, yes. Much better than "shared subjectivity", whatever that might be - a contradiction, on the face of it. We phrases our propositions so as to maximise agreement. We can agree that from where I stand the knife is on the right, but from where you stand it is on the left.
By phrasing statements so that they are true from anywhere, we can maximise agreement. That's not a bad way to think about objectivity.
You may well be right.
How do you think about certain scientific facts (especially in the context of fallibilistic understandings of science) as a community of agreement (i.e., scientific consensus)? If something in science is a fact by consensus until it is falsified in some way, does such a 'provisional' fact count as objective? Or is it just an agreement?
This doesn't address the question of the objectivity of views about whether the Earth moves or not at all. Of course the view from Earth is not going to be the "view from anywhere" except of course anywhere on Earth; it is not going to be the view from anywhere that is not on the Earth.
The question is which is the more objective, the more informed, view in relation to the question as to whether the Earth is stationary relative to the Solar System; the view from the Earth or the the view from nowhere in particular, i.e.the view from anywhere not confined to the particular. limited view(s) from Earth?
But I may well be wrong...? I'm happy with that.
Quoting Tom Storm
Fallibilism is popular, especially amongst scientists, and has some value, but is also problematic.
Consider how you phrased your question: "something in science is a fact by consensus until it is falsified in some way"... well, no. there's a difference between consensus and fact. Scientists can - and have - agreed on stuff that was false.
Its a fact if and only if it is true,
Similarly, a statement's being objective does not render it true.
But some statement that is worded in such a way that it is true for a broader audience will presumably more easily achieve consensus.
Too hard for me to explain it to you, yes.
Cool. I know little of science. I read around half of Against Method and found it hilarious and touching in a way.
Philosophy goes around in circles (in my head, anyway). Is it not the case that matters we have called a fact are sometimes later demonstrated as being wrong? Does this mean that it was not ever a fact then? How do we tell the difference between a fact and a holding statement?
If you understand it yourself you should be able to explain it. I don't believe you even know what it is you find too hard to explain. In any case all I was looking for was a counter-argument to the argument that the more objective view is the less limited, more comprehensively informed view.
Is the Earth flat or spherical? In the past it was believed that the Earth was flat and stationary because that was how it looked to those who were not yet able to get clear of the Earth in order to view it 'from the 'outside'. This has nothing to do with relativity except that of course the Earth is not moving relative to us, since we are moving with it.
Isn't this the difference between what is, and what we know is?
And (apart from in some philosophies), those two things are not the same. As far as I can tell it is not our knowledge of things that make them exist. What exists does exist whether we know about it or not.
However we can do no better than our best knowledge at any given time. Hence we call our best knowledge as "fact," because we can't bypass our best knowledge and directly tap into perfect knowledge.
A favourite. Fun for beating falsificationists with.
Quoting Tom Storm
not just in one's head.
Quoting Tom Storm
Yep. That we think something to be true does not always make it so.
Quoting Tom Storm
Depends. But generally, yep.
Quoting Tom Storm
Well, a fact is true... I know that's not of much help, but it is right. The obvious follow up is "How do you tell if some statement is true?", to which the answer is that of course there is no general method for telling if any given statement is true...it depends on what the statement is about.
...and here we go back to T-sentences... Philosophy goes around in circles.
Great, thank you for the clarifications. Very useful.
Quoting Banno
What's your view of Feyerabend's work?
I'm asking you to explain what it is you think you are arguing for. Not an unreasonable request, surely?
Quoting Janus
Quoting Janus
Sarcastic bastard... :wink:
The philosophical arguments go around in circles, but somehow you and I and one or two others manage to make things a bit better despite all that.
Quoting Tom Storm
His critique of Popperian falsification is I think inescapable. Science doesn't work that way, nor ought it. But "anything goes" will not work either - it sounds like (was) a trumpet call to the Left, but ends up being a recipe for keeping things as they are - if anything goes why change?
The notion of a scientific method is fraught. What we have is a reasoned, social approach that engages with the world.
But isn't that what I have been addressing?
Quoting Banno
It seems odd to accuse me of avoiding a topic on which I created a whole thread... https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/10249/intersubjectivity/p1
...in which you participated.
Yes, I only arrived at this in recent times.
Here, seeing as how you are incapable of doing your own research...
How General Relativity Complicates What We Know About Earth's Orbit
Sometimes this forum is like dealing with toddlers...
:roll:
You're the toddler Banno, when it comes to reading and responding to what your discussants have actually said. I didn't say it was wrong, simpliciter, to say the Earth orbits the Sun; I already acknowledged that is right from the point of view of Earth.
From a point of view outside the Solar system, looking at it as a whole, would you say it is more correct to say the Earth and the other planets orbit the Sun or that the Sun orbits the Earth? Does the Sun or the Earth form the centre of gravity of the Solar System?
I've referred you to the physical science, which shows that your question is silly.
How General Relativity Complicates What We Know About Earth's Orbit
End of discussion.
This supports what I have been saying and my question about which, the Sun or the Earth, is the better candidate for being considered to be the center of gravity of the Solar System? The Sun of course, it being the more massive, in fact constituting most of the total mass of the solar system.
[i]Weve been having some fun recently with Sun-centered and Earth-centered coordinate systems, as related to a provocative claim by certain serious scientists, most recently Berkeley professor Richard Muller. They claim that in general relativity (Einsteins theory of gravity, the same fantastic mathematical invention which predicted black holes and gravitational waves and gravitational lensing) the statement that The Sun Orbits the Earth is just as true as the statement that The Earth Orbits the Sun or that perhaps both statements are equally meaningless.
But, uh sorry. All this fun with coordinates was beside the point. The truth, falsehood, or meaninglessness of the Earth orbits the Sun will not be answered with a choice of coordinates. Coordinates are labels. In this context, they are simply ways of labeling points in space and time. Changing how you label a system changes only how you describe that system; it does not change anything physically meaningful about that system. So rather than focusing on coordinates and how they can make things appear, we should spend some time thinking about which things do not depend on our choice of coordinates.
And so our question really needs to be this: does the statement The Earth Orbits the Sun (and not the other way round) have coordinate-independent meaning, and if so, is it true?[/i]
From here.
Read on further and educate yourself.
And:
[i]Technically, what is going on is that the Earth, Sun and all the planets are orbiting around the center of mass of the solar system. This is actually how planets orbiting other stars are often detected, by searching for the motion of the stars they orbit that is caused by the fact that the star is orbiting the center of mass of the system, causing it to wobble on the sky.
The center of mass of our solar system very close to the Sun itself, but not exactly at the Sun's center (it is actually a little bit outside the radius of the Sun). However, since almost all of the mass within the solar system is contained in the Sun, its motion is only a slight wobble in comparison to the motion of the planets. Therefore, assuming that the Sun is stationary and the planets revolve around its center is a good enough approximation for most purposes.[/i]
From here
From your first here....
....if you do it correctly, you will always get the same answer no matter which coordinates you use....
.....and from Einstein 1905.....
....If, relative to K, K? is a uniformly moving co-ordinate system devoid of rotation, then natural phenomena run their course with respect to K? according to exactly the same general laws as with respect to K....
.....and from Blagojevi? 2002.....
.....Newton's laws hold in their simplest form only in a family of reference frames, called inertial frames. The laws of mechanics have the same form in all inertial frames....
......put together seemingly demonstrate that we are indeed in our own inertial reference frames, insofar as the simplest physical laws being used correctly are why the answers will always be the same no matter where on Earth (K) youre standing (K).
When I get back from my ~SOL trip to Never-neverland, on the other hand, then we can talk about why youre old and gray and Im still pretty. But if you dont care about that because it aint gonna happen, we can discuss why youre 3 x 10-6sec oldrn me after my trip to London on a Big Jet Plane, which does happen, but good luck measuring THAT on your trusty Timex.
All yall self-implied adults.....sit back, put up your swollen ankles and enjoy yet another shot of Geritol.
THE TODDLERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!!!!
Yeah, let's see if the two-year-olds can validate the reality of an inertial frame of reference. Doesn't this require the reality of a straight line? Hahaha, the joke is on us.
Ok, fine. I thought about it for awhile, but I cant come up with a clever comeback for your clever comeback.
"Real" to me is the sum of everything. Nothing that isn't real can or will ever occur, be imagined, considered, thought, felt, observed or be physical as an object in the universe. Time is real. All the products of time are real.
All subjects are real and their individual feelings, secrets, thoughts, passions and emotions are real whether expressed or kept to themselves. Everything private is real. Everything shared and communicated between us is also real - every sound, every smile, every interaction between subjects that has or ever will take place. Everything yet unknown to us or already lost to us that is or was real is real regardless of whether we are currently aware of it or can observe it in this moment.
Everything the future holds is real as is that of the past and present. All information to ever occur is real. All manners in which energy and matter can or will be arranged for all of time is real. Possibility and probability are real.
In what way, what form, all of these things are real - well that varies. Some are real for a brief instantaneous moment while others are real for the entire span of space-time, and everything in-between. None less real than the rest. As is the potential variability of all existing things. Change itself is real.
All that is real is not available to us in this moment, nor in a lifetime nor a hundred lifetimes. Everything that is real will never be comprehended fully by me or you or anyone else, only ever approximated as a broad and vague general appreciation from the smallest consideration to one's of the most epic magnitude.
Have I forgotten something in the set of what is real? Almost certainly.
I don't have a problem with any of things you identify as real, but different people have different ideas. Some philosophical approaches deny there is any reality. Hence this discussion.
As is entirely their right to do so. I for one am always interested in what others make of it all. I'm always encountering new perspectives and takes on the subject to indulge in.
You mean what is usually called an idealist? Roughly the view that there are only ideas and nothing else. But those who take these positions say ideas are real.
Then you have Goodman's "irrealism", roughly the view that what there is, are "versions", theories and descriptions we have of the world, which vary depending on the person's version, a chemist would have a different version than a plumber, most of the time. But the posits made by each respective person's version are real.
Now if you have in mind anti-realism, I can't say much, the very little I know about them don't make much sense to me.
Point being, very few people are just going to say "the things I argue for/believe in are not real", it's a very strange statement to make.
I was motivated to start this discussion by recent threads that questioned whether quantum mechanics undermines the idea of reality.
Ah. One of those threads. That's a matter of taking physics way, way outside of its purview.
But, that's pertinent for that thread, not this one. Thanks for the clarification.
Agreed.
Quite right. How does an idea become undermined?
Spending waaaay too much time in a lab, or you try to get attention by putting forth a fancy argument.
I dunno. It's very strange.
Oh, Easy as that? Whoda thunk it. How come its never been done, then? Didnt think ideas could be undermined. The objects of ideas, maybe, but.....oh well.
So be it.
Yeah, well, you know....times for fun, times for serious, a la Andy Rooney.
I'd completely forgotten about him; takes me back to childhood when he was on TV here in Horstraya. :cool:
You are a disappointing bunch. :sad:
You're a butthead, so we're even.
On the first page.
Sorry if I awoke you too abruptly from your nap. :cool:
Real is that which is the object of human inquiry.
Many here on the forum and elsewhere would disagree.
I think its pretty much spot on. Less complex version than mine on pg 2.
Ok.
So what is not the object of human enquiry?
Or do we conclude that everything is real?
Again, applying Austin's strategy of looking for the compliment of a posited definition of "real" clarifies the issue, in this case showing the definition to be inadequate.
Quoting Banno
Something that does not affect us in any possible way (directly or indirectly) so that it cannot be wondered about (directly or indirectly) because there is absolutely no information about it we can use to formulate questions about its nature - there is simply nothing that could be known about it due to its lack of interaction with us. So, for example, suppose we lack complete awareness about the existence of gravity, and we are studying the movement of a pendulum; wondering about the pendulum's movement indirectly asks about gravity even if we are not aware of it, and this "unknown" gravity should be considered as real as the pendulum's movement according to the definition of "real" being discussed. Something that does not interact with us at all may exist, but it would not be real to us since it could never be conceptualized or at least wondered about indirectly as with the "unknown" gravity in the example above. So, what is not real to human beings is that which does not interact with human beings at all, and therefore it can never be the object of (direct or indirect) human inquiry. Now, something like that may or may not exist; if it does, not everything is real (according to the human mind); if it doesn't then everything is real. In my view, all things that exist (must) have at least one thing in common, and as such they all interact with each other via this similarity, and therefore they all are real according to the definition being discussed, for humans are one of these things that exist.
You seem to be saying that we can "formulate questions" about "Something that does not affect us in any possible way", but that's not right. Gravity is inferred exactly because it affects the pendulum. Hence gravity does affect us.
Quoting Banno
I meant the opposite - we cannot formulate questions about something that does not affect us in any possible way. The pendulum example was intended to describe something we may indirectly ask about (gravity), as you said. Its purpose was to differentiate this type of "indirect relations," which should be considered "real" regardless of our awareness of them, from no relation at all.
Cool.
But it remains that there is nothing about which we can talk that is not real, by
Quoting Daniel
So it amounts to the claim that everything is real.
And hence, since we cannot claim of anything that it is not real, saying something is real is not saying anything about it.
We can use "real" to differentiate in particular explicit cases - a real painting, a real foot, by understanding what the contrary is - a counterfeit painting, an artificial foot.
But some folk wish to contend that there is a way of using "real" that somehow goes beyond that, having no contrary.
The ball remains in their court. It is up to them to give an account that explicates such a use.
?
I've had my say. Nothing to add.
Why 'having no contrary'? Or do you only mean in the 'pants' sense, deriving it's meaning from the contrary?
I mean, it's true that we're never going to predicate of some object 'imaginary', not in earnest, but only as a manner of speaking. The logical form of such a claim is just going to be '~?xFx' which doesn't commit us to anything. We can comfortably say something like 'Unicorns aren't real but imaginary'; no one's attributing a property to something that also has the property of being a unicorn.
I think we would like to be able to say something like, "If something is a unicorn, then it doesn't exist," or maybe if you have a name, like from a story, "If Sheldon is a unicorn, then he doesn't exist." I guess we can stuff that directly into classical logic, but I don't think it's a very comfortable fit. It is, however, pretty straightforward to say that if something (or Sheldon) is a unicorn, then it (or he) is a member of class known to be empty, so that's a contradiction and the conclusion is just that (say) "Sheldon is a unicorn" is false; we'll only need to go for "Sheldon is not a unicorn" if "Sheldon" is known to refer if, say, Sheldon is a horse with a horn affixed to his forehead.
The class of unicorns can be as real as you (whoever you are) generally take classes to be; it just happens to be empty, but that doesn't mean there's any particular problem talking about it. And if we define 'imaginary' as 'member of an empty class', it ought to serve pretty well as an opposite for 'real' in that most general sense, and show up in arguments about where we'd want it to.
Oh yeah, and then 'real' in this general sense is 'member of a non-empty class'. Which is fine.
Bonus anecdote:
Story Robert Creeley tells didn't happen to him but another poet, I forget who that after a reading someone from the audience came up to ask our poet about something he read, "Was that a real poem, or did you make it up yourself?"
I like that image. It's both. It lies in the overlap of 2 intersecting Venn circles, the real and the imaginary.
Yep.
The label on the pack says "What does "real" mean?"
Existential quantification is not about what is real and what isn't. It's more about what can be talked about and what can't. If Sheldon is a unicorn, then there are unicorns. p(a)??(x)p(x).
Oh, yeah, if 'real' is 'member of a non-empty class', then Sheldon proves that unicorns are real. That doesn't look right.
Sure it is. Says so right on the tin.
Quoting Banno
You mean like my example in which Sheldon is a horse? Sheldon's being a member of the class
Confusing. Is Sheldon a horse or a unicorn?
If Sheldon is a unicorn, the by p(a)??(x)p(x) Sheldon exists. Are you happy to say that?
It seems that if one supposes that to be 'real' is to be a 'member of a non-empty class' then Frodo, being a member of the class "Hobbit", is real. And Sheldon shows that unicorns are real.
After all, there is the class of things that are not real. We don't want to treat that as empty, while still saying it has members. A better approach might be to suppose that being member of a class is not the same as being real.
Perhaps @TonesInDeepFreeze can help.
Nope. We pretend there is such a person and that he is a hobbit. There isn't, and he isn't.
Quoting Banno
I was offering an example of a real horse named Sheldon disguised as a unicorn. His not being a unicorn doesn't make him not real. He's a real horse.
Quoting Banno
It exists, it is empty, and it has no members.
Quoting Banno
If Sheldon is a unicorn, the class of unicorns is non-empty, yeah. (And I have no issue with existential generalization.) If your argument concludes that an empty class has a member, that's a contradiction, so one of your premises is false, for instance, "Sheldon is a unicorn." That can be false even when Sheldon is quite real, because a horse.
Quoting Banno
I'm saying that's exactly what it is.
Jack thinks the bartender is real, but he's not.
What's the contrary in this case?
Supernatural subtext of King's novel aside (are ghosts real?), is the contrary not Jack's recovered sanity (possibly via antipsychotic medication)?
I've worked with many people with psychotic illnesses who mark a demarcation between unreal experiences (psychosis) and real life (recovery).
I was aiming for the Kubrick version which is more ambiguous. Is Jack delusional? Does he have the shining?
We can identify the bartender as unreal without knowing for sure what the explanation is. The contrary here is just "unreal."
Quoting Tom Storm
There are drugs which can take the ability to distinguish reality from imagination off line.
Sure, which for me makes it a problematic example for any hypothetical testing of 'the real'.
Quoting frank
Sure, there are dugs for any old thing. But is it not the case that someone who is 'mad' or 'high' is not experiencing the real? Merely the real for them. In some happy cases they may rediscover the real through recovery. There is a therefore a 'contrary' - to address your original point. Tell me where I am off.
In the case of The Shining we are potentially talking about a speculative metaphysics (ghosts, demons, spirits) combined with storytelling which painstakingly cultivates the logic of dreams. What can this illuminate for us outside of film criticism and interpretation of the director's intention?
Why? We're just looking at instances of use.
Quoting Tom Storm
I assert that in some cases, "real" is meaningful when it's only known negation is "unreal.". Kubrick's Shining is an example.
We aren't trying to identify some meaning for "real" that transcends use. And there's deeper significance to the real/unreal opposition. It won't be shuffled under a rug.
I agree with this.
Quoting frank
I just have an issue with unnecessarily labyrinthine and contrived 'case studies' drawn from fiction. Just as I dislike the ridiculous scenarios spun for most thought experiments. I prefer the real. :wink:
Quoting frank
Tell me more about what you're thinking here.
Meaning tends to depend on negation. As Hegel said, a thing and its negation make up one concept.
For example, far/near is one concept where "far" ultimately means "not near."
Same with reality. Real/unreal are components of one concept. The reason a thing isn't real is semi-secondary to the prime concept.
I'm not sure what that is.
Having difficulty seeing how that works. So if Sheldon is a unicorn, then Sheldon exists. But you say that being member of a class is the same as being real. If Sheldon is a unicorn, then he is a member of the class "Unicorns", and hence real.
So I gather you are saying that Sheldon cannot be a unicorn - that the class "Unicorn" is empty?
That seems to me to be an unneeded step to far.
If I can change the exemplar to fictional rather than imaginary, a few clear examples present themselves. I think we want to be able to make logical inferences about imaginary and fictional characters. I don't see anything worrisome about an inference such as "All hobbits have hairy feet; Frodo is a hobbit; therefore Frodo has hairy feet".
But Frodo, of course, is fictional, and not real. If being member of a class is the same as being real, then Frodo cannot be a member of a class, and so not a member of the class "hobbits". If we followed that rout, we would not be in a position to talk rationally about fictional or imaginative characters. That's the step too far.
Now that seems pretty straight forward, so perhaps there is something a bit more sophisticated we might do, along the lines of "well, we can keep fiction and imaginative discourse in a box over there, and proper discourse about the actual world over here, a seperate interpretation, the proper one for talking about real things. And if we do that we can define being real as being a member of a class..."
That is, one might set up a domain by ejecting imaginary and fictional stuff. Soof course the discourse in that domain will be about stuff that is not fictional or imaginative. In effect one would have defined one's domain of discourse as the contrary to fictional or imaginative... or whatever else you would like to exclude from being real. You will have done exactly as I have proposed.
Quoting frank
If the bartender is not real, what is he? A ghost? Then he's a real ghost. I'll go with and say if Lloyd is not real he is a symptom of Jack's psychosis; that is the source of the dramatic tension. From Austin, the key is to ask "if it is not real, then what is it?" Is Lloyd a ghost or a delusion? So your example seems to me to work in favour of Austin's account.
But contra , I don't think Lloyd was a simulation. What I argued, Introbert, in my reply to @Daniel, is that it is a consequence of his view, "Real is that which is the object of human inquiry", that everything becomes real. Not sure you realised that. If I'm right then by Daniel's definition there is nothing that is not real. Seems to me that the only alternative would be some form of idealism, which I'm not going to debate here.
Consider yourself lucky.
When you wrote this - Quoting frank
I thought you were heading down a Kantian noumena/phenomena model of reality that's all.
Quoting Banno
Good. I thought this is where I was heading as well.
I have absolutely no idea why you think so. Of course the class of unicorns is empty. For all x, x is not a unicorn.
Quoting Banno
There are no hobbits. The class of critters that are hobbits is empty. It's pretty clear to me.
What you need is an account of how talking about fiction works. Not only would I be disinclined to monkey with logic just for that, I'd assume you'll need logic to keep working in the usual way to carry out such an analysis.
Quoting Banno
Really? I would have thought imaginary entities don't exist and so don't need to be 'ejected' from the domain of discourse. There are no unicorns or hobbits for me to eject, are there?
Quoting Banno
I gotta be a bit nit-picky here and say the statement in question would better amount to the claim that everything perceivable by humans (directly or indirectly) is real.
I think everything would include things which we are completely unaware of (due to their lack of interaction) if those things existed - again, if they did, they would not be real from a human perspective (according to the statement in question), but they would exist.
Quoting Banno
I see your point, and I would like to completely agree with it because it is true that the word "real" has more meaning when used to make comparisons between certain things (an original and a forgery, for instance, as you have pointed out previously); nevertheless, I think statements such as "real is that which is the object of human inquiry" or "everything perceivable is real" serve not a descriptive role, per se, but a foundational one in the sense that they prevent the formation of statements such as "ideas are not real" or "the mind is not real" or "unicorns are not real (unicorns are ideas of the mind)" when analyzing the world around us; in this way assuming all is real prevents one from looking for unnecessary tools to explain strange phenomena and instead provides a framework in which one looks to explain the nature of reality using tools that have been proven to function in past investigation, and the knowledge gathered with them. I say this because I have seen many times people try to give to the mind, for example, some kind of special status somehow separate from the physical world we have been studying for millennia, and I have also seen them create all kinds of scenarios that would explain its behaviour no matter how improbable they are. So, I agree that stating that something is real when everything is considered to be real has no real meaning at all (see what I did there?); but the assumption that everything is real provides a guiding track, lets say, that constrict us to look for the cause of whatever is the object of our inquiry using proven knowledge instead of wondering to other worlds that will only exist in the form of ideas or in paper.
Quoting introbert
But again, cells would have been indirectly the object of human inquiry when asking about anatomy, for example, the same way gravity was indirectly the object of human inquiry in the pendulum example.
How do we determine what counts as fictional and what does not? Is Allah fictional... Jesus?
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Not I. I've given my account: Frodo is a hobbit, therefore the class of hobbits is not empty - they are fictional creatures. It's you who are in need of an account of how we can talk rationally about fictional or imagined characters.
It is an error to confuse existential quantification with being real. But that seems to be what you are doing.
Who knows? There are arguments, there's evidence, and some empirical questions are hard to answer.
I think fiction is a pretty subtle thing, and there are simpler cases to consider. Lots of things used to exist and don't anymore. The class of Tokyo hotels designed by Frank Lloyd Wright used to have one member, the Imperial, but now it's empty. We may have evidence, from Audubon or something, that there was once a bird called the Whiffle-Breasted Woodpecker, now believed extinct; we would say that class used to have members and now it doesn't. But someone may spot one someday, and then it will turn out that class is not empty after all.
Does the Higgs boson exist? We had the class, defined theoretically, for years before we could manage observations that showed that class to have members. The Michelson-Morley experiment was widely taken as showing that the class of luminiferous aether is empty.
No illusions, hallucinations or delusions, then. But these are usually taken to be exactly cases in which what is perceived is not real. Think I'll leave this to you to fathom.
Sounds like we're fucked then and to a large extent doomed to be the playthings of the likes of Osama bin Laden and Trump. :wink:
I'd love to. Fiction is interesting because pretending is really interesting.
No idea why it should change how I think about logic though.
Quoting Tom Storm
?
If the real is so elusive, so difficult to establish, then many of us will continue to be seduced by the glib certainties of extremists, carpetbaggers, shills and sophists.
I only said that some empirical questions are hard to answer. It took a long time and a lot of money to observe the Higgs, and for a long time it was a thing we just could not do. Some questions about the past we likely will never be able to answer. The existence of books about a guy from Nazareth named 'Jesus' (or something like that) suggest he was a real person, but it's hard to know for sure for a great number of reasons. We know surprisingly little, as I recall, about the personal life of Shakespeare, but he too was probably a real person.
If you're interested in my opinions, I'll give you one: I find the stories about Bigfoot hoaxes persuasive, the guys that made the footprints for fun, running along behind a pickup, the guy that dressed in the costume for a wannabe filmmaker, plus I'm convinced by the argument that a breeding population of bigfeet would have to be big enough that we're likely to have had incontrovertible proof by now, if they existed. So I think there's no Bigfoot, and I will be very surprised if it turns out there is.
We're in 'prove a negative' territory, but I'm pretty confident the class of bigfeet is empty. That's harder to determine than whether I'm out of Pop Tarts but not as hard to determine as whether there are gravitons.
Hobbits, then, form a subclass of the class of fictional creatures, right?
So Boromir could well have argued, at the council of Elrond, that Frodo could not possibly carry the One Ring to Mordor because he was a hobbit, and thus fictional. Why do you suppose he didn't? But then, maybe no one at the council knew that hobbits are fictional, perhaps through some mischief of Saruman's. Still, you'd think Gandalf would have known, as much time as he spent with them. (Like curling up with his favorite book, I guess.) Luckily, it all worked out. Being fictional didn't stop Sam and Frodo from carrying out their task, so maybe it's not as strong an argument as it seems.
That's not a real problem. Hobbits are fictional characters, and in that sense, and only in that sense, they are real. Same with unicorns
I'll leave you to sort out with Srap whether Frodo is really real or not. I'll stick to his being fictional.
That's pretty much what I have been arguing, except I added Austin's strategy for explicating what was being claimed when something is called "real".
So what is it you think we might disagree about, if anything?
@Srap Tasmaner et al.
Why the lack of response to this amazing insight? :chin:
I'll go you one better.
Marianne Moore published two versions I think 'published', maybe she only contemplated doing this of a poem called 'Poetry'. The short version goes like this:
The longer version, with the indentation butchered by our software:
[quote=poets.org, first published 1919;https://poets.org/poem/poetry]I too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers that there is in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a
high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because they are
useful; when they become so derivative as to become unintelligible, the
same thing may be said for all of usthat we
do not admire what
we cannot understand. The bat,
holding on upside down or in quest of something to
eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf under
a tree, the immovable critic twinkling his skin like a horse that feels a flea, the base
ball fan, the statisticiancase after case
could be cited did
one wish it; nor is it valid
to discriminate against business documents and
school-books; all these phenomena are important. One must make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry,
nor till the autocrats among us can be
literalists of
the imaginationabove
insolence and triviality and can present
for inspection, imaginary gardens with real toads in them, shall we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand, in defiance of their opinion
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness, and
that which is on the other hand,
genuine, then you are interested in poetry.[/quote]
Imaginary gardens with real toads in them.
What shall we say about that?
You mean, since Mordor is not a real place, the class of people who've been there is empty.
He could be a reflection in a window that Jack takes for a bartender.
"Real", as you've used it makes perfect sense in spite of the fact that you don't know how exactly he's not real. The "how" of it is a different issue.
But Austin's insight isn't refuted. Most words have meaning relative to their negations. That wisdom did not originate with Austin.
That you did :up:
Thanks for the introduction to Marianne Moore. Strange how I'd heard of Emily Dickinson but not MM.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
It seems she is in agreement with people who don't like poetry or a certain kind of poem.
Hooked, we wonder who and why...or at least I do...
MM's poem uses indentations; not always appreciated or understood by others and removed by editors.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Good question. I'd be interested to hear what you and others think.
I don't know that I can say anything without context; related to other lines and the poet's mind.
But as a stand-alone, it has relevance to this thread; the real, the imagined and the overlap.
My mind stops still at:
Quoting poets.org, first published 1919
What is that about? I haven't a clue...
Is this a criticism of the 'toads'; the anal-ytical 'autocrats' and 'half poets' who trivialise poetry?
They take words too literally. Too 'base'?
Is MM saying that they should view the imagination as real? To be based on what matters to the poet - a sense of the genuine? MM's poetry joins a rawness of the raw reality with a real sensitivity...
Phenomena are important because they are 'useful'.
Back to the practical. A poetic pragmatism.
A melding of the physical form, mental content and spiritual feel.
From the external to the internal and back again.
Words are important not merely as objects in themselves but are used to show or bring life to things. Musically. Things that matter to us.
The concrete toads v abstract thoughts, imaginary gardens or real beliefs...
All real.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
While that is true, it's not the point I made. If, as you suppose, Frodo cannot be a member of a class, then we can't say that Frodo is a members of the class of things that walk into Mordor. If one restricts the language of classes and predication to non-fiction then one cannot make claims such as "Frodo was a hobbit who walked in to Mordor".
This provides good reason for rejecting Quoting Srap Tasmaner
The concern to which this was a posited answer was:
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Well, it's clear that Frodo is not someone who we might meet at the shops, nor an historical figure, but a fictional character. And that is what one is claiming in saying he doesn't exist. As Janus says,
Quoting Janus
There are a few ways we can deal with fictional, imaginary, or illusory things besides ejecting them entirely from discussion. Creating the classes " fictional", "imaginary", and "illusory" for one, or fiddling with modal logics, perhaps making Middle Eartha possible world. Or restriction the domain to things that are not fictional, imaginary, or illusory, (such as restricting our domain of discourse to physical things) so long as we then do not pretend that this gives us information about such things.
All of which reinforces rather than undermines the view that what is real is best analysed by setting out it's contrary.
All of which is of course subject to the ambiguities of derangements of epitaphs. So King and Kubrick can play with our expectation to understand what Lloyd is not, as points out. Such forms of language use have their being in contrast to our more common language use. We can suppose real toads in imaginary gardens for , or little men who are not there. But if we are to have imaginary gardens, we probably had best keep our capacity to claim that gardens are at least sometimes in the class of places were plants are grown.
We agree he doesn't exist. But you want to still be able truly to predicate "is a hobbit" of him; I don't.
Honestly, I could meet you halfway, and allow a sentence like "Frodo is a hobbit" to be true under somewhat constrained conditions, and those conditions would involve spelling out some of what's involved in Frodo's hobbithood. But for an apples to apples comparison, "Frodo is a hobbit" cannot be true in the same way that "Seabiscuit was a horse" is true. And I don't mean there are different sorts of truth, but that the presuppositions of those statements are so different that I think the statements themselves don't even have the same logical form. Consider the difference between "It says in the book that Frodo is Bilbo's nephew" and "It says in the book that Seabiscuit beat War Admiral by four lengths": the books here are doing very different things.
Everything we say about Frodo is a sort of shorthand for referring to the literary work of Tolkien, and other work derived from it. (And so far as that goes, I don't in fact have a problem with "Frodo is a hobbit." It says so in the book.) It's what allows that strange slipping in out of the text that people fall into when talking about literature: "But on page 74, Frodo tells Sam that ..." Seabiscuit never did anything on a page. And in an obvious sense neither did Frodo. But page 74 says something about Frodo and Sam, and we treat that in a certain sophisticated way.
What I've been trying to get you to see is the shocking incompatibility between "Frodo is a hobbit" and "Frodo is a fictional character." (If "Frodo is a fictional character" is true, how come no one in the books seems to know that? Why would it change the book into some avant-garde foolery if some character in the book said this true thing?) No entity can be both those things. Nothing can be anything and also be non-existent. Flicka cannot be a horse and a fictional character; neither could Seabiscuit, who settled for just being a horse.
"Frodo is a fictional character" and "Flicka is a fictional character" do not predicate anything of entities named 'Frodo' or 'Flicka'. A first pass at parsing "Flicka is a fictional character" might be: "'Flicka' is the name of a character in a book." But 'is the name of' can't mean what it usually means because Flicka doesn't exist, so that's not right. We might as well say "'Flicka' is the name of a horse in a book by Mary O'Hara." Really? How did a horse manage to live in a book? Whatever Flicka is, and however the name 'Flicka' attaches to that, Flicka is not the sort of entity that in real life has a name in the usual way.
I think it's actually pretty hard to give a good account of how we talk about fiction. Most such talk hangs suspended from a counterfactual conditional like "If the story in Mary O'Hara's book were a true story ..." But that's not all of it, because as I noted, we freely pass back and forth between pretending Flicka exists as described and treating Flicka as a textual artifact "Remember in Chapter 3 when Flicka was out in the thunderstorm?"
There's some pretty sophisticated stuff going on when we talk about fiction, but it's all obscured by familiarity. I remember reading a story somewhere about some Europeans traveling maybe to Japan, some place in the East with a very different theatrical tradition I may have the details all wrong and the point was made that the local audience was absolutely mystified by the idea of actors, people pretending to be the characters in stories and speaking their words. They were used to a sort of elaborated story-telling with music and so on, but basically one guy reciting. Acting was incomprehensible to them at first. This is the kind of sophistication we have with fiction that I think is hard to notice, and why I can't just reel off an account of how we think about and talk about these things.
And fundamentally I think all of this is to one side of issues in logic and ontology.
True, though just as material gardens are places where material plants are grown, imaginary gardens are places where imaginary plants are grown.
Perhaps any 'sophisticated stuff' is not obscured so much as not being necessary when it comes to talking about fiction. Familiarity with fiction lies in the basic telling, showing, listening and reading of stories. Different cultures will have different ways and experiences depending on what has been open to them. Language and expression will vary according to the message and how best it might be transported or transmitted to others.
There is the universal and the particular.
Highlighting a particular reality at a certain time can have the effect of expanding our knowledge or understanding of the universal. Of what it is to be human...actors alone or together at a stage of life.
Real wrongs or rights shared.
Authors give voice to those who don't have one...yet.
Examples here:
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200310-how-to-tell-other-peoples-stories
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I don't understand what you mean. Please explain, thanks.
I only mean that modern logic of the sort we typically use these days in philosophy is Frege's logic: there are objects so ontology and functions, literal functions like you learned about in math class that map objects or sets of objects onto the set {0, 1}, truth-values. That's it.
When we talk about Middle Earth, we're only doing logic very indirectly: we're talking about what Tolkien did and did not put in the books, so there are truth-values to be had here, and there are objects, but the objects are, at bottom, words. Did Pippin accompany Frodo and Sam to Mount Doom? That question is not about any persons or places or travel anyone undertook, not really. It's a question about what sentences are in the book, and what the logical relations among them are, or can be worked out to be. The rules of inference are already a kind of pretend; they work as if they treat of known objects we can quantify over and apply known predicates to, but they are only truth-preserving not truth-engendering. There is no truth to the sentences in fiction, so there is no truth to preserve, but the sentences can still be related to one another logically.
Because fiction seems to be about persons, places, and events, it's in one sense a handy showcase for how logic works, but only if we pretend. If we want to say things that are genuinely true and false about fiction in the same way we say them about objects we do find in the world, then we must do this complicated double analysis, that works out the logical connections among sentences on the pretend level, but in the end only quantifies over the words and sentences that make up this textual artifact.
It's true, or worth assuming. But it has limitations, and also an inherent technical complexity, which is the distinction between use and mention. This is conveniently (and often harmlessly) ignored, even in technical discourse like maths. So maintaining it requires considerable skill, but isn't always necessary for the practical success of the discourse. And in the end the underlying theory (word denotes object) loses plausibility.
Its limitations get exaggerated. E.g. the idea that it can't explain fiction without spoiling it. (Not proven.)
And it gets to seem far-fetched, itself. Poor Quine, after taking such pains to clarify and simplify existence claims, with his famous formula, found that people's natural understanding of "value of a variable" wasn't his. He had meant (by analogy with algebra) the number itself, not a numeral or some expression suitable as a substitute. And his point was that the referent (if any) of "Fido" is the dog so named, whereas people (and at least half of philosophers) think this can't be right: reference, being logical after all, must be from word to other word.
But we shouldn't be surprised. Getting one thing to stand in for another is asking for trouble. Even where we immediately clarify the distinction between the two, we resort to proxies. Perhaps we draw a diagram, with an arrow joining a "Fido"-inscription to a dog-picture. Well, this makes sense. Surely we hadn't wanted to draw an arrow in the air from the token to the slobbering mutt itself?
And hence the descent into "to be is to be the subject of a sentence" etc.
Like who?
I would say that sentences in fiction communicate truths. The story contains answers to anyone asking questions, such as:
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Well, yes it is. It is really about what happens in the story whether it is fictitious or not.
Another kind of truth about reality can be found in the likes of Charles Dickens.
In contrast to a fictional truth, this might be termed a 'genuine' truth. His stories present moral or political truths some readers can relate to. Or others can become more aware of e.g. poverty and social conditions.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I'm not sure that is necessary.
It reminds me of the poem you posted: 'Poetry' by Marianne Moore.
Switch from 'Poetry' to 'Philosophy'.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I bolded your question to which I attempted a response. Still waiting for your reply...then again:
'There are things that are important beyond all this fiddle'.
Ok... from word to other word, or to idea or concept. Then who not? You, me and Goodman and Quine, apparently.
But @Banno is, so far as I observe, confusing the referent of "Frodo" in the real sense with the referent of "Frodo" in the Ryle sense.
Likewise anyone who says, which happens quite a lot round here, something like "to be is to be the subject of a sentence".
"Frodo went to Mordor"
"George crossed the Delaware."
Both "Frodo" and "George" are expressions. They're both real in their respective frameworks, Frodo being a real Hobbit in LOTR, as opposed to a bad dream Gandalf had.
I get the impulse to say this, I do, but I think it's more complicated than that.
You would somehow distinguish between a person who read LOTR as a novel, and someone who thought it was true. What is that distinction and how does it affect the truth-value of statements like "Frodo carried the ring to Mordor"?
Consider this too: even if it is true that Frodo went to Mordor, it is not made true in the same sort of way that "George Washington crossed the Delaware" was, by the person George making such a transit; it became LOTR-true by Tolkien writing words to that effect.
Normally you cannot deduce P from someone's saying that P. You might count it as evidence, but that's it. Here we have an act with illocutionary force: Frodo went to Mordor if and only if Tolkien said he did.
Insofar as there is some framework within which "Frodo went to Mordor" is true, it consists exactly of what Tolkien did or did not say, including things like this very sentence. The 'framework' comes into being along with the statements it makes true.
If asked, whether Pippin accompanied Frodo into Mordor, you might answer, no, Pippin was in Gondor. I contend that we do not mean that as a statement of historical fact, but as elliptical for "Tolkien says he was in Gondor" or "The book says he was in Gondor," something like that. Within context, we understand that, but it means such sentences actually have a different logical form than "Washington crossed the Delaware."
There's a lot more to this. Fiction does not respect the law of bivalence: if the book doesn't mention in what order the members of the fellowship left Elrond's house, then there is no order that truly or falsely describes their group. Fictional worlds are fundamentally incomplete.
If Bill points to the number "2", written on a dry erase board, and says, "That's a prime number", how do you know he's expressing the proposition that 2 is a prime number?
You have a magic ability to discern what proposition is being expressed in a certain context. Without context, you don't have a proposition. You just have a sentence.
Propositions are the primary truthbearers. Despite all efforts to make sentences do that job, they don't. The problems you're pointing to are the reason we can't use sentences as truthbearers.
No, I'm saying that the form of the proposition expressed by "Frodo went to Mordor" is different from the form of the proposition expressed by "George Washington crossed the Delaware." The semantic value of "George Washington" is a person. If you want to say the semantic value of "Frodo Baggins" is also a person but he happens to be fictional, I'll just say this is not something persons can be. You can only be one of those.
As someone who finds this discussion somewhat lifeless, can you tell me why this matters? What are the practical consequences or implications of 'real' being used in these different ways?
My issue with some of this is we are often not in a position to know what is real about the real. With Washington, for instance, we have that well known 'chopping down of the cherry tree' story, which turns out to be as fictional as Frodo going to Mordor. How far does 'real' get us?
Suzie is discussing whether Frodo was a character in a dream that Gandalf had. She says,
"No, he was real."
You know from the context that she's talking about the framework of the story. If Suzie lives in an institution and hallucinates frequently, and says to her doctor of Frodo,
"No, he was real."
We have two different propositions being expressed by different utterances of the same sentence. Again, why we can't use sentences as truthbearers.
Since I tend to peddle propositions at every turn, it's about why we can't do without them.
Quoting Tom Storm
"Real" is mostly an honorific according to Chomsky. We're focusing more on stuff in the vicinity of Cartesian doubt. Because we're bored and we're trying to distract ourselves from the brilliant autumn light shining through the golden maple leaves.
Which is curious given his certainty about truth - right and wrong - in geopolitics.
Quoting frank
I hear you.
He doesn't mean that the world isn't real. He just meant that we usually use the word to render a thing special in some way. Like the "real power behind the throne."
And again, I'm not saying they are.
Here's one way "Washington has crossed the Delaware" can depend on context: if the context is the Revolutionary War, "Washington" may be used to refer, by metonymy I guess, not to the person Washington but to the army he commands or some part of it; Washington the person may not have crossed at all. But the logical form changes little: it is true if some concrete persons used to be on one side of the river and are now on the other.
Now consider what makes "Frodo went to Mordor" true, if it is: there is a sentence or sentences in the book written by Tolkien which say or imply that Frodo went to Mordor. Whether those sentences are part of the book determines its truth-value, if it has one, not the sequential locations of any person. Note that we are not concerned with whether what Tolkien said is true, because it isn't, but only with whether he said it.
See the difference?
Whether I went to Atlanta is not a matter of whether anyone said it. Whether Pippin went to Mordor is exactly a matter of whether Tolkien said it.
Quoting Amity
Quoting Amity
Leaving aside generalities like "All happy families are alike," which might be literally true, the truths you get from fiction are not stated. You read a story by Chekhov or Raymond Carver -- if you're a teenager in a crappy English class, you just say wtf? But if you're an adult with some experience, some curiosity about the world, some sensitivity maybe?, you might reflect on the story and on the lives we lead and have something like insight. The truth you find is not stated in what you read.
Quoting Amity
Some of this is just Moore thumbing her nose at the poetry-reading public, oddly, because she was famous for including snippets of newspaper and magazine articles in her poems. She was the oddest of ducks.
Otherwise, I think she's saying something like what I suggested above. It's the spirit in which Seamus Heaney said poetry shows us "a glimpsed alternative," and Geoffrey Hill said a poem must be "a fortress of the imagination." Creative, imaginative thinking ought to be contagious, just as rigorous thought ought to be, as when Wittgenstein said, "I should not wish to have spared anyone the trouble of thinking."
Hmm. This is near ageism. It is not so much the quantity of years but the quality of life, thinking and ability to consider own life/reality in relation to others. Storytelling does that from an early age.
I can identify with that teenager in a crappy English class. Why was it such a bad experience?
Subject matter and teacher, perhaps. Not knowing the requirements to pass an English exam.
An inspirational and encouraging teacher saved my day. I am still learning.
Some texts can be considered more revelatory than others, conveying essential or foundational truths.
Think the Bible...it is at least a two-way process of divination. Drawing out thoughts.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I like this poet already! I had a quick look and smile at your use of 'oddest' and 'ducks'.
Could be 'queerest'. What has a poet's sexuality or gender to do with their acceptance? Depends on the culture and time. Realities within realities.
Earlier I noted a quote within the poem:
Quoting poets.org, first published 1919
A quick search took me to this:
https://zoboko.com/text/8m5ynl4q/why-poetry/8
It uses MM's poem and 'The Wasteland' to illustrate problems of education; young readers and creators.
The way poetry is taught is so important. Class can kill any seeds of creativity.
***
Taking snippets from other sources.
Intertextuality.
Returning to the Bible. How many pieces of truth have been taken and transplanted into another reality?
I'm reminded of Goethe and Faust's attempt at translating:
'In the Beginning was the Word'. It didn't sit right with him.
It was transformed to: In the beginning, was the act or deed ( as far as memory goes)
More could be said...
***
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
'The truth you find is not stated in what you read'.
I agree with this. Kinda.
[s]The truth[/s] Truths are not always directly stated; you have to find or feel the connection and meaning, that is if you want to. Some are happy with the 'finds' pronounced in dogmatic texts; no real thought required.
The puzzling worlds of philosophy and fiction are interrelated as in Goethe...and yes, even in TPF.
Inter-reality. A heady combination :sparkle:
LOTR is more than sentences. It's a story that's part of the culture. It's an abstract object, like the components of math.
But yes, there's a difference between fictional characters and actual (real) people. Still, to understand what someone means by "real," you have to look at the way they're using the word.
This line of conversation came about after you made a claim that implied that logic did not apply to fictional characters. I think it now clear that is mistaken. It's apparent that we do apply standard first order logic to fiction, that we make claims such as "Frodo is a Hobbit" which can be understood as claiming that there is a class of things called hobbits and that there is at least one, named "Frodo", and we expect to be able to make the usual sorts of inferences, such as if Frodo is a hobbit and Frodo walked into Mordor then a hobbit walked into Mordor.
There remain interesting questions as to how fictions might be parsed. Whatever account one might provide must at the very least recognise that we would in the first instance expect first order logic to apply with the context of the fiction, in the way shown above. This does not rule out the potential for folk to intentionally subvert such an expectation, as in Alice in Wonderland. Similarly we would expect logic to apply between the actual world and various fictional worlds, and we might need to make use of free logic or modal logic to do this. The practicality here being that we can choose the degree of sophistication we need in order to accomodate our discussion.
Individuals in possible worlds need not be aware that they are not actual. This is the answer, in outline, to your puzzlement as to why Gandalf did not object to a fictional character carrying the ring into Mordor; Frodo is not fictional for Gandalf. To borrow your language, what I've been trying to get you to see is the bland compatibility of "Frodo is a hobbit" and "Frodo is a fictional character". Being fictional does not rule out having properties, nor being a member of some class.
You've implied that there is something distinctly illogical about fiction, or at the least that its logic is somehow different to commonplace logics. I disagree. I think we can and do apply whatever logic we might see as needed to discussions of fiction. You seem to think that the difference between fiction and reality is to be found in the logic we use for each, and I fundamentally disagree. In outline my argument is that what makes a work a work of fiction is not to be found in the syntax nor the semantics of its content, but in the attitude that we adopt towards it. If pushed I would take on something along the lines offered by Searle in The logical status of fictional discourse. the arguments there show how it is that we can have fiction that talks about things that are not fictive; The Claudius of Robert Graves or the London of Holmes. In brief, that a work is a work of fiction rests in the illocutionary and perlocutionary approaches we take to it and not in the syntax or semantics.
(There's a bit at the end of Searle's paper for , about why it matters, at least to philosophers.)
It's not, as you said to @Amity, that we are doing logic indirectly. Our logic is as applicable to fiction as to nonfiction. The difference is in an overarching pretence, not in some complex "double analysis". And that is what we might say about imaginary gardens with real toads in them.
Nor is the form of "Frodo went to Mordor" different from the form of the proposition expressed by "George Washington crossed the Delaware", as you suggested to @Frank. The logical form of both is much the same - one could not tell that "Frodo went to Mordor" is fiction simply from its grammar. Frank talks of the context, I suggest that he is correct, but add that it is the attitude one takes to the context that makes the difference; the attitude of pretending. This seems to be similar to what has in mind.
What's certainly not the case is that the distinction between fiction and nonfiction is to do with quotation, as seems to think. I refer him to Davidson's landmark dismissal of Quine's account of quotation, with
Quoting Quotation
(As if the entire text of Lord of the Rings were but one proper name.)
All of this is in the scope of determining what is real, and refuting your claim that there was a sort of absolute use for "real" such that Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I take it that I have shown this to be problematic.
But my trackpad has given up, and I'll have to cease while it charges.
I have very strong doubts that stories count as possible worlds.
Quoting Banno
I don't see how to avoid semantic issues: the truth conditions of "Frodo carried the ring to Mordor" look nothing like the truth conditions for "Washington crossed the Delaware." That ought to be obvious.
But the problem with my position is apparently that 'within the story', or from an 'in-world perspective', Frodo going to Mordor has exactly the same sort of truth conditions as Washington crossing the Delaware has (in our world, if that needs to be said). We can carry out such an analysis by pretending that Frodo is a person, Mordor is a place, the one ring is a thing, and so on.
But we are also aware of the book as a textual artifact and must analyze it as such. Whatever happens in the story happens because the author says it did. So one way to frame the issue here is to ask how these two frames of analysis are related. Is one dependent on the other? Are they dependent on each other? Independent of each other?
(Incidentally, I wanted to refresh my memory so I checked the wiki for "willing suspension of disbelief" it's nearly Coleridge's phrase, as I thought, but he didn't mean what I learned in school. The wiki article is interesting and notes a sort of response from one J. R. R. Tolkien!)
I'm initially inclined to think that the 'in-world' analysis is parasitic on the textual analysis, precisely because whether something counts, within the story, as having happened, depends entirely on whether the storyteller says it did. Arguments about what did or didn't happen in Tolkien's story are settled or at least, attempted to be settled by reference to the text. Thus to ask whether Pippin accompanied Frodo and Sam to Mount Doom is elliptical for asking what it says in the book.
But now 'what it says in the book' is going to be from the in-world perspective, so indeed we have to understand the sentences in the story by taking them as pretend. If we could not carry out such an in-world analysis much as we would analyze sentences like "Washington crossed the Delaware," then we could not answer any question of the form, "What does the book say?"
So it appears the two sorts of analysis are interdependent. There is an extensional layer, what the book does or doesn't say; and an intensional layer, what what it says means within the story.
Having at least scratched the surface of the sort of work I imagine is necessary, has it become any clearer whether Frodo is real? If by Frodo we mean a hobbit person, then in-world, of course he is; in our world certainly not. In our world, Frodo is a fictional character, which is a real thing just as stories are a real thing. We seem to need a definition for "fictional character" and the obvious one is that a character is whatever counts as a person within the story, from that in-world perspective. Especially in fantasy literature, this may present some problems, because the characters in the story may not all share a perspective on what is a person, and the storyteller has a perspective on this too, again perhaps shared and perhaps not. Ghost stories are the obvious example.
But in our example it's clear enough that within The Lord of the Rings Frodo is a real person and a hobbit, and so for us he would count as a fictional character.
Can we spell this out as truth conditions for "X is a fictional character"? Can we just say "X is a fictional character if and only if there is a fictional story within which X is considered a person"? What sort of X do imagine filling in here? I mean, there's a temptation just to plug in a name there and call it a day. But it's the semantic value of that name that is exactly our problem.
On the right-hand side, we want to take the in-world perspective, and leverage that to define a term in our world, on the left-hand side. In Middle Earth, we want to say, Frodo is a person; in our world, he's a fictional character. Is this the same 'entity' we're talking about? Has it a dual existence, in one 'world' as one sort of thing and in ours as another? Is this no different from saying that chocolate can exist as something yummy for one person and something repulsive for another?
The pretending that matters here is done in our world, and I think this might provide a start on a solution. I don't think we really want to say that Tolkien pretends and we pretend with him as readers Frodo is real and a hobbit. That sounds right, but there is no Frodo for him to pretend is real, as there is real chocolate for one person to like and another dislike. (It's no good to say that Tolkien pretends his fictional character is a real person because (a) there is no such character until he does the pretending, and (b) we were trying to rely on the pretended reality in order to define the character, not the other way around.) Instead, I think we say that Tolkien pretends to be telling a true story at least in some sense. (We still don't have an account of pretending to hand.) Among other things, Tolkien pretends to be telling a story about Frodo. He isn't actually, because there is no Frodo, but he can tell a story about the Frodo who doesn't exist as if he did. But he's never actually talking about Frodo, only pretending to.
You can tell a story about a real person, and within that story the semantic value of that person's name is the person. You can also pretend to tell a story about a person who doesn't exist, and the name of the person you pretend to be talking about has no semantic value, but you pretend it does. (Deja vu. I think I've written that on this forum before, but I had forgotten until just now.) The important thing is to see that the pretending is precisely that the story is about someone; it's not.
That's still not quite right because I think we need to make an even stronger claim to make sense of this. What is telling a story, telling a story about something that really happened, the sorts of stories we tell all the time? It's a recounting of events you know to have happened.
Fictional storytelling is pretending you're doing that, when you're not, and your audience knows you're not. It's next-door to lying but without the intent to deceive. When you lie, you maintain a pretense that you're telling the truth, but when telling a fictional story that's not it exactly. You pretend to be recounting. In the course of recounting, you pretend to narrate events that happened, as you would real events; you pretend to talk about people and places, as you would talk about people and places when recounting. But you're not doing any of those things, you're pretending to. The pretense sweeps in everything, beginning with the idea that you're in a position to tell the story because you know what happened, when and where and who did it and to whom. You don't. You don't know any of those things, but you pretend you do. (It is not true, for instance, that you're the only person who knows, since you're the storyteller; you don't know things you're making up.) You might even pretend you translated the story you're telling from an old manuscript bound in red leather. But that's not true either.
I think that does still leave 'fictional character' as someone you pretended to be talking about but weren't really it's just that we want to read that holistically. It's the whole story that carries the pretense of being a recounting of events, not atomistically a matter of an entity in the story not being real. If I thought it would fly, I'd just say that fictional storytelling is pretending to tell a story, that it's a flow of speech meant to sound like a story but isn't really. But I doubt anyone will plump for that.
That's the best I can do tonight. Some of the analysis near the beginning of this post might still be okay, but the whole in-world/our-world analysis might be kind of a blind alley. Worth exploring though, and maybe it's salvageable. But it does seem to me now that the right starting point is where I've ended up: fictional storytelling is parasitic on the sort of true narratives we trade in all the time, and the primary pretense is that it is this sort of speech one is engaged in. (Not for nothing, but early novels overwhelmingly presented themselves as diaries or letters to establish this pretense of being a recounting of actual events, a tradition Tolkien keeps to.)
Exceptional substantive and well-structured responses :up:
The turn to fiction and the questions surrounding it and reality...thought-provoking.
So many fascinating strands to follow...perhaps best explored in another thread.
Thanks to all :sparkle:
There are all kinds of story-tellers. Unfortunately, some in powerful positions adversely affecting our lives with their apparently believable lies.
As @Tom Storm said earlier:
In thinking this might help, perspective might be the crucial link. Real from whose perspective?
Fiction as a genre of story (fantasy, sci-fi, or any other) will intend to successfully present fictional realities, wherein fictional sentient beings are real to themselves and to those other fictional sentient beings with which they interact (as will be their activities and behaviors). We understand that these sentient beings are real from their own perspective, as is the world they communally inhabit - but that all these are fictional from our own perspective, in which we presumably know in advance that these are characters which pertain to fictional realities as presented by real sentient beings.
This play on perspective can then make use of fictions within fictions, such as can be found in The Neverending Story. Here, the fictional character who is real from his own perspective immerses himself in a story that is fictional from his own perspective. Complex as this sounds, it is readily understood by the readership of the book at large which has no problem in empathizing with the fictional character who, in the reality that is real relative to his fictional being, reads what is to him a fictional story.
I in part say this with the understanding that in our modern lexicon real and actual are taken to be synonyms.
I also say this as one who maintains that our individual first-person point of view is the central reality, or actuality, from which all other realities, or actualities, become discerned by us. Very much including that reality which we take to be equally applicable to all other sentient beings whose first person point of view is as real, actual, as is our own. The latter then being what we term and conceptualize as non-qualified reality proper.
What I've suggested is that the modal logic might provide a way of answering the specific issues you raised, such as why Gandalf allowed a fictional character to perform such a vital task. And we've agreed, as reiterates, that it is somehow a question of perspective. Modal logic is just way of making such discussions very explicit. I have not suggested that fictional worlds are just possible worlds.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Nor I. It's just that while semantics nor syntax are clearly necessary, they are not sufficient to account for what we do with fiction. Historical fiction presents a case in point, as I indicated earlier. Claudius was emperor, but did not leave us an autobiography. The syntax and semantics here are clear, but do not explain why Grave's books are fiction and not history. And this carries back to my original point of disagreement, that logic by itself (whether classes are empty or not) is insufficient to explain the distinction between fiction and nonfiction, and hence the distinction between real and... whatever. The pretending is about Claudius. I don't agree with your saying otherwise.
There are some interesting lines we could take from Tree and Leaf, which I haven't read since early adulthood, but which was somewhat influential at the time. The heart of Tolkien's writing is that, as he writes in the preface to Rings, the tale grows in the telling. The tree has many branches, so we might wonder if there were Istari in the second age; Tolkien says no, but Amazon apparently says yes. Different branches? Does Tolkien have precedence? To say so seems to go against the tale growing in the telling. All this by way of showing that authorship does not perhaps quite grant the authority you claim. Isn't there stuff in more recent post modern writings about the text becoming free of the author on publication? The authority of author's meaning isn't what it was.
Anyway, we are beginning I think to talk across rather than to each other, and I'd like to draw the conversation back to reality, so to speak. I think this conversation shows that the suggestion that what is real and what isn't might be decided by logic, by set theory or predication, is incomplete, that rather there is a need for something to do with what one is doing to be explicated. So I'll return to my original contention, that Quoting Banno and that hence one best explicates talk of what is real by making clear what isn't real, and vice versa. Would you care to comment on this, in the light of our further conversation?
Nice to have a chat here with some depth. Thanks.
Fascinating to consider and I wonder (again) if this deserving exploration of fiction and meaning might best be served up in a separate thread. [*]
Perhaps it's already been done and not considered of philosophical value or interest. However, as things stand, the subject is lost as a piggyback, parasitical to the OP .
***
The philosophical study of fiction:
Quoting Fiction - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) -
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fiction/
[*]
I understand the difficulties of starting a new thread - and I don't know if it would even be worthwhile.
A cold start can lose the impetus, the enthusiasm.
I wish there was a better way to follow the different strands. Dry philosophical theory means more, to me, when [s]sauced up[/s] flavoured by TPF participants - as has been done here.
Thanks again.
Reality includes what you think of as possible.
Quoting Banno
I wasn't claiming to explain fiction according to some theory of quotation. I was alleging that your reasoning about fiction and nonfiction is spoilt by your not bothering to distinguish use and mention, nor to follow the usual guidance of quote marks for that purpose.
I suspect that in this case you failed to see I was using quote marks to clarify reference to -F-r-o-d-o- tokens, and then to talk about the supposed referent of such tokens. Not caring for the niceties of use and mention, you might well have taken my -"-F-r-o-d-o-"- tokens to refer to one or more -"-F-r-o-d-o-"- tokens, and then supposed that I was talking about the referent of these: i.e. -F-r-o-d-o- tokens. Had that been an appropriate reading, I would indeed have been talking about the mechanics of quotation. But I was using quotation, to attempt clarity (god help me). Not mentioning it.
Quoting Banno
This supports the foregoing diagnosis. You seem to hope that Davidson achieved or intended a landmark dismissal of all pedantry concerning use and mention. To say nothing of distributing quote marks in pairs.
It was an interesting paper, even though off-topic here, as explained above. But I don't see how his own proposed treatment of
reveals it as anything more problematic than an indirect quotation containing a direct one.
Quoting Banno
See above.
How?
Set your criticism out.
I did.
Quoting bongo fury
I always do.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/search?Search=Banno+use+mention&expand=yes&child=&forums=&or=Relevance&discenc=&mem=&tag=&pg=1&date=All&Checkboxes%5B%5D=titles&Checkboxes%5B%5D=WithReplies&or=Relevance&user=bongo+fury&disc=&Checkboxes%5B%5D=child
Ok.