A RealistSeptember 13, 2023 at 15:036100 views175 comments
And how can you know that for real?
pun intended....
Comments (175)
Vera MontSeptember 13, 2023 at 15:33#8372520 likes
If a can of peaches falls on your foot and breaks a couple of toes, you can be pretty sure both the foot and the can are real. How you know is from direct physical sensation. That doesn't prove the peaches inside the can are real, and you won't find out for some time: you'll probably be sitting an emergency waiting room instead of eating your canned peaches.
There is a tiny country in Europe, sandwiched between the border of Andorra and France, which has stringent labeling laws for canned goods. They believe it a crime to equate the material identity of fresh fruit with processed fruit. Canned peaches are not real peaches in this country. This also extends to deceased humans. No dead body shall bear any resemblance in memory to its former person and that is why it is perfectly fine to eat and can the dead.
You'll find the canned smeaches right next to corned schmeef, and though these may have been derived from peaches and people, they are not real peaches and people.
So I'm guessing what is real, depends on your criteria of what is real as it might concern the borders of identities.
PhilosophimSeptember 13, 2023 at 18:33#8372900 likes
What is real is "What is". How do we know what is real? That is the question epistemology has been trying to answer for centuries.
Angelo CannataSeptember 13, 2023 at 21:04#8373230 likes
You cannot know what is real from a philosophical perspective, because the words used in the philosophical question "What is real?" were born in an absolutely non philosophical context. Think of the primitive humans: for them real and being was instinctively related to practical everyday experiences completely missing any precision, any exactness that we expect in philosophy. Then philosophers came and they pretended to force these words and concepts to get exactness and precision. They didn't realize that, in doing this operation, any criterion, any concept, any mental structure they used were already affected by the same lack of precision. It is like wanting to build a solid house by using milk as a material, water as tools, air as mental criterions: I mean, a lot of extremely fluid materials and tools.
This is what real and being are: extremely fluid, slippery, flexible concepts, and now you, like a lot of philosophers, want to establish something solid by asking "what is real?". In this sense I think the first two answers you got are meaningful in my interpretation, because they have tried to bend your question towards some evidence of the fluidity, the playfulness of our human discussions. Touch your body: can you feel the softness of your flesh? We know from science that even diamonds are not absolutely solid.
180 ProofSeptember 13, 2023 at 21:28#8373270 likes
Reply to A Realist "What is real?" My guess Horizons. Ineluctable relations (i.e. whatever is hazardous to ignore ... that which is the case whether or not we know (or believe) it to be the case ... mind/subject-POV/language/gauge-invariant referents). Contingent facts. The whole of existence....
Vera MontSeptember 13, 2023 at 21:41#8373350 likes
Austin, especially in Other Minds, addresses "real".
Consider the question: 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.
Austin:The wile of the metaphysician consists in asking 'Is it a real table?' (a kind of object which has no obvious way of being phoney) and not specifying or limiting what may be wrong with it, so that I feel at a loss 'how to prove' it is a real one.' It is the use of the word 'real' in this manner that leads us on to the supposition that 'real' has a single meaning ('the real world' 'material objects'), and that a highly profound and puzzling one. Instead, we should insist always on specifying with what 'real' is being contrasted - not what I shall have to show it is, in order to show it is 'real': and then usually we shall find some specific, less fatal, word, appropriate to the particular case, to substitute for 'real'
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.
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.
It's eleven months since I wrote the above. The topic comes around every few months. It's a prime candidate for a fixed thread. And for Einstein's apocryphal definition of insanity. @Jamal?
When one asks "What is real?", it implies that he / she feels the situation or object perceived could be unreal or fake.
Usually in this situation, one immediately starts some verification process on the object, or uses his / her intuition and susses out whether it is real or not.
Therefore being real implies that objects or situation has been perceived, and
1. inferred and judged as real via some verification
2. judged via intuition as real, not fake
Of course human sense organs are not perfect, and there is always the possibility of getting wrong, and the same goes with the verification process or techniques.
For the question "What is real?", the answer would be, any object or situation, information or knowledge that had been gone through the verification / intuition process, and found (judged) to be not fake, not unreal.
Doubting the whole external world or existence just because something is not appearing as expected or different from what it really is (arguments from illusion) oversimplification on the situation caused by imperfect human sense organs.
PeterJonesSeptember 21, 2023 at 14:24#8391760 likes
My belief is that no 'thing' is metaphysically real. It may be real as an appearance, but appearances are reducible,
This is Kant's view, or one way of interpreting his calculations. If it were possible to prove the true realty of even one 'thing' then it would be possible to falsify the Perennial philosophy. Fortunately, as Kant shows, it cannot be done.
But in the end it would depend on how we define the words 'real' and ;thing'. . ;.
;
A RealistSeptember 21, 2023 at 15:35#8392020 likes
Reply to Vera Mont Let's see if I can't depend on my senses to gather what is real then I left with my mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM8bTdBs-cw&ab_channel=Metallica
And I might hallucinate, but the hallucination is my reality.
And I might hallucinate, but the hallucination is my reality
I have no experience of what hallucinations are like but though vision might be altered the other senses might be unaffected such as touch and smell which would discredit that sort of reality.
180 ProofSeptember 22, 2023 at 01:20#8393600 likes
In other words, that which is ineluctable, involuntary and/or immanent (encompassing) is real. All else are either (incidental) properties or (cognitive) illusions.
A RealistSeptember 22, 2023 at 10:23#8394240 likes
Reality is what you believe to be real, in short.
A RealistSeptember 22, 2023 at 10:51#8394290 likes
something can be real to me but not real to someone else.
That's what I am getting at.
unenlightenedSeptember 27, 2023 at 07:19#8406940 likes
something can be real to me but not real to someone else.
What everyone else is getting at is that reality is that about which one can be deceived. So in the case where what is real to you is unreal to me, at least one of us is deceived. But if you are suggesting that something can really be real to you and really be unreal to me, then I think you must be confused.
180 ProofSeptember 27, 2023 at 07:36#8406980 likes
Reality does not require "faith" ... insofar as whatever there is constrains encompasses "whatever else" we believe or do not believe "is the case".
CiceronianusSeptember 27, 2023 at 15:09#8407660 likes
We've been pretending to question the reality of what interact with nonchalantly every second of our lives, for millennia. When will this affectation cease? Thanks for the Austin quote. Such a sensible fellow.
Real is anything that is contained by reality. In that case you might ask what is reality? which can be subjective or objective, objective in terms of agreed upon consensus or subjective that which is in your private world such as a certain emotion.
Reality does not require "faith" ... insofar as whatever there is constrains encompasses whatever else we believe or do not believe "is the case".
Unless there is a reciprocal relation between the constraints posed by whatever there is and our way of life, which makes intelligible what we believe or do not believe is the case. Put differently, whatever there is is always produced via interaction within a web of relations contributing an ineradicable element of expectation, or faith.
180 ProofSeptember 27, 2023 at 15:52#8407840 likes
Reply to Joshs You and I are using the word "faith" very differently. Given the context of my exchange with simplyG, Joshs, your response doesn't add anything relevant.
Agreed, and consisting of facts. For example currently Im looking at my curtains, this although a personal experience does not detract from the reality of there being curtains in my room. The issue with personal experience such as the one Im having is that a sceptic would not believe me yet for me theres no leap of faith taking place for me to realise that what Im looking at are curtains, that leap of faith belongs to the sceptic regarding my personal experience.
Alkis PiskasSeptember 27, 2023 at 16:37#8408060 likes
Hint #1: Can you consider something as real if it is real for others but not for you?
Hint #2: Can something be considered as real in general, in an objective, absolute way or sense?
Real is anything that is contained by reality. In that case you might ask what is reality? which can be subjective or objective, objective in terms of agreed upon consensus or subjective that which is in your private world such as a certain emotion.
I get the concept you're trying to communicate, but the wording you're using makes it potentially confusing at best and inaccurate at worst.
Namely, IMO it is more accurate to label the product of our perceptions as "perceptions" than "reality". Our perceptions could be reality itself, it could be our version of "reality" (which would likely not be true reality), OTOH the perceptions collected by a camera are free from human biases and psychological influences. Could video recordings of human events be "reality"? Well, at best they are external recordings of reality.
Would you go as far as saying reality is independent of the observer ? Relying not on sense data but as things are. The reason I mention this is because different creatures have different perceptions when it comes to vision, hearing, smell
In Science, what is Real & Physical & Actual is what is not Ideal or Imaginary or merely Potential. Yet in Philosophy, we don't concern ourselves with real things, but with imaginary ideas about things : i.e. hypotheses & theories & possibilities. Unfortunately, Quantum Science opened a worm-ridden can of rotten peaches, when it realized (pun) that the foundations of Reality are literally & physically Uncertain*1. That's what the Copenhagen interpretation asked sub-atomic scientists to believe, or else "just shut-up and calculate"*2.
That nonlocal-neither-here-nor-there state of affairs directly contradicted a basic principle of Classical Physics, which was based on eliminating ambiguity. Ironically, it's that inherent duality that makes Quantum Theory so interesting for open-minded philosophers, and so annoying for pragmatic scientists and cocksure materialists*3. Ironically, we can never know for sure what's-what on the squishy foundation of reality that we take for granted. That's a quantum fact jack! :smile:
*1. Uncertainty Principle : The term uncertainty principle suggests some grand philosophical idea, like you can never be sure of anything, or there are some things you can never be sure of and sometimes people use it as if this is what is meant. . . . While the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (HUP) does not mean there are some things you can never be sure of, it does imply you can never be sure of everything.
https://theconversation.com/explainer-heisenbergs-uncertainty-principle-7512
Note --- If you know one side of a quantum duality, you cannot know the other. Like a coin-flip, that knowledge is mutually exclusive.
*2. Quantum Ambiguity : The uncertainty of position and momentum is another duality in the behavior of quantum particles, commonly known as entropy in quantum terms, which is known in design as the term ambiguity.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3527927.3535217
Note --- The Copenhagen compromise asked physicists to accept as a fundamental fact of reality, that the substance of the material world is both particular (quantized) and continuous (holistic). It's that inherent ambiguity of Nature that I call the BothAnd Principle. Pragmatic Chemists & Atom Smashers can ignore that "vagueness", But Theoretical Physicists and Philosophers must take the essential Uncertainty of Reality into account. The statistical status of entangled particles is Potential (many possibilities) instead of Actual.
*3. The Philosophy of 'Ambiguity' : Ambiguity is tantamount to uncertainty and vagueness, making many interpretations plausible. This has been explored through various philosophical paintbrushes: logical, analytical, existentialist, postmodernist and contemporary.
https://homework.study.com/explanation/what-are-examples-of-ambiguity-in-philosophy.html
The philosophical "paintbrush" of Scientism -- a murky mixture of Materialism and anti-Idealism -- is based on faith in the rock-solid reality of the world. Hence, it must ignore or deny the ambiguous aspects of Quantum science, which says that rock underfoot is 99% empty space, and the remaining 1% is both wispy particles and wavey energy.
It depends on whether the reality being sought is the objective reality of physical objects or the subjective reality "experienced" within the mind of an organic being.
What other beings could there be apart from organic beings ? We as organic beings can closely probe into the micro/macro structure of most objects and have tools that can see into all sorts of spectrums be it visual or sound etc why would one vision of reality be preferred to another ? Am I correct in thinking that theres not a clear line dividing subjective to objective reality of objects if we have tools that allow us to do so ?
Indeed he was. But many of our fellows here are content to continue in confusion. The most deserving of pity are those who think exactly what they perceive is real, and those who think something is real if they think it so.
Reply to A RealistWhat is real?
Depends.
A> What do you mean by "real"?
B> Do you want an Analytical answer, or a Synthetic solution, or a Technological test, or a Copenhagen compromise?
Austin & Reality philosophy magazine article : Austin's view is that if they use the word 'real', it has the meaning it's found with, and not some special philosophical sense. So, we must pay careful attention to the usage of words if we are to avoid saying things that are confused or silly.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/157/Austin_and_Reality
T.L. Austin has decreed that a philosopher doesn't get to decide the meaning of a word. Instead, he insists that we must deal with words as they are found in the wild, so to speak -- uncontaminated by philosophical sophistry. Since when does he have that authority? I suppose it was when the Linguistic Turn*1 began to transform Philosophy into a passive observer of the world as it seems to be, instead of an active participant in interpreting the world of appearances, that Kant said was a mask over the unknowable ideal ding an sich.
Austin seems to be a proponent of Analytical Philosophy, which was intended to emulate reductive Empirical science, by substituting metaphysical Words for physical Things under the microscope. Are Linguistic analysts fooling themselves that they are doing empirical Science ; when in fact it's just another application of philosophical reasoning, not to Reality but to our Ideas about reality (i.e. words)? What is language but conventionalized Metaphysics?*2A Is the study of language really analyzing reality? Or is it the layering of opinions upon opinions, ideas about ideas, not about reality itself?*2B
So, which authority can we rely on to tell us what philosophers can and cannot do? Austin seems to have a low opinion of his fellow philosophers, comparing them to deceptive magicians, who through sleight-of-word gives the appearance of solidity to pure wind.(Orwell on political propaganda). Is that all philosophy is : fake news & disinformation? Since Austin was himself a professional philosopher, how can you trust anything he says?
Analysis of human languages is indeed a valid approach to philosophical knowledge. But Language is the essence of human Culture, and hardly Real, in the sense of Natural*3. Moreover, conventional Meanings are second or third hand truths that have passed through millions of minds. By contrast, Empirical science aimed to study raw reality directly. But that 17th century aspiration was brought down to Earth by the damper of 20th century Quantum Uncertainty. Which revealed that Reality was not as cut-&-dried as previously assumed. It re-opened reality to interpretation from a variety of perspectives*4.
On TPF, quite a few posters seem to assume that Reductive Analytic Philosophy is the only legitimate form of thinking about ideas*5*6*7. Any other approach is dismissed as "irrational". But Quantum Physics pioneers were forced by the uncertainty & relativity of the foundations of Reality, to turn to Eastern philosophies for a more Holistic Systems approach. Ironically, the Copenhagen compromise re-introduced systematic (holistic) philosophical methods to fill the gaps where reductive Empirical methods no longer worked*8.
So, what kind of evidence are you willing to accept as Real : physical/material Objects, or mathematical/immaterial Fields? *9. Traditional philosophical answers were mostly meta-physical, since physical science was primitive in ancient times. 17th century Classical scientific answers were expressed in deterministic & mechanical imagery, which agreed with common-sense for most people in the Industrial Age. Then 20th century science discovered that the foundations of physics are uncertain (statistical) & non-mechanical (fields). Nevertheless, many 21st century philosophers seem to prefer the familiar "appearances" of Classical models, to the weird, but workable, mysteries of Quantum theories of Reality. Now, in the Information Age, Which world-model would you bet on, to accurately describe Reality? :smile:
*1. The Linguistic Turn : Traditionally, the linguistic turn is taken to also mean the birth of analytic philosophy. One of the results of the linguistic turn was an increasing focus on logic and philosophy of language, and the cleavage between ideal language philosophy and ordinary language philosophy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_turn
*2A. Real is Being, and Language is Seeming : Why didn't Austin's argument deter them? One reason might be that many postwar metaphysicians use the words 'there is" rather than the word 'real' . . . . Here the question becomes : there seem to be tables, but are there any?
https://philosophynow.org/issues/157/Austin_and_Reality
*2B. The ontology of a natural language is thus best characterized as the ontology competent speakers implicitly accept by way of using the language.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-language-ontology/
*3. According to one critique, The linguistic turn aims to discover the truth through the analysis of language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_turn
Note --- To me that aim misses the hard target of objective Truth, and instead hits only various soft subjective opinions about Truth, as embedded in conventional words. That sounds like sieving muddy water to find-out what's solid reality.
Another critic says Linguistic criticism certainly undercuts the spiritual world of ideas; but "language," when divorced from the particularities of different linguistic traditions, can also be "reified" and made into a philosophical fetish. https://science.jrank.org/pages/7827/Linguistic-Turn.html
*4. Interpretations of quantum mechanics : An interpretation of quantum mechanics is an attempt to explain how the mathematical theory of quantum mechanics might correspond to experienced reality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics
*5. Aristotle and Understanding Reality : In his view, colours and shapes are real, as real as trees, desks, people, and other objects that are members of a totality that can be called reality or the universe. However, reality is not exhausted by material objects that can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched, for Aristotle thought that there are also immaterial objects, objects that cannot be known by perception but only by a special cognitive capacity that he called intellect.
https://brill.com/display/book/9789004506077/BP000011.xml?language=en
*6. Synonyms for ANALYTIC: reasonable, logical, valid, coherent, rational, sensible, good, sound; Antonyms of ANALYTIC: irrational, weak, unreasonable https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/analytic
*7. Analytic vs Synthetic Philosophy : So analytic philosophy is concerned with analysis analysis of thought, language, logic, knowledge, mind, etc; whereas continental philosophy is concerned with synthesis synthesis of modernity with history, individuals with society, and speculation with application.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/74/Analytic_versus_Continental_Philosophy
*8. Copenhagen Metaphysics : As the theory of the atom, quantum mechanics is perhaps the most successful theory in the history of science. It enables physicists, chemists, and technicians to calculate and predict the outcome of a vast number of experiments and to create new and advanced technology based on the insight into the behavior of atomic objects. But it is also a theory that challenges our imagination. It seems to violate some fundamental principles of classical physics, principles that eventually have become a part of western common sense since the rise of the modern worldview in the Renaissance. The aim of any metaphysical interpretation of quantum mechanics is to account for these violations.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/
*9. What is metaphysics in relation to language? : Is language a subset of metaphysics, or is metaphysics a subset of language, and if not what is language or metaphysics in relation to the other, and why is it difficult to represent those two in a sort of Venn diagram?
https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/93225/what-is-metaphysics-in-relation-to-language
It seems the word real has many meanings depending on which subset of philosophy you wish to answer it from. The empirical or the speculative metaphysical are equally correct and the issue only arises in under certain dualities for example is light a wave or a particle? The duality of light challenges the notion of reality by having the observer involved whereas in actuality light is both a wave and and a particle by behaving as such.
Ali HoseinSeptember 28, 2023 at 23:19#8412380 likes
In my opinion, everything that is perceived, whether it is a feeling derived from sensations or a thought created by the mind, is considered reality.
In my opinion, everything that is perceived, whether it is a feeling derived from sensations or a thought created by the mind, is considered reality.
Things that cannot be seen are real too. Where I am its night that does not mean the sun does not exist.
How do you account for these things which are not currently perceived not being real ?
Ali HoseinSeptember 28, 2023 at 23:34#8412430 likes
Reality is different from existence, existence precedes reality, but the existence that causes reality to occur is actual existence, not potential. If something exists and its existence is potential, it has not occurred until it is actual, and there is no talk of its reality. The condition of something being real is the occurrence of that thing that makes an impression on us.
wonderer1September 28, 2023 at 23:35#8412450 likes
Reality is different from existence, existence precedes reality, but the existence that causes reality to occur is actual existence, not potential. If something exists and its existence is potential, it has not occurred until it is actual, and there is no talk of its reality. The condition of something being real is the occurrence of that thing that makes an impression on us.
How does existence precede reality instead of say vice versa. Reality precedes existence has an equal claim to being true to what youre claiming.
Why would you make the claim that existence precedes reality Im not quite clear.
180 ProofSeptember 28, 2023 at 23:42#8412500 likes
I think yes. The difference between existence and reality is relative and related to the thing in which the existence occurs. Many things may be in the universe that have potential existence and have not occurred in us as beings. And so for us, please note that "for us" are not real, but the fact that they are not real does not mean that they do not exist.
It is also possible that something is real for us but not real for another being. Like our thoughts. A thought created by our mind is not real for other beings and is real only for us because its existence is actual for us and relative to us but for other being is potential to them and thus they do not understand our thoughts and it is not real for them.
But reality exists independently of my thoughts. Thoughts are very different to reality and sometimes they dont correspond to it as they relate to processes occurring inside minds (which are real)
If youre saying that thoughts are subjective then I have no qualms with that, but reality now thats a different ball game. Now I might have different thoughts than you of what reality consists of but to say that reality and existence are different is slightly misleading. For me theyre the same thing because real things which make up reality is also what existence is, consisting of things that exists ie real objects or even concepts such as numbers.
I find your distinction between reality and existence unnecessary on the above ground.
Ali HoseinSeptember 29, 2023 at 01:55#8412850 likes
Reply to simplyG
i have two question:
Does a thought exist or not?
Does reality exist independent of your thoughts or your perceptions?
Reality exists even when I stop thinking about it and yes thoughts exist otherwise we wouldnt be having this discussion were both engaged in thinking.
Ali HoseinSeptember 29, 2023 at 02:06#8412890 likes
So can we conclude that because thoughts are different from reality and thoughts exist, then existence is different from reality, because thoughts are different from reality?
Ali HoseinSeptember 29, 2023 at 02:10#8412900 likes
Reply to simplyG
What about perceptions? Are reality independent of our perceptions?
It seems the word real has many meanings depending on which subset of philosophy you wish to answer it from. The empirical or the speculative metaphysical are equally correct and the issue only arises in under certain dualities for example is light a wave or a particle? The duality of light challenges the notion of reality by having the observer involved whereas in actuality light is both a wave and and a particle by behaving as such.
Yes. That was the point of my introductory remarks in the post. Since each "subset" is based on different axioms & assumptions, we need to specify which world-model of Reality we are arguing from. Failure to do that leads to fruitless talking-past-each-other on such general topics as Reality. Unfortunately, the tinted lenses of our partial worldviews are often taken to reveal the world as it really is. So, we are surprised when others don't see it as we do.
My personal worldview is intended to unify the Dualism of fundamental physics into a philosophical Monism. It does so by "involving" the observer in the observation. As quantum physicist John A. Wheeler concluded, "this is a participatory universe" and that "everything is information" --- including the observing mind. :smile:
Participatory Universe : Wheeler divided his own life into three parts. The first part he called Everything is Particles. The second part was Everything is Fields. And the third part, which Wheeler considered the bedrock of his physical theory, he called Everything is Information.
https://futurism.com/john-wheelers-participatory-universe
So, what kind of evidence are you willing to accept as Real : physical/material Objects, or mathematical/immaterial Fields? Gnomon
You seem to be confusing evidence with ways of modeling things. Your question doesn't make much sense to me.
OK. What kind of philosophical world model, based on what kind of scientific evidence, are you willing to accept as Real? Is that less confusing --- or more? :smile:
Quantum Physicist John A. Wheeler : Wheeler divided his own life into three parts. The first part he called Everything is Particles. The second part was Everything is Fields. And the third part, which Wheeler considered the bedrock of his physical theory, he called Everything is Information.
https://futurism.com/john-wheelers-participatory-universe
180 ProofSeptember 29, 2023 at 16:16#8414150 likes
Thanks. I suspect that Reply to 180 Proof will applaud your succinct appraisal of my Synthetic assessment of Austin's Linguistic analysis of Philosophy's verbal non-sense about what's real & what's not. :smile:
180 ProofSeptember 29, 2023 at 16:48#8414260 likes
Reply to Gnomon It must be kept in mind that Austin is not doing metaphysics even when he's analyzing the linguistics of purported 'metaphysical statements'. He's like a medical secretary addressing technical jargon used to describe brain surgery. I don't see any problem with answering the OP's question in the clearest terms possible as I/others have tried to do (in this thread and elsewhere).
CiceronianusSeptember 29, 2023 at 18:26#8414550 likes
J. L. Austin, you mean. Not to be confused with John Austin, the esteemed (by me) legal positivist.Quoting Gnomon
has decreed that a philosopher doesn't get to decide the meaning of a word. Instead, he insists that we must deal with words as they are found in the wild, so to speak -- uncontaminated by philosophical sophistry. Since when does he have that authority?
Who has the authority to change the (commonly accepted) meaning of a word to accommodate their speculations and musings? It strikes me that if we're going to accuse philosophers of conceit, that accusation is more properly brought against those who disregard the meaning of a word, creating their own meaning for self-serving purposes.
I suppose it was when the Linguistic Turn*1 began to transform Philosophy into a passive observer of the world as it seems to be, instead of an active participant in interpreting the world of appearances, that Kant said was a mask over the unknowable ideal ding an sich.
Kant, schmant. That old mountebank was the most passive of observers, actually drawing a distinction between us and the world, rendering us incapable of knowing it (not that this makes any difference to us and our interactions with the rest of the world). We and our language are parts of the world. The problems arise when we think of ourselves as apart from it, as you do here:
But Language is the essence of human Culture, and hardly Real, in the sense of Natural*3.
You don't think we're part of nature? Or you think we're not real? Or perhaps you distinguish between humans and their language, one being parts of nature one and the other not? Perhaps you're using words like "nature" and "real" in a peculiar manner, though.
What Austin and others were doing (including Wittgenstein) was pointing out that the misuse of language--the contrived use of it--leads us to make unwarranted conclusions and sends us on expeditions without purpose.
180 ProofSeptember 29, 2023 at 19:08#8414650 likes
Exactly @Gnomon's modus operandi, counselor. And the rest follows ... :smirk:
Perhaps you're using words like "nature" and "real" in a peculiar manner, though.
What Austin and others were doing (including Wittgenstein) was pointing out that the misuse of language_--the contrived use of it--leads us to make unwarranted conclusions and sends us on expeditions without purpose.
:clap: :100:
Count Timothy von IcarusSeptember 29, 2023 at 19:34#8414660 likes
J. L. Austin, you mean. Not to be confused with John Austin, the esteemed (by me) legal positivist.
Thanks for the correction. I had never heard of Austin, before reading the Philosophy Now article. And my comments are based on the article, not from personal familiarity.
It strikes me that if we're going to accuse philosophers of conceit, that accusation is more properly brought against those who disregard the meaning of a word, creating their own meaning for self-serving purposes.
Unfortunately, such a bureaucratic conceit would stifle the most creative philosophers. For example, I tried to read Whitehead's Process and Reality --- in which he conceived of a new school of Process Philosophy --- but found its novel technical terminology hard to follow. That's one reason I provide an extensive glossary & footnotes in my thesis and blog*1.
I'm a free-wheeling amateur, not a stodgy academic philosopher, so -- on an open forum -- I don't feel bound to accept the "authorized or received" meanings of outdated terminology. That unconventional "conceit" (i.e. freedom) drives Reply to 180 Proof up the wall. But he can't have me de-tenured (did I just make-up another word?), so I ignore his smirky*2 smarguments. Since you seem to be more sincere, I'll take your comments under advisement. :smile:
PS___ I know nothing about the Linguistic Turn in modern philosophy, other than "what I read in the papers". But I would assume that one focus would be on discovering mis-use, or unauthorized use, of old conventional*3 terminology. Yet again, such pedantry*4 would tend to suppress creativity of conceits (concepts)*5 in philosophy. I have no formal training in philosophical ideology, which leaves me naive, but also unprejudiced with prevailing dogma.
*1. Why Coin Tech Terms? : In the Enformationism thesis, and in the BothAnd Blog, I have coined a lot of new words (neologisms) as short-cuts to complex or unfamiliar concepts. The practice of using words that can't be found in a dictionary makes reading more of a challenge, and may seem pretentious. But, such coining is common for scientific and philosophical writings that explore uncharted territory off the current maps. One reason for using novel words is to avoid old biases. Well-known words usually have collected a lot of baggage over the years. And some-times, the meaning of common words has evolved into a sense far from the original context & connotation. But the primary purpose for using a special label for a technical definition is so the writer can control its meaning precisely.
http://bothandblog4.enformationism.info/page6.html
*2. Smirky : characterized by or having a smirk, especially so as to seem irritatingly smug or conceited. (his favorite smilicon :smirk: )
*3. Conventional : marked by attention to or adhering strictly to prescribed forms.
*4. Pedantry : excessive concern with minor details and rules
*5. What is a conceit in Latin? : From the Latin term for concept, a poetic conceit is an often unconventional, logically complex, or surprising metaphor whose delights are more intellectual than sensual.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/conceit
But Language is the essence of human Culture, and hardly Real, in the sense of Natural*3. Gnomon
You don't think we're part of nature? Or you think we're not real?
To the contrary, I was distinguishing between Nature and Culture, not Nature and Reality. Nature got along for eons without Culture or Language, until artificial "human nature" -- in the last few ticks of Time -- began dominating natural Nature. Do you think humans are nothing-but Nature? In what sense is Culture or Language Real? Certainly not in the sense of this thread's topic, implying that Real is the opposite of Ideal, which is the exclusive purview of human thought, language & philosophy. :smile:
In Science, what is Real & Physical & Actual is what is not Ideal or Imaginary or merely Potential.
So potential energy is not real? Ideal gasses should never be used to find approximations for pressure and temperature, nor imaginary numbers in calculating quantum states?
But of course, you did not mean that. It would be crass for someone to suggest that we ought dismantle the apparatus of physics because it does not meet your exhortation. Isn't it dreadful how some folk misunderstand what is being said? They ought take much more care to understand the context...
Is the OP question grammatically correct ? "Real" is an adjective which needs a noun after it in English grammar. What is Real X? How can you know that for real X? Is this not what OP should have asked?
X= any abstract or concrete object, e.g. world, book, God ...etc.
Just asking "What is Real" sounds something not right grammatically and contextually. What object is the OP asking as Real?
OK. What kind of philosophical world model, based on what kind of scientific evidence, are you willing to accept as Real? Is that less confusing --- or more?
Well, I find it to be a matter of skill in considering things, to be able to look at things from different perspectives, so I'm apt to apply the sort of modeling that seems most usefully accurate for what I am considering, whether that be particles, or fields, or whatever. It doesn't make much sense to call a model "Real" though. It makes more sense to me to consider the degree to which a model is accurate, and not confuse the model for that which is being modeled
That seems to me to prefigure the answer from Austin.
Sure. Is it not what Austin was also pointing out in his book "Sense and Seinsibilia"?
"there are no criteria to be laid down in general for distinguishing the real from the not real. How this is to be done must depend on what it is with respect to which the problem arises in particular cases. Furthermore,even for particular kinds of things, there may be many different ways in which the distinction may be made." (Austin, p.76).
Without knowing what particular case of "Real" the OP is asking about, we really don't know what he is even asking about. No? :)
Yes. Although my post contrasted Potential with Actual, and Real with Ideal, not Potential Energy with Reality, as you mis-construed it. For example, a AAA battery has a potential voltage of 1.5V, but until it's plugged into a complete circuit, that potential is not realized. Any potential thing or action is not yet real (i.e. not materialized), until actualized*1 in a system. Do you disagree with my list of opposites in this context? If so, in what sense is Potential real?*2.
Our worldviews seem to be different in some ways that lead us to mis-communicate. But worldviews are ideas (opinions) about Reality, not Reality itself. Worldviews are beliefs about Reality, not necessarily the Truth. So, I'm not trying to convert you to my belief system, but merely trying to share ideas that may be controversial. :smile:
*1. Potentiality and actuality Aristotle describes potentiality and actuality, or potency and action, as one of several distinctions between things that exist or do not exist. In a sense, a thing that exists potentially does not exist; but, the potential does exist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentiality_and_actuality
Note --- Do you equate "does not exist" with "not real"? If so, what was wrong with my equation of "potential" with "not yet real"?
*2. Real : actually existing as a {physical} thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed.
___Oxford Dictionary
Note --- I added the bracket to indicate the common-sense definition of "real". But the philosophical definition is more subtle. As indicated in *1 above : "potential does exist", even though it has no physical form.
But of course, you did not mean that. It would be crass for someone to suggest that we ought dismantle the apparatus of physics because it does not meet your exhortation.
Are you accusing me of "dismantling the apparatus of physics"? Or merely of being "crass" enough to mention an alternative (non-mechanical) mechanism? Could you be more specific? Which "apparatus" am I tearing down? Newtonian Mechanics?*3 Actually, it was the pioneers of Quantum Theory who crassly deconstructed Newton's machine with "spooky action at a distance".
Do you think Physics is concerned with ontological Reality?*4 Classical Physics typically took the material substance of Reality for granted. But Quantum Physics undermined that confidence with the Uncertainty Principle and wave/particle duality. Apparently, you mis-interpret my references to Quantum Physics as anti-scientific*5. Some posters seem to think any philosophy prior to the 19th century is anti-science. Even 20th century Quantum Theory is considered part science (technology), and part anti-science (mysticsm). So my emphasis on Quantum philosophy seems to them as undermining the ground of reality.
What "exhortation" are you referring to?*6 Are you accusing me of propagandizing anti-science? If so, show me the quote. Are you equating non-Classical Quantum Physics with Anti-science? QP didn't replace Physics with Metaphysics, but it did re-introduce philosophical reasoning into scientific methods, that had been absent for several centuries*7. :smile:
*3. Newtonian mechanics and quantum mechanics? : In the Newtonian mechanics, particles and waves are two different entities, while in quantum mechanics these two are two sides of the same coin. Quantum mechanics associate wave function with every object. However, it must be noted that these quantum effects are diminished in the real world.
https://homework.study.com/explanation/what-is-the-difference-between-newtonian-mechanics-and-quantum-mechanics.html
Note --- In this quote, "real world" seems refer to the common-sense macro level that our 5 senses report. If so, is the quantum foundation of our world "unreal"?
*4. "We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning." is a quote by German Physicist Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) that can be used in discussing the validity of measurements.
https://www.causeweb.org/cause/resources/library/r2533
Note --- By "nature" Heisenberg was referring to what Kant called "ding an sich" as opposed to "appearances". In the context of this thread, one could equate "Nature" with "Real", and "Super-nature" with un-real, yes? Personally, I am not aware of anything supernatural in this world. But some people equate "Ideal" with "supernatural". Do you?
*5. Quantum mechanicsis the most successful quantitative theory ever produced. Not a single one of the untold thousands of experiments done to test it has ever found the basic principles to be in error, and the agreement can sometimes go to ten significant figures (as in some predictions of quantum electrodynamics).
https://www.astro.umd.edu/~miller/teaching/astr320/lecture21.pdf
Note --- The math of QM is unquestioned. But the meaning continues to spark philosophical debate.
*6. Exhortation : an address or communication emphatically urging someone to do something.
___ Oxford Dictionary
Note --- In this case, to do what?
*7. Philosophical Issues in Quantum Theory : Despite its status as a core part of contemporary physics, there is no consensus among physicists or philosophers of physics on the question of what, if anything, the empirical success of quantum theory is telling us about the physical world. This gives rise to the collection of philosophical issues known as the interpretation of quantum mechanics
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-issues/
wonderer1September 30, 2023 at 17:26#8416880 likes
So in order to defend your scientistic realism, you deny the existence of certain things posited by science. That seems odd.
I'm thinking you are looking at one particular sense of real - the one given in your note 2 - which is fine, provided you do not think that you are thereby giving an account of the whole of reality...
And again, your style is almost unreadable. Most of your comment seems to be in a footnote, so that I'm not at all sure what you would have me address.
Well, I find it to be a matter of skill in considering things, to be able to look at things from different perspectives, so I'm apt to apply the sort of modeling that seems most usefully accurate for what I am considering, whether that be particles, or fields, or whatever. It doesn't make much sense to call a model "Real" though. It makes more sense to me to consider the degree to which a model is accurate, and not confuse the model for that which is being modeled
Sounds good to me. But how do you determine the accuracy of fit for a world model? Since many of the controversies on this forum revolve around the physical foundations of the world (e.g. matter particles vs mathematical fields) , I tend to rely on Quantum Physics as the most appropriate resource.
But some posters seem to prefer the 17th century Classical model of physics*1, probably because it is more fitting to Common Sense. Yet, quantum physics has revealed that common sense is the view of superficial Appearances (per Kant)*2 rather than Ultimate Reality.
Besides, since my skillfully-selected Quantum Model varies, in certain aspects, from the Common Sense model, my interpretations are sometimes dismissed as "Woo", they are literally labelled as "non-sense", because quantum physics explores reality beyond the scope of un-aided human senses. So, the choice of model itself may be unacceptable for some posters. What can you do when your "most accurate" model is rejected by your interlocutors, and they don't acknowledge your analytical "skill"? :smile:
*1. Classical physics : Classical physics is a group of physics theories that predate modern, more complete, or more widely applicable theories.
https://en.wikipedia.org wiki Classical_physics
*2. Kant's Appearances : Kantian appearances are not the objects of ordinary sense perception, for Kant holds that appearances in themselves (things in themselves, in the empirical sense) lack sensory qualities like color, taste, texture, etc.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental-idealism/
Aristotle is probably not the best source, regarding the nature of batteries. Also the subject was potential energy. Voltage is not energy.
You missed the point. I didn't refer to Aristotle as an authority on storage batteries, but as the guy who originally defined the terms "Potential" & "Actual"*1. Of course, Voltage is a measure of Energy, not energy per se. And the measurement is expressed as a ratio between Zero now and some Potential value in the future. A battery contains no Actual Energy, only Potential Energy*2. That's why you can touch both poles and not get shocked. Aristotle's definition, in terms of existence, is pertinent to the OP topic of Reality. :smile:
*1. Actuality and Potentiality in Aristotle's Philosophy : Aristotle described potentiality and actuality as one of several distinctions between things that exist or do not exist.
https://www.iasexpress.net/modules/1-7-actuality-and-potentiality-in-aristotles-philosophy/
*2. Voltageis a measurement of potential electric energy between two points.
https://www.wikihow.com/Measure-Voltage
So in order to defend your scientistic realism, you deny the existence of certain things posited by science. That seems odd. . . . And again, your style is almost unreadable
That does seem odd. Please show me where I denied "the existence of certain things posited by science". Just a short list of instances would be more helpful than a blind blanket denouncement.
Your reference to "scientistic" is also odd, since my views are often radically different from those of the philosophy of Scientism.
Your vague non-specific replies are readable, but simplistic and indeterminate. I'm not sure what you are responding to. I don't know your background, but an education in analytical Linguistic Philosophy might make discussions of holistic Quantum Philosophy "unreadable". More specificity on your part would make communication, not necessarily more readable, but perhaps more meaningful. :smile:
PS___ Speaking of "unreadable", have you ever tried to read Hegel, Heidegger. or Wittgenstein? If you are not interested in the subject matter -- or have a short attention span -- you may not be motivated to read densely worded discourses.
PPS___Most responses on this forum are brief summaries of personal opinions. With no attempt to justify the amateur reasoning with links to opinions of experts on the topic. Most of my posts are condensed summaries of arguments that are more extensively detailed elsewhere, with links. It seems that we are not arguing true or false facts here, but agreeable or disagreeable opinions & worldviews.
Sounds good to me. But how do you determine the accuracy of fit for a world model?
Well that's an ongoing process with too many details to try to cover in a remotely comprehensive way, but considering the results of experimentation plays a large role. An experiment can test the accuracy with which a model represents the way things occur in reality. Differences between experimental results, and results expected based on models, point to aspects of models being wrong or at least simplistic.
For me, observing the difference between experimental results and modelling (whether mental or SPICE) is routine, so admittedly it is easy for me to say, "Make use of experimentation." I don't expect it to convey much to people who don't have experience with doing so to an extent similar to my experience. However, experimentation has played a huge role in humanity's development of more accurate ways of modelling the world.
I tend to rely on Quantum Physics as the most appropriate resource.
QM is just one aspect of a huge scientific picture and it is only so useful. In the case of complex systems, modelling things in terms of QM becomes computationally impossible. So for practical purposes, modelling things in terms of emergent properties (while ideally remaining aware that such modelling is simplistic) is necessary. I recommend you read, or reread, Sean Carroll's The Big Picture.
What can you do when your "most accurate" model is rejected by your interlocutors, and they don't acknowledge your analytical "skill"?
Well, at least in some cases I can demonstrate my skill. I design electronic measurement instruments, some of which are used by NIST and other NMIs in countries around the world to cross check their primary reference standards against each other. On the other hand, it can often be the case that someone else recognizes that I'm looking at something too simplistically and what I can do is recognize the value in questioning my assumptions.
That's why you can touch both poles and not get shocked.
No. The reason you can touch both poles of a 1.5 Volt battery is that 1.5 Volts is too low a voltage to result in a sufficient current flowing through your skin to result in a perception of having been shocked.
You could perform the following experiment. (But don't because it would hurt and possibly kill you.) Connect 100 AAA cells in series, positive terminal to negative terminal. The difference between the voltage at the most positive end and the most negative end of the string of batteries would be ~150 Volts. Now touch the positive end of the string with one hand, and the negative end of the string with the other hand.
And the measurement is expressed as a ratio between Zero now and some Potential value in the future. Gnomon
No it is not. And this is yet another example of your tendency to assert things without knowing what you are talking about.
Apparently, you are expecting technical answers on a philosophical forum. I was addressing a philosophical question, not an electrical engineering question. Does your referenced link explain "what is real?". We are not talking about the same thing here. :smile:
PS___ Is your "skill" as an electrical engineer relevant to the topic of this thread?
I was addressing a philosophical question, not an electrical engineering question.
What you were doing was making false claims. I don't know why you would consider that to be a valuable contribution to a philosophical discussion.
Harry Frankfurt has a different name for what you refer to as "addressing a philosophical question":
It is in this sense that Pascals statement is unconnected to a concern with truth: she is not concerned with the truth-value of what she says. That is why she cannot be regarded as lying; for she does not presume that she knows the truth, and therefore she cannot be deliberately promulgating a proposition that she presumes to be false: Her statement is grounded neither in a belief that it is true nor, as a lie must be, in a belief that it is not true. It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truththis indifference to how things really arethat I regard as of the essence of bullshit.
What you were doing was making false claims. I don't know why you would consider that to be a valuable contribution to a philosophical discussion.
You can falsify scientific claims with counter-evidence. How would you falsify a philosophical analogy : Potential as not-yet-real future event? What made you think I was making a "truth claim"?
Why would you consider an electrical engineering definition "to be valuable to a philosophical discussion"? I don't accuse you of talking BS, but just of irrelevance to the topic of this thread. For example, as a "skillful" expert, how would you define "Potential Voltage" in terms of Quantum Electrodynamics (relativistic quantum field theory)? If you did, how would that relate to the OP question "what is reality"? :smile:
True or false : Philosophy is defined as a person merely offering an opinion on a subject and nothing more? https://quizlet.com/42756218/philosophy-101-final-review-true-or-false-flash-cards/
True-False Questions : Russell argues that philosophy involves controversies on matters of which knowledge is impossible.
https://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/testCT_summer3/node2.html
What you [@Gnomon] were doing was making false claims. I don't know why you would consider that to be a valuable contribution to a philosophical discussion.
Harry Frankfurt has a different name for what you refer to as "addressing a philosophical question":
Please show me where I denied "the existence of certain things posited by science".
You said that potential energy is not real.
Yet physics uses it in it's calculations.
You then bend over backwards to try to explain how it is that physics makes use of something that does not exist.
All of which leads me to think you have gone astray somewhere.
Specific enough?
For my part, I, and I think most physicists, think that potential energy is real, and have no qualms about it existing. Hence it seems that your "In Science, what is Real & Physical & Actual is what is not Ideal or Imaginary or merely Potential" is incorrect.
What everyone else is getting at is that reality is that about which one can be deceived. So in the case where what is real to you is unreal to me, at least one of us is deceived. But if you are suggesting that something can really be real to you and really be unreal to me, then I think you must be confused.
Simply using the word reality cannot determine whether this concept is fake or not, more information is needed, that is, a concept that defines fakeness or not.
In my opinion, this concept can be "truth". Truth is an absolute concept, when we say that something exists, its existence is a truth shared by all of us equally.
Regardless of what a thing is, its existence is a common truth. In my opinion, the word reality refers to what is. When we ask something about reality, we must first answer the question of what is real.
Therefore, the fact of the existence of a thing is enough for it to be fake or not fake, but whether it happens or not and how it happens depends entirely on the entity that perceives that thing. That is, it depends on how it happens in our cognitive system.
The reality of light for us is completely different from the reality of light for bees, but maybe if we could understand the language of bees! He probably acknowledged with us the fact that there is something, even if the reality is different for both of us.
so i'm agree that:
something can be real to me but not real to someone else.
The reality of light for us is completely different from the reality of light for bees, but maybe if we could understand the language of bees! He probably acknowledged with us the fact that there is something, even if the reality is different for both of us.
This may be your reality, but my reality is different. In my reality, bees do not talk to me or tell me about their access to light. They are too busy making honey. But i find it it easier and clearer to say that bees and I experience the same reality differently. We both see the same flowers differently, and eat the same honey differently. I have mine on toast.
Reply to unenlightened
The reality that you perceive as honey is probably completely different from the reality that the bee perceives as its product.
But I can understand that you both acknowledge that there is a truth whose reality is honey for you and what it perceives for the bee.
In fact, I think you perceive the same truth in the form of different realities.
unenlightenedOctober 02, 2023 at 08:56#8420720 likes
Reply to unenlightened
If we assume that you and I are similar creatures (in terms of cognitive structure and the way we know nature), and considering the word honey, which is the word we refer to the product of bees and it contains common meanings such as sweet taste and honey color and ... and considering that the cognitive structure of the bee is different from our cognitive structure based on the common reality that we refer to as the word "science", with a good probability, the above proposition can be expressed from these possibilities.
unenlightenedOctober 02, 2023 at 10:19#8420870 likes
I assume that blind people live in the same reality as me. And bees likewise.
Reply to unenlightened
There is no problem, I said at the beginning of the conversation that the realities can and may be different and they can and may be common, a realities called the color of a tree can have a common meaning among many people, and the word green refers to that. However, some people perceive a different reality from the color of a tree and are called color blind from the point of view of the majority, or some do not perceive any reality from it, like the blind.
My opinion about you and the bee was based on the common reality between humans called "science", but you can not accept this common reality and realize your own reality.
unenlightenedOctober 02, 2023 at 11:24#8420940 likes
Unfortunately, such a bureaucratic conceit would stifle the most creative philosophers. For example, I tried to read Whitehead's Process and Reality --- in which he conceived of a new school of Process Philosophy --- but found its novel technical terminology hard to follow. That's one reason I provide an extensive glossary & footnotes in my thesis and blog*1.
Creating new words is not an issue so much as misusing or redefining words commonly used, thereby promoting confusion and uncertainty. Words such as "real" for example. Or, like Heidegger, manufacturing "the Nothing" which, it appears, is something of a sort, but can only be known if one is "suspended in dread."
Austin in Sense and Sensibilia addressed the case of the pencil in a jar or glass of water. The example was used by some philosophers to support the existence of sense-data and the fact that our senses fail us and cannot be relied upon and, therefore, we can't see what's "real." That's because our senses indicate that the pencil appears "crooked" to us when placed in water--but, behold, it actually doesn't change shape. Austin points our that, first, the pencil doesn't appear "crooked" to us; that we aren't looking at a pencil which suddenly and inexplicably looks crooked, but in fact at a pencil in a glass or water. looking exactly as we expect it to look. We would think and be justified in thinking our senses were deceiving us only if the pencil appeared straight while in a glass of water, in fact. Other traditional examples of our senses deceiving us and preventing us from knowing what is truly the case or what is "real" are the one involving color-blindness and the fact objects appear differently when seen from different locations and perspectives.
These examples are persuasive, though, only if we define what is "real" in an extraordinary and unusual
way. We have to define it as something which cannot be known by humans or experienced by humans. In fact, it must be something which cannot be experienced by any living creature, because living creatures are limited by their characteristics (flies see what flies see; people see what people see; but no creature sees what really is). Presumably, for a believer, God can perceive what's real, but nobody else. And that's a position which has all kinds of implications.
To the contrary, I was distinguishing between Nature and Culture, not Nature and Reality. Nature got along for eons without Culture or Language, until artificial "human nature" -- in the last few ticks of Time -- began dominating natural Nature. Do you think humans are nothing-but Nature? In what sense is Culture or Language Real? Certainly not in the sense of this thread's topic, implying that Real is the opposite of Ideal, which is the exclusive purview of human thought, language & philosophy. :smile:
I would equate Nature with the Universe. We are parts of Nature. Our interactions with the rest of the world (including other humans and animals and objects) are parts of Nature--they take place in the Universe. What we create become parts of the Universe when they're created (just as anthills are parts of Nature/the Universe). It happens our interactions with the rest of the Universe encompass language and culture; they're not separate from the Universe; they take place in it.
As I pointed-out before, you completely misunderstood, and/or deliberately mis-stated, the point I was making*1. First, it was not a scientific assertion, but a philosophical observation about A> the distinction between physical Reality and metaphysical Ideality, B> also between a now state and a not-yet-real future statistical possibility*2. An unactualized Potential state is a mathematical idea without any sensable properties. Can you see, touch, or taste the Potential of an AAA battery. If not, in what sense is a Potential thing a Real thing? Is the unreality of Potential so hard to grasp?
Secondly, you are adding the word "energy" to my statement about "Potential", probably to make it sound obviously erroneous or foolish. What I said was "Potential is not Actual". But after you inserted the word "energy", I still said "yes", because the statistical possibility of energy is not a useful form of energy in the here & now. What can you accomplish with Potential energy without first converting its possibility into Actuality? By analogy, do you think a Potential colony on Mars --- as imagined by Elon Musk --- is a Real colony? Of course not. You're not stupid ; perhaps, just motivated to defend a mindless materialistic worldview.
Apparently this discussion of What's Real and What's Not has touched a nerve. And along with Reply to 180 Proof, you seem to think that Gnomon is a dangerous proponent of un-reality, or some other spooky supernatural stuff. Gnomon does make a distinction between physical Science (about material Things) and meta-physical Philosophy (about non-physical Ideas). But, for what it's worth, I will once again state that I do not believe there's anything super-natural in the Real world. However, I am aware that Mental/Mathematical objects (such as Potential states) are not Real things. Not supernatural though, but merely Ideal : existing only in the form of immaterial Ideas. And yes, mental ideas always have a material substrate : like computer solutions, they are immaterial functions of a material process*3 in a real world. Personally, I don't believe in dis-embodied ghosts. But if you think Ideas -- or functions, or statistics -- are material objects, show me one under a microscope. :smile:
PS___ You can ignore the footnotes if they make the argument too complex for you to follow. :joke:
*1. Quote from previous post :
[i]So potential energy is not real? Banno
Yes. Although my post contrasted Potential with Actual, and Real with Ideal, not Potential Energy with Reality, as you mis-construed it.[/i]
*2. The notion of potential existence may be supposed to apply to two categories of objects. The first one comprises objects which in fact will become real. They may be referred to as potential objects (sensu stricto). The second category consists of quasipotential objects which never will come into existence.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-017-0097-9_7
*3. Ideas as Functions of a Process : Although the word function assumed a different meaning with the rise of set theory and formal logic, the original relation is still used a lot among physicist, engineers or even mathematicians. . . . So it seems that something being a function of something else (or something depending on something else) is a very natural notion for many people.
https://mathoverflow.net/questions/307947/formalizations-of-the-idea-that-something-is-a-function-of-something-else
Note --- A Function is a mathematical relationship, not a material object. It's "real" only in the sense that it is a useful imaginary tool for humans, not due to any material embodiment. Math objects do not exist in material reality, but only as immaterial ratios in the ideality of rational minds.
[re @Gnomon & Herr Heidi] Creating new words is not an issue so much as misusing or redefining words commonly used, thereby promoting confusion and uncertainty.
:100:
I would equate Nature with the Universe. We are parts of Nature. Our interactions with the rest of the world (including other humans and animals and objects) are parts of Nature--they take place in the Universe. What we create become parts of the Universe when they're created (just as anthills are parts of Nature/the Universe). It happens our interactions with the rest of the Universe encompass language and culture; they're not separate from the Universe; they take place in it.
:fire: :up:
We immanentists agree on that much at least i.e. Epicureans & Stoics, Kynics & Spinozists, Nietzscheans & Peircean-Deweyans!
CiceronianusOctober 02, 2023 at 21:24#8422370 likes
Why would you consider an electrical engineering definition "to be valuable to a philosophical discussion"? I don't accuse you of talking BS, but just of irrelevance to the topic of this thread.
It's pretty simple really. You've said stuff, that if taken seriously, could get someone killed. I value fellow TPF members not dying stupidly.
So I do accuse you of BS.
Do you understand the relevance of what I am saying now?
How [to] justify a search for "the real" outside of Nature, beyond the Universe?
Has any thinker ever demonstrated that the whole of reality-nature-universe has a boundary in space and/or time (to provide grounds for assuming there is an "outside, beyond")?
Given that any such search is only possible for us in media res (not from the "outside" or "beyond"), assuming some transcendent "outside, beyond", like searching "up" on a 2D plane, is both nonsense and imaginary (à la jabberwocky ... which, unfortunately, @Gnomon takes literally).
CiceronianusOctober 03, 2023 at 15:16#8423730 likes
Given that any such search is only possible for us in media res (not from the "outside" or "beyond"), assuming some transcendent "outside, beyond", like searching "up" on a 2D plane, is both nonsense and imaginary
Maybe this is included in what you state, but it also presumes that what is beyond the Universe or transcends it is similar enough to what is in it that we're capable of knowing it or making inferences regarding it, in some limited sense. Sometimes it's claimed that perfect versions of what we experience within the Universe are beyond it, or God (who is endowed with characteristics we recognize as existing, if only dimly or in a diminished form, in the Universe). But why should that be the case?
Sometimes it's claimed that perfect versions of what we experience within the Universe are beyond it, or God ...
It seems to me folks are still making fetishes of their fallaciously reified hasty generalizations (à la Feuerbach et al). 'Homo religiosi', no? Man the Idolator (idealizer, ideal/idol-reifier ). "Bewitched by language" (or Meinong's Jungle) no doubt an atavistic cognitive illusion/bias prevalent with "beyonders" of all varieties that's stubbornly immune to philosophical reflection, etc. :zip:
Creating new words is not an issue so much as misusing or redefining words commonly used, thereby promoting confusion and uncertainty.
I'm sorry if my personal philosophical vocabulary has caused you to be "confused" or "uncertain". Yet the problem may be, not the literal meaning of the words, but the polarized belief system (or worldview) associated with certain taboo words*1. It's certainly not my intention to "promote" confusion.
Part of the "issue" though, may be your own rigid Certainty about questions that are inherently Uncertain. I imagine our contentious dialog as similar to that of a conservative "Baptist" and a liberal "Methodist"*2 : they both read from the same Bible, but reach different interpretations. Your problem with my carefully chosen words seems to be more political or religious than philosophical.
You accuse me of being deliberately deceptive. But it's more likely a case of self-deception, and I can't help you with that personal problem. Please don't expect me to change my worldview, or my vocabulary, just because it makes you uncomfortable. I guess we'll just have to go to different "churches", where our words won't be mis-interpreted. :smile:
PS___ But we can still meet in the street or the forum, without getting into fruitless arguments about the "true" meanings of words.
*1. For example, I use the uncommon word "ideality" to indicate the other side of the same coin as "reality". Is the meaning of that term so hard to guess? If it's still opaque to you, I have linked to a large publicly-available Glossary of terms, specifically relevant to my personal worldview*3. So I'm not hiding my intentions behind unfamiliar words. See the more conventional dictionary definition below.
*2. It's a metaphor, so please don't take it literally, or get huffy (look it up). I'll let you decide which symbolic denomination is yours. A science metaphor would be : the common-sense Classical mechanical (actual) Reality versus the philosophical-sense Quantum statistical (potential) Reality. But that complex analogy might be "confusing" for simple minds. And the inherent quantum Uncertainty Principle will leave the best minds in a state of "uncertainty".
*3. Ideality :
[i]*** In Platos theory of Forms, he argues that non-physical forms (or ideas) represent the most accurate or perfect reality. Those Forms are not physical things, but merely definitions or recipes of possible things. What we call Reality consists of a few actualized potentials drawn from a realm of infinite possibilities.
*** Materialists deny the existence of such immaterial ideals, but recent developments in Quantum theory have forced them to accept the concept of virtual particles in a mathematical field, that are not real, but only potential, until their unreal state is "collapsed" into reality by a measurement or observation. To measure is to extract meaning into a mind. [Measure, from L. Mensura, to know; from mens-, mind]
*** Some modern idealists find that scenario to be intriguingly similar to Platos notion that ideal Forms can be realized, i.e. meaning extracted, by knowing minds. For the purposes of this blog, Ideality refers to an infinite pool of potential (equivalent to a quantum field), of which physical Reality is a small part. . . . .[/i] https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
*#. Ideality :
[i]a> the state or quality of being ideal.
b> the quality of expressing or being characterized by ideals.
c> an ideal or idealized thing.[/i]
___Oxford dictionary
d> the state or quality of that which is not materially real, but a human concept or experience. ___Gnomon
*#. The "one word one meaning fallacy" suggests that: People often mistakenly believe that a word can have only one correct meaning. Which of the following best explains why Hayakawa believes that a word never has exactly the same meaning twice: because the context surrounding the word is never twice the same.
*#. Dave Mason's song : We Just Disagree
[i]So let's leave it alone 'cause we can't see eye to eye
There ain't no good guy, there ain't no bad guy
There's only you and me and we just disagree[/i]
I'm sorry if my personal philosophical vocabulary has caused you to be "confused" or "uncertain". Yet the problem may be, not the literal meaning of the words, but the polarized belief system (or worldview) associated with certain taboo words*1. It's certainly not my intention to "promote" confusion.
I haven't been referring to you, but to what I believe is the goal of Analytic and OL philosophers like Austin and others--Gilbert Ryle, for example--and the motivation behind their work. And I certainly don't think you're trying to deceive.
Let me try to explain my views regarding metaphysics. I'm not necessarily adverse to it, and have a respect for what has been called the "naturalistic metaphysics" of Dewey and other Pragmatists. But I think that there are limits to what philosophy and philosophers can achieve. There are certain matters which cannot be explained but must be shown, or felt, or evoked, or experienced.
Artists are good at evoking and showing, and in making us feel, through painting, or poetry, or music. Philosophers, in my opinion, are very, very bad at doing so. They become bewildered by our language to paraphrase Wittgenstein, and problems result.
For example, I'm a lapsed Christian of the Catholic variety. The reasons I left Holy Mother Church are many, but in part I did so because felt its doctrines to be inadequate reflections of the divine and contrary to our nature. That's difficult to explain in words, but I found it expressed wonderfully in art, specifically in the poem Sunday Morning written by Wallace Stevens.
I think this may have been the view of Carnap as expressed in the quote from him I noted earlier in this thread. He said that metaphysicians are like musicians without musical ability. They seek to achieve what art can achieve, if anything can, but fail because they're terrible artists.
We immanentists agree on that much at least i.e. Epicureans & Stoics, Kynics & Spinozists, Nietzscheans & Peircean-Deweyans!
I had never heard that term before. Sounds similar to Panpsychism or Pantheism or Pandeism. As I had suspected, despite our differences, it seems that we may have something in common : reliance on Reason instead of Revelation for understanding the world, and our place in it. I sometimes use the term PanEnDeism to characterize my non-religious philosophical worldview --- from the perspective of uncensored Reasoning, that can imagine a view of the world from outside of space-time. That reflective perspective allows us to infer that the Causal Power behind the Big Bang existed prior to the bang, and is now immanent in the world we know, as the many & various forms of essential Information or EnFormAction.
As noted, I am willing to allow un-aided, but not transcendent, human Reason to speculate beyond the sensory boundaries of physical space-time reality. Quite a few respectable scientists have made detailed conjectures about the unknowable Source of the power that materialized in the hypothetical Big Bang. But most seem to take Cosmic Energy & Evolutionary Laws for granted. Though some may even interpret that Source as a God of some kind, which is now manifested in the reality of our human experience. Others, less imaginative, transcend the physical evidence, to conclude that the Before (e.g. Multiverse) was merely more of the same forever & ever, amen. Serial immanence? :smile:
Immanentism : A philosophical position maintaining that human experience is the only ultimate source of verification. Absolute immanentism insists upon the self-sufficiency of man as the measure of all reality and defends its doctrine on the grounds that any supposed transcendence of reason would be, by definition, "beyond reason" and therefore beyond the scope of discourse or rational penetration.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/immanentism
The meaning of IMMANENTISM is any of several theories according to which God or an abstract mind or spirit pervades the world.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/immanentism
Note --- My personal abstract power of causation is called EnFormAction. It works like physical Energy, serially transforming from invisible Causation into tangible Matter, and back again, in accordance with the rules of Evolution, to create Darwin's "forms most beautiful" from formless Potential.
To jar your memory, an excerpt from a reply to you, Gnomon, on an old thread "What is Metaphysics? Yet again" ... Quoting 180 Proof
Anyway, you're familiar with negative theology, aren't you? Well, my negative ontology(aka "immanentism") is more or less the same but applied to reality (in general) rather than just to g/G (in particular).
Simply put, an immanentist rejects 'transcendent ideas / values / entities' as rationally unwarranted (i.e. wholly subjective). Thus my short list of notable philosophers ... Quoting 180 Proof
Given that any such search is only possible for us in media res (not from the "outside" or "beyond"), assuming some transcendent "outside, beyond", like searching "up" on a 2D plane, is both nonsense and imaginary 180 Proof
Maybe this is included in what you state, but it also presumes that what is beyond the Universe or transcends it is similar enough to what is in it that we're capable of knowing it or making inferences regarding it, in some limited sense. Sometimes it's claimed that perfect versions of what we experience within the Universe are beyond it, or God (who is endowed with characteristics we recognize as existing, if only dimly or in a diminished form, in the Universe). But why should that be the case?
As usual, Reply to 180 Proof interprets "outside, beyond, and transcendent" in a physical sense, while I use those terms for their metaphysical meaning. His Immanentist worldview seems to deny the possibility of Meta-Physics. The American Heritage Dictionary defines Metaphysics as "the branch of philosophy that systematically investigates the nature of first principles and problems of ultimate reality". One example of a First Principle is "an axiom*1 that cannot be deduced from any other within that system". In other words, it's an imaginary view (an inference, not an observation) of the system from the outside (not immanent, but extrinsic). Ultimate Reality is a view from the outside, not in a literal sense, as 180 alleges, but from an imaginary perspective, as philosophers do routinely. Presumably, Immanentism would not include the human talent for looking at the world from a vantage that exists only in a mind.
In philosophical Cosmology, the system of interest is the universe as a whole -- as seen from the outside -- including such immaterial elements as Minds, Ideas, Theories, Symbols, etc -- that are excluded from the Immanentist world. Such non-physical things are meta-physical, in the sense that they transcend the physical boundaries of material objects, and of proximate reality --- which Immanentism believes to be the only reality. Which is OK for scientists probing material phenomena, However, philosophers are focused on immaterial noumena : res cogitans of internal Ideality, not res extensa of external Reality. 180 may interpret "transcendence" in the religious sense of a super-natural realm, but philosophers use the term in the sense you noted : "we're capable of knowing it or making inferences regarding it". Inferences are not observations with the physical eyes, but logical computations by means of the mind's eye, which is in meta res : as you put it, "what is beyond the {physical} Universe or transcends it". {my brackets}
180 uses the analogy of a 2D plane to illustrate his Flatland worldview, which ignores the 3D & 4D aspects of reality. For example, cosmologists don't limit themselves to a view of the world from the inside, but they go beyond the limits of proximate space-time to imagine an ultimate pre-time Multiverse, or hypothetical Many Worlds, that lie beyond (transcending) the world of physical experience, and of empirical evidence. Such ultimate worlds are not Real, but Ideal. Ironically, those imaginary models are not "perfect versions", but merely mundane replicas of our proximate imperfect reality. :smile:
*1. Axiom : in logic, an indemonstrable first principle, rule, or maxim, that has found general acceptance or is thought worthy of common acceptance whether by virtue of a claim to intrinsic merit or on the basis of an appeal to self-evidence.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/axiom
Note --- Self-evident concepts are imaginary mental phenomena, not "demonstrable" or empirical physical observations. They are useful for abstract reasoning, but have no material substance.
As usual, ?180 Proof interprets "outside, beyond, and transcendent" in a physical sense
:roll: Strawman unless you can cite where I have actually done so.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines Metaphysics ...
:rofl:
Ultimate Reality is a view from the outside, not in a literal sense, as 180 alleges, but from an imaginary perspective, as [s]philosophers[/s] do routinely.
In other words, the alleged (incoherent) "god's-eye view from nowhere" woo-of-the-gaps. :sparkle:
CiceronianusOctober 04, 2023 at 20:35#8428030 likes
In philosophical Cosmology, the system of interest is the universe as a whole -- as seen from the outside -- including such immaterial elements as Minds, Ideas, Theories, Symbols, etc -- that are excluded from the Immanentist world. Such non-physical things are meta-physical, in the sense that they transcend the physical boundaries of material objects, and of proximate reality --- which Immanentism believes to be the only reality.
Sorry, but nobody sees the Universe from outside it. Someone may imagine something "beyond it", or speculate regarding something "beyond it" but that, of course, doesn't indicate there is any such thing. Thinking is something we do. It takes place in the Universe because we're there. It doesn't take place outside the Universe, because we're not outside of it. We think by virtue of our interaction with the rest of the Universe; thinking is something we do as active living organisms which are part of an environment.
Your reference to "non-physical things" which "transcend the physical boundaries of material objects" suggests you treat mind, theories, symbols or ideas as equivalent to "things," immaterial but nonetheless existing, like objects, and therefore existing somewhere; but somewhere else (outside the Universe). That's one of the peculiarities of philosophical positions that Analytic and OL philosophy has tried to address (e.g. Gilbert Ryle regarding "mind", addressing Cartesian dualism ).
As usual, ?180 Proof interprets "outside, beyond, and transcendent" in a physical sense Gnomon
:roll: Strawman unless you can cite where I have actually done so.
I hereby cite all of your replies to my posts, which typically assert "strawman" versions of my own arguments, to make them seem like pseudo-science, instead of metaphysical philosophical views. For the record, as a non-scientist, I never make authoritative physical scientific claims, only amateur meta-physical philosophical opinions. I do however, link to the expertise of practicing scientists to support my philosophical points. So, your imputations of pseudoscience are made of imaginary straw. Your "physical interpretations" are invalid for meta-physical concepts.
The proof of my own "interpretation" of your interpretation will be in your inability to deny the assertion of an anti-metaphysical bias. For example, do you deny that for you "transcendent" means "unreal, immaterial, or non-physical", hence pseudoscientific ; even when used in a philosophical context, a la Kant? Was Kant's Transcendental Idealism*1 a scientific claim about material reality, or an observation about how human minds interpret the world?
Do you deny your belief that posts on a philosophy forum require empirical physical evidence of validity? Do you have empirical evidence to support that belief? Like Materialism, your Immanentism is itself a non-empirical metaphysical belief system that lies outside the realm of physical reality. Note that I use "outside" with a meta-physical meaning, not a literal physical sense.
Do you deny that, for you, "outside or beyond" always refers to a super-natural religious realm, as opposed to, for example, a psychological concept -- with no objective material substance -- unless you equate neurons with ideas in your personal imaginary worldview? Do you deny the validity of Psychology as a "soft" science?*2 Does your worldview of Immanentism make allowances for subjective mental noumena with that lie "beyond" the reach of empirical testing? If not, please show me one of your physical ideas. :smile:
*1. Kants Transcendental Idealism : In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant argues that space and time are merely formal features of how we perceive objects, not things in themselves that exist independently of us, or properties or relations among them. Objects in space and time are said to be appearances, and he argues that we know nothing of substance about the things in themselves of which they are appearances. Kant calls this doctrine (or set of doctrines) transcendental idealism,
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental-idealism/
*2. Is Psychology a Science? : An open letter, signed by 124 researchers some specializing in consciousness and others notmade the provocative claim that one of the most widely discussed theories in the field, Integrated Information Theory (IIT), should be consideredpseudoscience. . . . The open letter justified the charge primarily on the grounds that IIT has commitments to panpsychism the idea that consciousness is fundamental and ubiquitous and that the theory as a whole may not be empirically testable. . . . Regarding testability, Quantum mechanics, for example, is highly productive, even though nobody can figure out how to experimentally test its various interpretations." ___ Anil Seth, professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex.
https://nautil.us/the-worth-of-wild-ideas-399097/
Note --- Technically, as a scientific hypothesis, IIT postulates something like Pan-mathematics, instead of traditional Panpsychism. Although some proponents admit to a Panpsychic philosophical interpretation.
*3. Immanentism : Logically, the immanent makes sense in terms of the non-immanent, or of that which transcends or falls outside the immanent; it follows that the very meaning of immanence implies its own limit, i.e., transcendence.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/immanentism
Sorry, but nobody sees the Universe from outside it. . . . . Your reference to "non-physical things" which "transcend the physical boundaries of material objects" suggests you treat mind, theories, symbols or ideas as equivalent to "things," immaterial but nonetheless existing, like objects, and therefore existing somewhere; but somewhere else (outside the Universe).
Yes --- except for the "outside the universe" implication. By "see" I meant "to imagine", not to sense photons in a physical sense. Human minds, and the cultural Meme-sphere*1, are literally inside the universe as a concept, but not in the sub-category of Material stuff. Culture -- including philosophy -- is not a material object, is it? That should go without saying on a philosophy forum. Except for those who imagine that this is a Science forum discussing material objects, instead of mental subjects. Where is the Internet located : in the universe of rocks, or of minds?
The English language is a pragmatic vocabulary, hence matter-based. For philosophical terminology though, we typically turn to Latin & Greek, not because they are any less matter-based, but because their literal meanings have been adapted for scientific & philosophical & metaphorical purposes. So, when I refer to a "thing"*2 on a philosophy forum, it's intended to be interpreted in a meta-physical or metaphorical sense. Yet, some prejudicially equate "metaphysical" with Religious. For Aristotle, Meta-physics was merely a different conceptual category from Physics ; the realm of philosophical interpretations & inferences about the physical world.
The "somewhere else" you interpreted is obviously not a physical location in the great beyond. But merely a conventional cultural notion, not located in the material world but in the common social "realm" of memes*3, not things. The term "sphere" is a metaphor, not to be taken literally, capish?. Some people on this forum seem to take all words in a post for their literal meaning, instead of allowing for the philosophical use of metaphorical language. I am not one of those unimaginative prosaic one-word-one-meaning thinkers. :smile:
*1. Memesphere : meme + sphere the entire human community through which simple or simplified ideas pass quickly, irrespective of the quality or reliability of the idea.
https://www.urbandictionary.com define term=meme
*2. Thing : Derived from the Greek meta ta physika ("after the things of nature"); referring to an idea, doctrine, or posited reality outside of human sense perception. In modern philosophical terminology, metaphysics refers to the studies of what cannot be reached through objective studies of material reality.
https://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/metaph-body.html
*3. Memes : an element of a culture or system of behavior passed from one individual to another by imitation or other nongenetic means.
CiceronianusOctober 05, 2023 at 16:09#8430010 likes
Io capisco, I think, but I also think that using metaphors, while apposite in poetry, isn't useful in philosophy--nor is it necessary. In poetry metaphors may be witty or evocative but in philosophy they merely invite misunderstanding and, worse, reification. Minds, ideas, concepts may not be considered
things literally, but are treated as if they were things. Why resort to metaphor in philosophy?
Culture -- including philosophy -- is not a material object, is it?
No, nor is it a thing. Material objects may be constituents of a culture, though, like works of art or structures, and books. Culture may include dances and religions as well.
Io capisco, I think, but I also think that using metaphors, while apposite in poetry, isn't useful in philosophy--nor is it necessary. In poetry metaphors may be witty or evocative but in philosophy they merely invite misunderstanding and, worse, reification. Minds, ideas, concepts may not be considered
things literally, but are treated as if they were things. Why resort to metaphor in philosophy?
Those with a Physicalist or Materialist worldview tend to think that Philosophy should aspire to the mathematical clarity of Physics. But even Physics, since the advent of Quantum Theory (intrinsically uncertain & statistical), is forced to use metaphors & analogies to describe physical objects --- e.g. Virtual Particles & Mathematical Fields --- that are not knowable via the physical senses. A virtual particle is not a real particle, but only the statistical potential for a future piece of matter. A Quantum Field is not a physical field of grass, but merely the concept of an infinite array of non-local virtual particles. Don't you find the analogies easier to conceive than the ghostly reality?
If your subject is a physical object, a physical description (appearances, properties) would be sufficient. Yet, if the subject is an abstract concept, such as Consciousness or Reality, then a metaphorical analogy may be the only way to define what you are talking about. The ancient ideal of philosophy would be a series of verifiable postulations (premises) with true or false implications (conclusion). However, do you know of any modern philosophical questions that are simple true/false issues? :smile:
On Using Metaphors in Philosophy : Blumenberg holds an extreme position in his advocacy of metaphors. In his opinion, metaphors are fundamental elements of philosophy.
https://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Meth/MethPere.htm
Metaphor in analytic philosophy : In the Anglo-American tradition of analytic philosophy (in particular, in the philosophy of language), metaphor has attracted interest because it does not conform to accepted truth-conditional semantics, the conditions which determine whether or not a statement is true. . . . . in a different, naturalist, approach, some English-speaking philosophers close to cognitive science, such as Lakoff, have made metaphor the central aspect of human rationality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor_in_philosophy
Metaphors in Philosophy and Science : Many philosophers and scientists reach for metaphors, to help their readers get a handle on abstract concepts.
https://www.evidentia.net/evidentia/metaphors-in-philosophy-and-science/
Regarding God, in my opinion, God is beyond reality and objective realities are manifestations of God, God is the truth, and objective realities are manifestations of truth.
In this context, Spinoza's view is significant.
He believed that everything that exists is in God and nothing can exist or be imagined without God. He also believed that God is the internal cause of all things.
Of course, this does not mean that I completely agree with Spinoza's point of view.
Some people think God is real, and some people think God is unreal, and they are all correct?
@unenlightened
Regarding God, in my opinion, God is beyond reality and objective realities are manifestations of God, God is the truth, and objective realities are manifestations of truth.
In this context, Spinoza's view is significant.
He believed that everything that exists is in God and nothing can exist or be imagined without God. He also believed that God is the internal cause of all things.
Of course, this does not mean that I completely agree with Spinoza's point of view.
Are you saying they are all incorrect? You seemed to be saying earlier that everyone has their own reality, and they can be different. Now there seems to be one God and reality is in Him, and if that is the truth as you say, then all the other realities must surely be false.
Are you saying they are all incorrect? You seemed to be saying earlier that everyone has their own reality, and they can be different. Now there seems to be one God and reality is in Him, and if that is the truth as you say, then all the other realities must surely be false.
You consider reality and truth to be the same, while the realities are different as I said before, because they are completely dependent on the perception of the beings of the truth, pay attention to the following explanation that I presented earlier:
Simply using the word reality cannot determine whether this concept is fake or not, more information is needed, that is, a concept that defines fakeness or not.
In my opinion, this concept can be "truth". Truth is an absolute concept, when we say that something exists, its existence is a truth shared by all of us equally.
Regardless of what a thing is, its existence is a common truth. In my opinion, the word reality refers to what is. When we ask something about reality, we must first answer the question of what is real.
Therefore, the fact of the existence of a thing is enough for it to be fake or not fake, but whether it happens or not and how it happens depends entirely on the entity that perceives that thing. That is, it depends on how it happens in our cognitive system.
The reality of light for us is completely different from the reality of light for bees, but maybe if we could understand the language of bees! He probably acknowledged with us the fact that there is something, even if the reality is different for both of us.
In the above statement, I have mentioned that there is a truth that is absolute, but the realities are different based on the recognition of the truth by each entity according to its cognitive structure.
The reality is the manifestation of truth in the cognitive systems of beings, and not the violation of God's uniqueness as truth, and the contradiction between the unique truth and different realities.
In the above statement, I have mentioned that there is a truth that is absolute, but the realities are different based on the recognition of the truth by each entity according to its cognitive structure.
The reality is the manifestation of truth in the cognitive systems of beings, and not the violation of God's uniqueness as truth, and the contradiction between the unique truth and different realities.
But all that's just your reality. How do we know it's the truth?
Perhaps you have not noticed, but you are on a roundabout of positivity here, because you have not made room in your own reality for falsehood.
It is true, these are my realities and not the truth, why? Because neither I, nor you, nor any other material being has access to the truth. But how do we know that there is a truth? From the effect that affects our cognitive system and It causes the emergence of realities. We do not create realities out of nothing, an effect affects our senses and realities emerge through our cognitive apparatus. (Probably, this can be taken from the combination of Leibniz's and Locke's views.)
The truth of this is an effect that originates from effecting.
I don't know what the truth is, but through the realities I can realize the existence of the truth, although I don't know what the nature of the truth is, but I know it exists.
unenlightenedOctober 07, 2023 at 10:48#8434810 likes
Reply to Ali Hosein Well i'm not very interested in your reality, so I'll leave it there, thanks.
Truth is an absolute concept, when we say that something exists, its existence is a truth shared by all of us equally.
Regardless of what a thing is, its existence is a common truth.
You say that something exists. What is the evidence that something exists? For example, have you seen it, touched it, heard it, smelt it? Where was it, on the mountain, hill, in your garden, or in your room? What did it look like? What shape was it? Were you able to communicate with the object that you say that exists? What was the conversation you had with the existence?
The truth is the judgment you make with your mind, when you have evidence for proving your claim is doubtlessly matching with the reality at investigation.
If I read the detail of the evidence or argument that you supply with your claim, and if I judged it DOES make sense, or it is correct, right beyond reasonable doubt, then I will agree that your claim is true. If not, I will judge it false.
Before that, I will regard your claim as not making sense, because I don't understand what it is that you say that exists. I don't know what it is that you say that exists, and why it has to be truth, and why truth is absolute. I am not sure even what you mean by absolute at this stage.
What is the evidence that something exists? For example, have you seen it, touched it, heard it, smelt it? Where was it, on the mountain, hill, in your garden, or in your room? What did it look like? What shape was it? Were you able to communicate with the object that you say that exists? What was the conversation you had with the existence?
If you have paid attention to my talk about realities, you will realize that all realities are not objective or have no precedent outside of our mind. For example, a concept like force, can you tell exactly what force is, what it looks like, where it is. .. or a concept (hypothetical model) like the electron? (I suggest you refer to Leibniz's philosophy for a better understanding).
But if you are looking to find out what is the truth that affects us, I have to say sorry, in my opinion it is not possible, why? Because between you and the truth is a cognitive system consisting of the brain and the senses, which transforms every effect into a reality that you can understand, therefore access to the truth is not possible.
My reality is my mental and physical world accessible to me exclusively. Your reality is your mental and physical world accessible to yourself exclusively. They are totally separate worlds, therefore there is no point talking about reality.
If I talk about my reality bla bla ... then it is just imaginative propositions I am making to you. If you talk about your reality bla bla ... then it is just imaginative propositions you are making to me.
I don't have access to your world. So it is meaningless to talk about the reality which is inaccessible to other beings.
Truth, from my definition, only emerges after our judgement on some proposition, facts or perception. It is not some entity existing in the external physical world. Truth is a concept emerged from judgement. So if X is true, then X must be a content of your judgement in the form of a proposition. So when you say God is truth, it is your proposition. You judge it as true or false. Is God is Truth true or false? The proposition lacks reasons and evidence why God is truth. So you cannot make a judgment yet either true or false. It still stands meaningless.
My friend, there are not only unique realities, some realities are common like "science".
So if we express a concept based on our common realities, they have more comprehensive validity. In my opinion, even the truth and falsity of propositions are based on accepted common realities (logical relations) and are only realities, not truth.
I do not claim that I have presented a completely scientific or philosophical argument, but I have tried to present a convincing argument to myself based on studies taken from accepted facts (by studying the opinions of some reliable scientific and philosophical people) and I presented it So that maybe it will be useful for people who agree with me or friends like you can help me with their criticisms to get a better understanding.
So if we express a concept based on our common realities, they have more comprehensive validity. In my opinion, even the truth and falsity of propositions are based on accepted common realities (logical relations) and are only realities, not truth.
You call them "common realities", and I call them as "language, logic and reasoning".
Thanks for presenting your own argument on the topic. Yes we can keep discussing trying to improve our knowledge and understanding on the world and ourselves by continuous studies, readings and discussions.
How do you know there is "beyond" (especially since it is "beyond" knowing)?
On what grounds do you assume "reality" has a boundary and therefore an exterior?
You mention Spinoza, but he teaches that reality (i.e. substance) is unbounded in time and space (i.e. eternal and infinite, respectively), therefore not transcended. Even if you do not agree with Spinoza, Ali, your notion of "beyond reality" seems as ad hoc and incoherent as 'north of the north pole' or '"up" on 2-d plane'.
Reply to 180 Proof
I have used "beyond" here to mean beyond the limit of cognition and beyond our cognitive apparatus.
The boundary between reality and truth is our cognition and cognitive apparatus, our cognitive apparatus creates an internal reality from an external effect (truth) that affects the senses.
In my opinion, this border between reality and truth has been created by our senses and cognitive system.
About Spinoza, I am not sure that substance is the same as reality, because he believed that only two attributes "thought" and "dimension" can be perceived from the divine attributes. "Attributes" seems to fit my definition of reality better than substance.
The next issue is that the structural limitation of the cognitive system does not mean limited realities, when the external effect is unlimited, the realities derived from it will also be unlimited, so we due to the consider Impact that the external effect has on us We can perceive various realities.
Because neither I, nor you, nor any other material being has access to the truth.
Ah, we cannot have access to the truth. And so it follows that what anyone says must not be the truth, else we woudl have access to the truth. Yet since you said it, we have access to it.
It follows that what you have said is not the truth.
Reply to Banno
No my friend, acknowledging the existence of the truth does not mean knowing what it is, not having access to the truth means not knowing it and not its non-existence.
And I think it is correct that what someone says is not truth, but it is reality.
Reality is different from existence, existence precedes reality, but the existence that causes reality to occur is actual existence, not potential. If something exists and its existence is potential, it has not occurred until it is actual, and there is no talk of its reality. The condition of something being real is the occurrence of that thing that makes an impression on us.
I think yes. The difference between existence and reality is relative and related to the thing in which the existence occurs. Many things may be in the universe that have potential existence and have not occurred in us as beings. And so for us, please note that "for us" are not real, but the fact that they are not real does not mean that they do not exist.
Then you will realize that I differentiate between existence and reality. Existence is necessary and is related to truth and precedes reality.
Why? Because our cognitive system creates reality from an effect that affects us, and reality is a relative thing.
Therefore, if I say that we do not have access to the truth, it means that we do not have access to the "what" of the truth, because there is a border between us and the truth called the cognitive system, and this does not conflict with with "existence" as a truth attribute.
What I mean by "access" is the possibility of asking "what" and "why" about a thing.
What's with this sudden concern of things beyond all possible experience or cognition? You do realize that it's literally beyond experience and cognition, so we can't say anything about it...
Reply to Manuel Yep, and there is a step further: that there is not anything beyond our experience and cognition - that the notion of a thing-in-itself doesn't get off the ground.
But even Kant - whatever you think of him - put strict limits on what could be said about it, which turns out to be extremely little.
And the little he does day does not go beyond all possible experience.
This last claim is fashionable in some mystic circles and whatnot. It's whatever, but, it's been a bit too popular recently, often without taking into account what is being said.
Yes, it's just a question of how you choose to talk about stuff; of grammar. So some folk choose a non-bivalent logic, such that there are propositions about the thing-in-itself that are neither true nor false. I prefer to stick with a bivalent logic, and say that there are no propositions about the thing-in-itself. I take this as discouraging mysticism.
Man, I mean I think some mystical stuff is pretty cool, like Wittgenstein's stuff in the last parts of Tractatus. It's when it becomes New Agey or "Divine Wisdom" that I find it annoying, like, all of a sudden this person has an experience and thinks they're being insightful. :roll:
I happened on this presentation about the 'Register Theory' of Jacques Lacan. In it, there is, I think, a particularly vivid depiction of 'the Real'. The accented voice-over might be a little grating, but I for one learned a lot from it, never having encountered Jacques Lacan previously.
This is your understanding of Spinoza. According to Capleston's history of philosophy, Spinoza considered "thought" and "dimension" as attributes of substance. I have said in previous talks that "thought" is our inner reality, so my definition of reality is more It is similar to Spinoza's definition of the attributes of substance rather than substance itself.
Anyway, I respect your opinion and you are free to disagree with my opinion.
What's with this sudden concern of things beyond all possible experience or cognition? You do realize that it's literally beyond experience and cognition, so we can't say anything about it...
Yes, I try to say that we cannot say anything about it Except that it can be said that there is.
Reply to Ali Hosein One can't "disagree" with another's (your) misconceptions, which are based on demonstrably insufficient study (e.g. Father Copelston's Thomistic misreading of Spinoza :roll:).
That your reality is that I have not benefited from your discussion in the said thread, is only your reality and not mine.
I used your words (even if you don't believe me,but that doesn't mean I completely agree with your words), thank you for them. :flower:
This must be one of the most oxymoronic, incoherent, word combos in common (sophistical) usage. I've no idea what "your reality" like that other bit of pop nonsense "your truth" even means. Pure effin' p0m0 Dada. :zip:
This must be one of most oxymoronic, incoherent, word combos in common (sophistical) usage. I've no idea what "your reality" like that other bit of pop nonsense "your truth" even means.
are you talking about the actually real, the really actual, the really real, the truly real, the really true, the actually true, the truly true? Please clarify clearly or at least clearly clarify.
The term is inherently imprecise and any consensus regarding its meaning would render it useless.
Father Copelston's Thomistic misreading of Spinoza
Copleston is a good example of why we should not rely on secondary texts or comprehensive stories of the history of philosophy.
In my opinion, anyone using Copleston as the primary text for a philosophy course, even for an introductory level course, is guilty of a dereliction of duty.
Comments (175)
You'll find the canned smeaches right next to corned schmeef, and though these may have been derived from peaches and people, they are not real peaches and people.
So I'm guessing what is real, depends on your criteria of what is real as it might concern the borders of identities.
This is what real and being are: extremely fluid, slippery, flexible concepts, and now you, like a lot of philosophers, want to establish something solid by asking "what is real?". In this sense I think the first two answers you got are meaningful in my interpretation, because they have tried to bend your question towards some evidence of the fluidity, the playfulness of our human discussions. Touch your body: can you feel the softness of your flesh? We know from science that even diamonds are not absolutely solid.
A canid is a chien is a koira is dog. Whether each is real or imaginary doesn't depend on labelling laws but on whether they can bite.
Consider the question: 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.
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.
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.
Austin's Paper is here.
It's eleven months since I wrote the above. The topic comes around every few months. It's a prime candidate for a fixed thread. And for Einstein's apocryphal definition of insanity. @Jamal?
Just being a bit silly over here, so don't mind me. But we agree, by your criteria, a dead dog is not a real dog.
Okay. It's a real corpse.
It was remiss of me to set a single criterion. Maybe i can do better with corpses?
When one asks "What is real?", it implies that he / she feels the situation or object perceived could be unreal or fake.
Usually in this situation, one immediately starts some verification process on the object, or uses his / her intuition and susses out whether it is real or not.
Therefore being real implies that objects or situation has been perceived, and
1. inferred and judged as real via some verification
2. judged via intuition as real, not fake
Of course human sense organs are not perfect, and there is always the possibility of getting wrong, and the same goes with the verification process or techniques.
For the question "What is real?", the answer would be, any object or situation, information or knowledge that had been gone through the verification / intuition process, and found (judged) to be not fake, not unreal.
Doubting the whole external world or existence just because something is not appearing as expected or different from what it really is (arguments from illusion) oversimplification on the situation caused by imperfect human sense organs.
My belief is that no 'thing' is metaphysically real. It may be real as an appearance, but appearances are reducible,
This is Kant's view, or one way of interpreting his calculations. If it were possible to prove the true realty of even one 'thing' then it would be possible to falsify the Perennial philosophy. Fortunately, as Kant shows, it cannot be done.
But in the end it would depend on how we define the words 'real' and ;thing'. . ;.
;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM8bTdBs-cw&ab_channel=Metallica
And I might hallucinate, but the hallucination is my reality.
Reality warrants no belief or leap of faith such as a God which does require faith.
Quoting A Realist
I have no experience of what hallucinations are like but though vision might be altered the other senses might be unaffected such as touch and smell which would discredit that sort of reality.
That's what I am getting at.
What everyone else is getting at is that reality is that about which one can be deceived. So in the case where what is real to you is unreal to me, at least one of us is deceived. But if you are suggesting that something can really be real to you and really be unreal to me, then I think you must be confused.
Such as?
Quoting unenlightened
:up:
Really? How do you know?
Some people think God is real, and some people think God is unreal, and they are all correct?
Reality does not require "faith" ... insofar as whatever there is constrains encompasses "whatever else" we believe or do not believe "is the case".
We've been pretending to question the reality of what interact with nonchalantly every second of our lives, for millennia. When will this affectation cease? Thanks for the Austin quote. Such a sensible fellow.
Quoting 180 Proof
Unless there is a reciprocal relation between the constraints posed by whatever there is and our way of life, which makes intelligible what we believe or do not believe is the case. Put differently, whatever there is is always produced via interaction within a web of relations contributing an ineradicable element of expectation, or faith.
Agreed, and consisting of facts. For example currently Im looking at my curtains, this although a personal experience does not detract from the reality of there being curtains in my room. The issue with personal experience such as the one Im having is that a sceptic would not believe me yet for me theres no leap of faith taking place for me to realise that what Im looking at are curtains, that leap of faith belongs to the sceptic regarding my personal experience.
It is real what is real to me.
Quoting A Realist
Because it is real to me. :smile:
Hint #1: Can you consider something as real if it is real for others but not for you?
Hint #2: Can something be considered as real in general, in an objective, absolute way or sense?
As "A Realist", you must know all that. :smile:
I get the concept you're trying to communicate, but the wording you're using makes it potentially confusing at best and inaccurate at worst.
Namely, IMO it is more accurate to label the product of our perceptions as "perceptions" than "reality". Our perceptions could be reality itself, it could be our version of "reality" (which would likely not be true reality), OTOH the perceptions collected by a camera are free from human biases and psychological influences. Could video recordings of human events be "reality"? Well, at best they are external recordings of reality.
Would you go as far as saying reality is independent of the observer ? Relying not on sense data but as things are. The reason I mention this is because different creatures have different perceptions when it comes to vision, hearing, smell
Quoting A Realist
In Science, what is Real & Physical & Actual is what is not Ideal or Imaginary or merely Potential. Yet in Philosophy, we don't concern ourselves with real things, but with imaginary ideas about things : i.e. hypotheses & theories & possibilities. Unfortunately, Quantum Science opened a worm-ridden can of rotten peaches, when it realized (pun) that the foundations of Reality are literally & physically Uncertain*1. That's what the Copenhagen interpretation asked sub-atomic scientists to believe, or else "just shut-up and calculate"*2.
That nonlocal-neither-here-nor-there state of affairs directly contradicted a basic principle of Classical Physics, which was based on eliminating ambiguity. Ironically, it's that inherent duality that makes Quantum Theory so interesting for open-minded philosophers, and so annoying for pragmatic scientists and cocksure materialists*3. Ironically, we can never know for sure what's-what on the squishy foundation of reality that we take for granted. That's a quantum fact jack! :smile:
*1. Uncertainty Principle :
The term uncertainty principle suggests some grand philosophical idea, like you can never be sure of anything, or there are some things you can never be sure of and sometimes people use it as if this is what is meant. . . . While the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (HUP) does not mean there are some things you can never be sure of, it does imply you can never be sure of everything.
https://theconversation.com/explainer-heisenbergs-uncertainty-principle-7512
Note --- If you know one side of a quantum duality, you cannot know the other. Like a coin-flip, that knowledge is mutually exclusive.
*2. Quantum Ambiguity :
The uncertainty of position and momentum is another duality in the behavior of quantum particles, commonly known as entropy in quantum terms, which is known in design as the term ambiguity.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3527927.3535217
Note --- The Copenhagen compromise asked physicists to accept as a fundamental fact of reality, that the substance of the material world is both particular (quantized) and continuous (holistic). It's that inherent ambiguity of Nature that I call the BothAnd Principle. Pragmatic Chemists & Atom Smashers can ignore that "vagueness", But Theoretical Physicists and Philosophers must take the essential Uncertainty of Reality into account. The statistical status of entangled particles is Potential (many possibilities) instead of Actual.
*3. The Philosophy of 'Ambiguity' :
Ambiguity is tantamount to uncertainty and vagueness, making many interpretations plausible. This has been explored through various philosophical paintbrushes: logical, analytical, existentialist, postmodernist and contemporary.
https://homework.study.com/explanation/what-are-examples-of-ambiguity-in-philosophy.html
The philosophical "paintbrush" of Scientism -- a murky mixture of Materialism and anti-Idealism -- is based on faith in the rock-solid reality of the world. Hence, it must ignore or deny the ambiguous aspects of Quantum science, which says that rock underfoot is 99% empty space, and the remaining 1% is both wispy particles and wavey energy.
It depends on whether the reality being sought is the objective reality of physical objects or the subjective reality "experienced" within the mind of an organic being.
What other beings could there be apart from organic beings ? We as organic beings can closely probe into the micro/macro structure of most objects and have tools that can see into all sorts of spectrums be it visual or sound etc why would one vision of reality be preferred to another ? Am I correct in thinking that theres not a clear line dividing subjective to objective reality of objects if we have tools that allow us to do so ?
Indeed he was. But many of our fellows here are content to continue in confusion. The most deserving of pity are those who think exactly what they perceive is real, and those who think something is real if they think it so.
In conflict with Kit Fine. What fun.
I suppose, since we do not possess technology to observe and record emotional responses.
Depends.
A> What do you mean by "real"?
B> Do you want an Analytical answer, or a Synthetic solution, or a Technological test, or a Copenhagen compromise?
Austin & Reality philosophy magazine article :
Austin's view is that if they use the word 'real', it has the meaning it's found with, and not some special philosophical sense. So, we must pay careful attention to the usage of words if we are to avoid saying things that are confused or silly.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/157/Austin_and_Reality
T.L. Austin has decreed that a philosopher doesn't get to decide the meaning of a word. Instead, he insists that we must deal with words as they are found in the wild, so to speak -- uncontaminated by philosophical sophistry. Since when does he have that authority? I suppose it was when the Linguistic Turn*1 began to transform Philosophy into a passive observer of the world as it seems to be, instead of an active participant in interpreting the world of appearances, that Kant said was a mask over the unknowable ideal ding an sich.
Austin seems to be a proponent of Analytical Philosophy, which was intended to emulate reductive Empirical science, by substituting metaphysical Words for physical Things under the microscope. Are Linguistic analysts fooling themselves that they are doing empirical Science ; when in fact it's just another application of philosophical reasoning, not to Reality but to our Ideas about reality (i.e. words)? What is language but conventionalized Metaphysics?*2A Is the study of language really analyzing reality? Or is it the layering of opinions upon opinions, ideas about ideas, not about reality itself?*2B
So, which authority can we rely on to tell us what philosophers can and cannot do? Austin seems to have a low opinion of his fellow philosophers, comparing them to deceptive magicians, who through sleight-of-word gives the appearance of solidity to pure wind.(Orwell on political propaganda). Is that all philosophy is : fake news & disinformation? Since Austin was himself a professional philosopher, how can you trust anything he says?
Analysis of human languages is indeed a valid approach to philosophical knowledge. But Language is the essence of human Culture, and hardly Real, in the sense of Natural*3. Moreover, conventional Meanings are second or third hand truths that have passed through millions of minds. By contrast, Empirical science aimed to study raw reality directly. But that 17th century aspiration was brought down to Earth by the damper of 20th century Quantum Uncertainty. Which revealed that Reality was not as cut-&-dried as previously assumed. It re-opened reality to interpretation from a variety of perspectives*4.
On TPF, quite a few posters seem to assume that Reductive Analytic Philosophy is the only legitimate form of thinking about ideas*5*6*7. Any other approach is dismissed as "irrational". But Quantum Physics pioneers were forced by the uncertainty & relativity of the foundations of Reality, to turn to Eastern philosophies for a more Holistic Systems approach. Ironically, the Copenhagen compromise re-introduced systematic (holistic) philosophical methods to fill the gaps where reductive Empirical methods no longer worked*8.
So, what kind of evidence are you willing to accept as Real : physical/material Objects, or mathematical/immaterial Fields? *9. Traditional philosophical answers were mostly meta-physical, since physical science was primitive in ancient times. 17th century Classical scientific answers were expressed in deterministic & mechanical imagery, which agreed with common-sense for most people in the Industrial Age. Then 20th century science discovered that the foundations of physics are uncertain (statistical) & non-mechanical (fields). Nevertheless, many 21st century philosophers seem to prefer the familiar "appearances" of Classical models, to the weird, but workable, mysteries of Quantum theories of Reality. Now, in the Information Age, Which world-model would you bet on, to accurately describe Reality? :smile:
*1. The Linguistic Turn :
Traditionally, the linguistic turn is taken to also mean the birth of analytic philosophy. One of the results of the linguistic turn was an increasing focus on logic and philosophy of language, and the cleavage between ideal language philosophy and ordinary language philosophy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_turn
*2A. Real is Being, and Language is Seeming :
Why didn't Austin's argument deter them? One reason might be that many postwar metaphysicians use the words 'there is" rather than the word 'real' . . . . Here the question becomes : there seem to be tables, but are there any?
https://philosophynow.org/issues/157/Austin_and_Reality
*2B. The ontology of a natural language is thus best characterized as the ontology competent speakers implicitly accept by way of using the language.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-language-ontology/
*3. According to one critique, The linguistic turn aims to discover the truth through the analysis of language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_turn
Note --- To me that aim misses the hard target of objective Truth, and instead hits only various soft subjective opinions about Truth, as embedded in conventional words. That sounds like sieving muddy water to find-out what's solid reality.
Another critic says Linguistic criticism certainly undercuts the spiritual world of ideas; but "language," when divorced from the particularities of different linguistic traditions, can also be "reified" and made into a philosophical fetish. https://science.jrank.org/pages/7827/Linguistic-Turn.html
*4. Interpretations of quantum mechanics :
An interpretation of quantum mechanics is an attempt to explain how the mathematical theory of quantum mechanics might correspond to experienced reality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics
*5. Aristotle and Understanding Reality :
In his view, colours and shapes are real, as real as trees, desks, people, and other objects that are members of a totality that can be called reality or the universe. However, reality is not exhausted by material objects that can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched, for Aristotle thought that there are also immaterial objects, objects that cannot be known by perception but only by a special cognitive capacity that he called intellect.
https://brill.com/display/book/9789004506077/BP000011.xml?language=en
*6. Synonyms for ANALYTIC: reasonable, logical, valid, coherent, rational, sensible, good, sound; Antonyms of ANALYTIC: irrational, weak, unreasonable https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/analytic
*7. Analytic vs Synthetic Philosophy :
So analytic philosophy is concerned with analysis analysis of thought, language, logic, knowledge, mind, etc; whereas continental philosophy is concerned with synthesis synthesis of modernity with history, individuals with society, and speculation with application.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/74/Analytic_versus_Continental_Philosophy
*8. Copenhagen Metaphysics :
As the theory of the atom, quantum mechanics is perhaps the most successful theory in the history of science. It enables physicists, chemists, and technicians to calculate and predict the outcome of a vast number of experiments and to create new and advanced technology based on the insight into the behavior of atomic objects. But it is also a theory that challenges our imagination. It seems to violate some fundamental principles of classical physics, principles that eventually have become a part of western common sense since the rise of the modern worldview in the Renaissance. The aim of any metaphysical interpretation of quantum mechanics is to account for these violations.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/
*9. What is metaphysics in relation to language? :
Is language a subset of metaphysics, or is metaphysics a subset of language, and if not what is language or metaphysics in relation to the other, and why is it difficult to represent those two in a sort of Venn diagram?
https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/93225/what-is-metaphysics-in-relation-to-language
It seems the word real has many meanings depending on which subset of philosophy you wish to answer it from. The empirical or the speculative metaphysical are equally correct and the issue only arises in under certain dualities for example is light a wave or a particle? The duality of light challenges the notion of reality by having the observer involved whereas in actuality light is both a wave and and a particle by behaving as such.
Things that cannot be seen are real too. Where I am its night that does not mean the sun does not exist.
How do you account for these things which are not currently perceived not being real ?
You seem to be confusing evidence with ways of modeling things. Your question doesn't make much sense to me.
How does existence precede reality instead of say vice versa. Reality precedes existence has an equal claim to being true to what youre claiming.
Why would you make the claim that existence precedes reality Im not quite clear.
- @simplyG
Because the condition of occurrence is existence, if there is nothing, how will it occur?
In that case is there really a difference between reality and existence ? If so what are they ?
@simplyG
I think yes. The difference between existence and reality is relative and related to the thing in which the existence occurs. Many things may be in the universe that have potential existence and have not occurred in us as beings. And so for us, please note that "for us" are not real, but the fact that they are not real does not mean that they do not exist.
It is also possible that something is real for us but not real for another being. Like our thoughts. A thought created by our mind is not real for other beings and is real only for us because its existence is actual for us and relative to us but for other being is potential to them and thus they do not understand our thoughts and it is not real for them.
But reality exists independently of my thoughts. Thoughts are very different to reality and sometimes they dont correspond to it as they relate to processes occurring inside minds (which are real)
If youre saying that thoughts are subjective then I have no qualms with that, but reality now thats a different ball game. Now I might have different thoughts than you of what reality consists of but to say that reality and existence are different is slightly misleading. For me theyre the same thing because real things which make up reality is also what existence is, consisting of things that exists ie real objects or even concepts such as numbers.
I find your distinction between reality and existence unnecessary on the above ground.
i have two question:
Does a thought exist or not?
Does reality exist independent of your thoughts or your perceptions?
Reality exists even when I stop thinking about it and yes thoughts exist otherwise we wouldnt be having this discussion were both engaged in thinking.
@simplyG
So can we conclude that because thoughts are different from reality and thoughts exist, then existence is different from reality, because thoughts are different from reality?
What about perceptions? Are reality independent of our perceptions?
Hmm.
Hallucinations are real.
Fantasies are real.
Copies and forgeries are real.
Appearances are real.
Yes. That was the point of my introductory remarks in the post. Since each "subset" is based on different axioms & assumptions, we need to specify which world-model of Reality we are arguing from. Failure to do that leads to fruitless talking-past-each-other on such general topics as Reality. Unfortunately, the tinted lenses of our partial worldviews are often taken to reveal the world as it really is. So, we are surprised when others don't see it as we do.
My personal worldview is intended to unify the Dualism of fundamental physics into a philosophical Monism. It does so by "involving" the observer in the observation. As quantum physicist John A. Wheeler concluded, "this is a participatory universe" and that "everything is information" --- including the observing mind. :smile:
Participatory Universe :
Wheeler divided his own life into three parts. The first part he called Everything is Particles. The second part was Everything is Fields. And the third part, which Wheeler considered the bedrock of his physical theory, he called Everything is Information.
https://futurism.com/john-wheelers-participatory-universe
OK. What kind of philosophical world model, based on what kind of scientific evidence, are you willing to accept as Real? Is that less confusing --- or more? :smile:
Quantum Physicist John A. Wheeler :
Wheeler divided his own life into three parts. The first part he called Everything is Particles. The second part was Everything is Fields. And the third part, which Wheeler considered the bedrock of his physical theory, he called Everything is Information.
https://futurism.com/john-wheelers-participatory-universe
:smirk:
Thanks. I suspect that will applaud your succinct appraisal of my Synthetic assessment of Austin's Linguistic analysis of Philosophy's verbal non-sense about what's real & what's not. :smile:
J. L. Austin, you mean. Not to be confused with John Austin, the esteemed (by me) legal positivist.Quoting Gnomon
Who has the authority to change the (commonly accepted) meaning of a word to accommodate their speculations and musings? It strikes me that if we're going to accuse philosophers of conceit, that accusation is more properly brought against those who disregard the meaning of a word, creating their own meaning for self-serving purposes.
Quoting Gnomon
Kant, schmant. That old mountebank was the most passive of observers, actually drawing a distinction between us and the world, rendering us incapable of knowing it (not that this makes any difference to us and our interactions with the rest of the world). We and our language are parts of the world. The problems arise when we think of ourselves as apart from it, as you do here:
Quoting Gnomon
You don't think we're part of nature? Or you think we're not real? Or perhaps you distinguish between humans and their language, one being parts of nature one and the other not? Perhaps you're using words like "nature" and "real" in a peculiar manner, though.
What Austin and others were doing (including Wittgenstein) was pointing out that the misuse of language--the contrived use of it--leads us to make unwarranted conclusions and sends us on expeditions without purpose.
Exactly @Gnomon's modus operandi, counselor. And the rest follows ... :smirk:
:clap: :100:
Sure, just ask the guy who was swapping out museum paintings with copies so he could sell them.
https://www.9news.com.au/world/german-museum-worker-sentenced-over-fine-art-forgeries/f3a8ed7c-f05e-4973-8a7b-47d7999acce9
It just wouldn't work with imaginary forgeries would it? Everyone would notice.
Thanks for the correction. I had never heard of Austin, before reading the Philosophy Now article. And my comments are based on the article, not from personal familiarity.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Unfortunately, such a bureaucratic conceit would stifle the most creative philosophers. For example, I tried to read Whitehead's Process and Reality --- in which he conceived of a new school of Process Philosophy --- but found its novel technical terminology hard to follow. That's one reason I provide an extensive glossary & footnotes in my thesis and blog*1.
I'm a free-wheeling amateur, not a stodgy academic philosopher, so -- on an open forum -- I don't feel bound to accept the "authorized or received" meanings of outdated terminology. That unconventional "conceit" (i.e. freedom) drives up the wall. But he can't have me de-tenured (did I just make-up another word?), so I ignore his smirky*2 smarguments. Since you seem to be more sincere, I'll take your comments under advisement. :smile:
PS___ I know nothing about the Linguistic Turn in modern philosophy, other than "what I read in the papers". But I would assume that one focus would be on discovering mis-use, or unauthorized use, of old conventional*3 terminology. Yet again, such pedantry*4 would tend to suppress creativity of conceits (concepts)*5 in philosophy. I have no formal training in philosophical ideology, which leaves me naive, but also unprejudiced with prevailing dogma.
*1. Why Coin Tech Terms? :
In the Enformationism thesis, and in the BothAnd Blog, I have coined a lot of new words (neologisms) as short-cuts to complex or unfamiliar concepts. The practice of using words that can't be found in a dictionary makes reading more of a challenge, and may seem pretentious. But, such coining is common for scientific and philosophical writings that explore uncharted territory off the current maps. One reason for using novel words is to avoid old biases. Well-known words usually have collected a lot of baggage over the years. And some-times, the meaning of common words has evolved into a sense far from the original context & connotation. But the primary purpose for using a special label for a technical definition is so the writer can control its meaning precisely.
http://bothandblog4.enformationism.info/page6.html
*2. Smirky : characterized by or having a smirk, especially so as to seem irritatingly smug or conceited. (his favorite smilicon :smirk: )
*3. Conventional : marked by attention to or adhering strictly to prescribed forms.
*4. Pedantry : excessive concern with minor details and rules
*5. What is a conceit in Latin? :
From the Latin term for concept, a poetic conceit is an often unconventional, logically complex, or surprising metaphor whose delights are more intellectual than sensual.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/conceit
Quoting Ciceronianus
To the contrary, I was distinguishing between Nature and Culture, not Nature and Reality. Nature got along for eons without Culture or Language, until artificial "human nature" -- in the last few ticks of Time -- began dominating natural Nature. Do you think humans are nothing-but Nature? In what sense is Culture or Language Real? Certainly not in the sense of this thread's topic, implying that Real is the opposite of Ideal, which is the exclusive purview of human thought, language & philosophy. :smile:
So potential energy is not real? Ideal gasses should never be used to find approximations for pressure and temperature, nor imaginary numbers in calculating quantum states?
But of course, you did not mean that. It would be crass for someone to suggest that we ought dismantle the apparatus of physics because it does not meet your exhortation. Isn't it dreadful how some folk misunderstand what is being said? They ought take much more care to understand the context...
This T.L Austin sounds a dreadful fellow.
Is the OP question grammatically correct ? "Real" is an adjective which needs a noun after it in English grammar. What is Real X? How can you know that for real X? Is this not what OP should have asked?
X= any abstract or concrete object, e.g. world, book, God ...etc.
Just asking "What is Real" sounds something not right grammatically and contextually. What object is the OP asking as Real?
Well, I find it to be a matter of skill in considering things, to be able to look at things from different perspectives, so I'm apt to apply the sort of modeling that seems most usefully accurate for what I am considering, whether that be particles, or fields, or whatever. It doesn't make much sense to call a model "Real" though. It makes more sense to me to consider the degree to which a model is accurate, and not confuse the model for that which is being modeled
Sure. Is it not what Austin was also pointing out in his book "Sense and Seinsibilia"?
"there are no criteria to be laid down in general for distinguishing the real from the not real. How this is to be done must depend on what it is with respect to which the problem arises in particular cases. Furthermore,even for particular kinds of things, there may be many different ways in which the distinction may be made." (Austin, p.76).
Without knowing what particular case of "Real" the OP is asking about, we really don't know what he is even asking about. No? :)
Yes. Although my post contrasted Potential with Actual, and Real with Ideal, not Potential Energy with Reality, as you mis-construed it. For example, a AAA battery has a potential voltage of 1.5V, but until it's plugged into a complete circuit, that potential is not realized. Any potential thing or action is not yet real (i.e. not materialized), until actualized*1 in a system. Do you disagree with my list of opposites in this context? If so, in what sense is Potential real?*2.
Our worldviews seem to be different in some ways that lead us to mis-communicate. But worldviews are ideas (opinions) about Reality, not Reality itself. Worldviews are beliefs about Reality, not necessarily the Truth. So, I'm not trying to convert you to my belief system, but merely trying to share ideas that may be controversial. :smile:
*1. Potentiality and actuality
Aristotle describes potentiality and actuality, or potency and action, as one of several distinctions between things that exist or do not exist. In a sense, a thing that exists potentially does not exist; but, the potential does exist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentiality_and_actuality
Note --- Do you equate "does not exist" with "not real"? If so, what was wrong with my equation of "potential" with "not yet real"?
*2. Real : actually existing as a {physical} thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed.
___Oxford Dictionary
Note --- I added the bracket to indicate the common-sense definition of "real". But the philosophical definition is more subtle. As indicated in *1 above : "potential does exist", even though it has no physical form.
Quoting Banno
Are you accusing me of "dismantling the apparatus of physics"? Or merely of being "crass" enough to mention an alternative (non-mechanical) mechanism? Could you be more specific? Which "apparatus" am I tearing down? Newtonian Mechanics?*3 Actually, it was the pioneers of Quantum Theory who crassly deconstructed Newton's machine with "spooky action at a distance".
Do you think Physics is concerned with ontological Reality?*4 Classical Physics typically took the material substance of Reality for granted. But Quantum Physics undermined that confidence with the Uncertainty Principle and wave/particle duality. Apparently, you mis-interpret my references to Quantum Physics as anti-scientific*5. Some posters seem to think any philosophy prior to the 19th century is anti-science. Even 20th century Quantum Theory is considered part science (technology), and part anti-science (mysticsm). So my emphasis on Quantum philosophy seems to them as undermining the ground of reality.
What "exhortation" are you referring to?*6 Are you accusing me of propagandizing anti-science? If so, show me the quote. Are you equating non-Classical Quantum Physics with Anti-science? QP didn't replace Physics with Metaphysics, but it did re-introduce philosophical reasoning into scientific methods, that had been absent for several centuries*7. :smile:
*3. Newtonian mechanics and quantum mechanics? :
In the Newtonian mechanics, particles and waves are two different entities, while in quantum mechanics these two are two sides of the same coin. Quantum mechanics associate wave function with every object. However, it must be noted that these quantum effects are diminished in the real world.
https://homework.study.com/explanation/what-is-the-difference-between-newtonian-mechanics-and-quantum-mechanics.html
Note --- In this quote, "real world" seems refer to the common-sense macro level that our 5 senses report. If so, is the quantum foundation of our world "unreal"?
*4. "We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning." is a quote by German Physicist Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) that can be used in discussing the validity of measurements.
https://www.causeweb.org/cause/resources/library/r2533
Note --- By "nature" Heisenberg was referring to what Kant called "ding an sich" as opposed to "appearances". In the context of this thread, one could equate "Nature" with "Real", and "Super-nature" with un-real, yes? Personally, I am not aware of anything supernatural in this world. But some people equate "Ideal" with "supernatural". Do you?
*5. Quantum mechanics is the most successful quantitative theory ever produced. Not a single one of the untold thousands of experiments done to test it has ever found the basic principles to be in error, and the agreement can sometimes go to ten significant figures (as in some predictions of quantum electrodynamics).
https://www.astro.umd.edu/~miller/teaching/astr320/lecture21.pdf
Note --- The math of QM is unquestioned. But the meaning continues to spark philosophical debate.
*6. Exhortation : an address or communication emphatically urging someone to do something.
___ Oxford Dictionary
Note --- In this case, to do what?
*7. Philosophical Issues in Quantum Theory :
Despite its status as a core part of contemporary physics, there is no consensus among physicists or philosophers of physics on the question of what, if anything, the empirical success of quantum theory is telling us about the physical world. This gives rise to the collection of philosophical issues known as the interpretation of quantum mechanics
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-issues/
Bzzzzt!
Aristotle is probably not the best source, regarding the nature of batteries. Also the subject was potential energy. Voltage is not energy.
https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/dccircuits/electrical-energy.html
So in order to defend your scientistic realism, you deny the existence of certain things posited by science. That seems odd.
I'm thinking you are looking at one particular sense of real - the one given in your note 2 - which is fine, provided you do not think that you are thereby giving an account of the whole of reality...
And again, your style is almost unreadable. Most of your comment seems to be in a footnote, so that I'm not at all sure what you would have me address.
Sounds good to me. But how do you determine the accuracy of fit for a world model? Since many of the controversies on this forum revolve around the physical foundations of the world (e.g. matter particles vs mathematical fields) , I tend to rely on Quantum Physics as the most appropriate resource.
But some posters seem to prefer the 17th century Classical model of physics*1, probably because it is more fitting to Common Sense. Yet, quantum physics has revealed that common sense is the view of superficial Appearances (per Kant)*2 rather than Ultimate Reality.
Besides, since my skillfully-selected Quantum Model varies, in certain aspects, from the Common Sense model, my interpretations are sometimes dismissed as "Woo", they are literally labelled as "non-sense", because quantum physics explores reality beyond the scope of un-aided human senses. So, the choice of model itself may be unacceptable for some posters. What can you do when your "most accurate" model is rejected by your interlocutors, and they don't acknowledge your analytical "skill"? :smile:
*1. Classical physics :
Classical physics is a group of physics theories that predate modern, more complete, or more widely applicable theories.
https://en.wikipedia.org wiki Classical_physics
*2. Kant's Appearances :
Kantian appearances are not the objects of ordinary sense perception, for Kant holds that appearances in themselves (things in themselves, in the empirical sense) lack sensory qualities like color, taste, texture, etc.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental-idealism/
You missed the point. I didn't refer to Aristotle as an authority on storage batteries, but as the guy who originally defined the terms "Potential" & "Actual"*1. Of course, Voltage is a measure of Energy, not energy per se. And the measurement is expressed as a ratio between Zero now and some Potential value in the future. A battery contains no Actual Energy, only Potential Energy*2. That's why you can touch both poles and not get shocked. Aristotle's definition, in terms of existence, is pertinent to the OP topic of Reality. :smile:
*1. Actuality and Potentiality in Aristotle's Philosophy :
Aristotle described potentiality and actuality as one of several distinctions between things that exist or do not exist.
https://www.iasexpress.net/modules/1-7-actuality-and-potentiality-in-aristotles-philosophy/
*2. Voltage is a measurement of potential electric energy between two points.
https://www.wikihow.com/Measure-Voltage
That does seem odd. Please show me where I denied "the existence of certain things posited by science". Just a short list of instances would be more helpful than a blind blanket denouncement.
Your reference to "scientistic" is also odd, since my views are often radically different from those of the philosophy of Scientism.
Your vague non-specific replies are readable, but simplistic and indeterminate. I'm not sure what you are responding to. I don't know your background, but an education in analytical Linguistic Philosophy might make discussions of holistic Quantum Philosophy "unreadable". More specificity on your part would make communication, not necessarily more readable, but perhaps more meaningful. :smile:
PS___ Speaking of "unreadable", have you ever tried to read Hegel, Heidegger. or Wittgenstein? If you are not interested in the subject matter -- or have a short attention span -- you may not be motivated to read densely worded discourses.
PPS___Most responses on this forum are brief summaries of personal opinions. With no attempt to justify the amateur reasoning with links to opinions of experts on the topic. Most of my posts are condensed summaries of arguments that are more extensively detailed elsewhere, with links. It seems that we are not arguing true or false facts here, but agreeable or disagreeable opinions & worldviews.
Well that's an ongoing process with too many details to try to cover in a remotely comprehensive way, but considering the results of experimentation plays a large role. An experiment can test the accuracy with which a model represents the way things occur in reality. Differences between experimental results, and results expected based on models, point to aspects of models being wrong or at least simplistic.
For me, observing the difference between experimental results and modelling (whether mental or SPICE) is routine, so admittedly it is easy for me to say, "Make use of experimentation." I don't expect it to convey much to people who don't have experience with doing so to an extent similar to my experience. However, experimentation has played a huge role in humanity's development of more accurate ways of modelling the world.
Quoting Gnomon
QM is just one aspect of a huge scientific picture and it is only so useful. In the case of complex systems, modelling things in terms of QM becomes computationally impossible. So for practical purposes, modelling things in terms of emergent properties (while ideally remaining aware that such modelling is simplistic) is necessary. I recommend you read, or reread, Sean Carroll's The Big Picture.
Quoting Gnomon
Well, at least in some cases I can demonstrate my skill. I design electronic measurement instruments, some of which are used by NIST and other NMIs in countries around the world to cross check their primary reference standards against each other. On the other hand, it can often be the case that someone else recognizes that I'm looking at something too simplistically and what I can do is recognize the value in questioning my assumptions.
No it is not, as the link I provided explains.
Quoting Gnomon
No it is not. And this is yet another example of your tendency to assert things without knowing what you are talking about.
Quoting Gnomon
Potential energy is actual energy.
Quoting Gnomon
No. The reason you can touch both poles of a 1.5 Volt battery is that 1.5 Volts is too low a voltage to result in a sufficient current flowing through your skin to result in a perception of having been shocked.
You could perform the following experiment. (But don't because it would hurt and possibly kill you.) Connect 100 AAA cells in series, positive terminal to negative terminal. The difference between the voltage at the most positive end and the most negative end of the string of batteries would be ~150 Volts. Now touch the positive end of the string with one hand, and the negative end of the string with the other hand.
Apparently, you are expecting technical answers on a philosophical forum. I was addressing a philosophical question, not an electrical engineering question. Does your referenced link explain "what is real?". We are not talking about the same thing here. :smile:
PS___ Is your "skill" as an electrical engineer relevant to the topic of this thread?
What you were doing was making false claims. I don't know why you would consider that to be a valuable contribution to a philosophical discussion.
Harry Frankfurt has a different name for what you refer to as "addressing a philosophical question":
Harry Frankfurt, On Bullshit
You can falsify scientific claims with counter-evidence. How would you falsify a philosophical analogy : Potential as not-yet-real future event? What made you think I was making a "truth claim"?
Why would you consider an electrical engineering definition "to be valuable to a philosophical discussion"? I don't accuse you of talking BS, but just of irrelevance to the topic of this thread. For example, as a "skillful" expert, how would you define "Potential Voltage" in terms of Quantum Electrodynamics (relativistic quantum field theory)? If you did, how would that relate to the OP question "what is reality"? :smile:
True or false : Philosophy is defined as a person merely offering an opinion on a subject and nothing more? https://quizlet.com/42756218/philosophy-101-final-review-true-or-false-flash-cards/
True-False Questions :
Russell argues that philosophy involves controversies on matters of which knowledge is impossible.
https://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/testCT_summer3/node2.html
Quoting wonderer1
:clap: :100: :lol:
You said that potential energy is not real.
Yet physics uses it in it's calculations.
You then bend over backwards to try to explain how it is that physics makes use of something that does not exist.
All of which leads me to think you have gone astray somewhere.
Specific enough?
For my part, I, and I think most physicists, think that potential energy is real, and have no qualms about it existing. Hence it seems that your "In Science, what is Real & Physical & Actual is what is not Ideal or Imaginary or merely Potential" is incorrect.
@unenlightened
Simply using the word reality cannot determine whether this concept is fake or not, more information is needed, that is, a concept that defines fakeness or not.
In my opinion, this concept can be "truth". Truth is an absolute concept, when we say that something exists, its existence is a truth shared by all of us equally.
Regardless of what a thing is, its existence is a common truth. In my opinion, the word reality refers to what is. When we ask something about reality, we must first answer the question of what is real.
Therefore, the fact of the existence of a thing is enough for it to be fake or not fake, but whether it happens or not and how it happens depends entirely on the entity that perceives that thing. That is, it depends on how it happens in our cognitive system.
The reality of light for us is completely different from the reality of light for bees, but maybe if we could understand the language of bees! He probably acknowledged with us the fact that there is something, even if the reality is different for both of us.
so i'm agree that:
@A Realist
This may be your reality, but my reality is different. In my reality, bees do not talk to me or tell me about their access to light. They are too busy making honey. But i find it it easier and clearer to say that bees and I experience the same reality differently. We both see the same flowers differently, and eat the same honey differently. I have mine on toast.
The reality that you perceive as honey is probably completely different from the reality that the bee perceives as its product.
But I can understand that you both acknowledge that there is a truth whose reality is honey for you and what it perceives for the bee.
In fact, I think you perceive the same truth in the form of different realities.
How would you know? You're not even in my reality.
If we assume that you and I are similar creatures (in terms of cognitive structure and the way we know nature), and considering the word honey, which is the word we refer to the product of bees and it contains common meanings such as sweet taste and honey color and ... and considering that the cognitive structure of the bee is different from our cognitive structure based on the common reality that we refer to as the word "science", with a good probability, the above proposition can be expressed from these possibilities.
There is no problem, I said at the beginning of the conversation that the realities can and may be different and they can and may be common, a realities called the color of a tree can have a common meaning among many people, and the word green refers to that. However, some people perceive a different reality from the color of a tree and are called color blind from the point of view of the majority, or some do not perceive any reality from it, like the blind.
My opinion about you and the bee was based on the common reality between humans called "science", but you can not accept this common reality and realize your own reality.
Oh, good.
Is only "There is no problem" good? :lol:
thank you :flower:
Creating new words is not an issue so much as misusing or redefining words commonly used, thereby promoting confusion and uncertainty. Words such as "real" for example. Or, like Heidegger, manufacturing "the Nothing" which, it appears, is something of a sort, but can only be known if one is "suspended in dread."
Austin in Sense and Sensibilia addressed the case of the pencil in a jar or glass of water. The example was used by some philosophers to support the existence of sense-data and the fact that our senses fail us and cannot be relied upon and, therefore, we can't see what's "real." That's because our senses indicate that the pencil appears "crooked" to us when placed in water--but, behold, it actually doesn't change shape. Austin points our that, first, the pencil doesn't appear "crooked" to us; that we aren't looking at a pencil which suddenly and inexplicably looks crooked, but in fact at a pencil in a glass or water. looking exactly as we expect it to look. We would think and be justified in thinking our senses were deceiving us only if the pencil appeared straight while in a glass of water, in fact. Other traditional examples of our senses deceiving us and preventing us from knowing what is truly the case or what is "real" are the one involving color-blindness and the fact objects appear differently when seen from different locations and perspectives.
These examples are persuasive, though, only if we define what is "real" in an extraordinary and unusual
way. We have to define it as something which cannot be known by humans or experienced by humans. In fact, it must be something which cannot be experienced by any living creature, because living creatures are limited by their characteristics (flies see what flies see; people see what people see; but no creature sees what really is). Presumably, for a believer, God can perceive what's real, but nobody else. And that's a position which has all kinds of implications.
Quoting Gnomon
I would equate Nature with the Universe. We are parts of Nature. Our interactions with the rest of the world (including other humans and animals and objects) are parts of Nature--they take place in the Universe. What we create become parts of the Universe when they're created (just as anthills are parts of Nature/the Universe). It happens our interactions with the rest of the Universe encompass language and culture; they're not separate from the Universe; they take place in it.
As I pointed-out before, you completely misunderstood, and/or deliberately mis-stated, the point I was making*1. First, it was not a scientific assertion, but a philosophical observation about A> the distinction between physical Reality and metaphysical Ideality, B> also between a now state and a not-yet-real future statistical possibility*2. An unactualized Potential state is a mathematical idea without any sensable properties. Can you see, touch, or taste the Potential of an AAA battery. If not, in what sense is a Potential thing a Real thing? Is the unreality of Potential so hard to grasp?
Secondly, you are adding the word "energy" to my statement about "Potential", probably to make it sound obviously erroneous or foolish. What I said was "Potential is not Actual". But after you inserted the word "energy", I still said "yes", because the statistical possibility of energy is not a useful form of energy in the here & now. What can you accomplish with Potential energy without first converting its possibility into Actuality? By analogy, do you think a Potential colony on Mars --- as imagined by Elon Musk --- is a Real colony? Of course not. You're not stupid ; perhaps, just motivated to defend a mindless materialistic worldview.
Apparently this discussion of What's Real and What's Not has touched a nerve. And along with , you seem to think that Gnomon is a dangerous proponent of un-reality, or some other spooky supernatural stuff. Gnomon does make a distinction between physical Science (about material Things) and meta-physical Philosophy (about non-physical Ideas). But, for what it's worth, I will once again state that I do not believe there's anything super-natural in the Real world. However, I am aware that Mental/Mathematical objects (such as Potential states) are not Real things. Not supernatural though, but merely Ideal : existing only in the form of immaterial Ideas. And yes, mental ideas always have a material substrate : like computer solutions, they are immaterial functions of a material process*3 in a real world. Personally, I don't believe in dis-embodied ghosts. But if you think Ideas -- or functions, or statistics -- are material objects, show me one under a microscope. :smile:
PS___ You can ignore the footnotes if they make the argument too complex for you to follow. :joke:
*1. Quote from previous post :
[i]So potential energy is not real? Banno
Yes. Although my post contrasted Potential with Actual, and Real with Ideal, not Potential Energy with Reality, as you mis-construed it.[/i]
*2. The notion of potential existence may be supposed to apply to two categories of objects. The first one comprises objects which in fact will become real. They may be referred to as potential objects (sensu stricto). The second category consists of quasipotential objects which never will come into existence.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-017-0097-9_7
*3. Ideas as Functions of a Process :
Although the word function assumed a different meaning with the rise of set theory and formal logic, the original relation is still used a lot among physicist, engineers or even mathematicians. . . . So it seems that something being a function of something else (or something depending on something else) is a very natural notion for many people.
https://mathoverflow.net/questions/307947/formalizations-of-the-idea-that-something-is-a-function-of-something-else
Note --- A Function is a mathematical relationship, not a material object. It's "real" only in the sense that it is a useful imaginary tool for humans, not due to any material embodiment. Math objects do not exist in material reality, but only as immaterial ratios in the ideality of rational minds.
:100:
:fire: :up:
We immanentists agree on that much at least i.e. Epicureans & Stoics, Kynics & Spinozists, Nietzscheans & Peircean-Deweyans!
Yes. And so we should. How justify a search for "the real" outside of Nature, beyond the Universe?
It's pretty simple really. You've said stuff, that if taken seriously, could get someone killed. I value fellow TPF members not dying stupidly.
So I do accuse you of BS.
Do you understand the relevance of what I am saying now?
Has any thinker ever demonstrated that the whole of reality-nature-universe has a boundary in space and/or time (to provide grounds for assuming there is an "outside, beyond")?
Given that any such search is only possible for us in media res (not from the "outside" or "beyond"), assuming some transcendent "outside, beyond", like searching "up" on a 2D plane, is both nonsense and imaginary (à la jabberwocky ... which, unfortunately, @Gnomon takes literally).
Maybe this is included in what you state, but it also presumes that what is beyond the Universe or transcends it is similar enough to what is in it that we're capable of knowing it or making inferences regarding it, in some limited sense. Sometimes it's claimed that perfect versions of what we experience within the Universe are beyond it, or God (who is endowed with characteristics we recognize as existing, if only dimly or in a diminished form, in the Universe). But why should that be the case?
It seems to me folks are still making fetishes of their fallaciously reified hasty generalizations (à la Feuerbach et al). 'Homo religiosi', no? Man the Idolator (idealizer, ideal/idol-reifier ). "Bewitched by language" (or Meinong's Jungle) no doubt an atavistic cognitive illusion/bias prevalent with "beyonders" of all varieties that's stubbornly immune to philosophical reflection, etc. :zip:
I'm sorry if my personal philosophical vocabulary has caused you to be "confused" or "uncertain". Yet the problem may be, not the literal meaning of the words, but the polarized belief system (or worldview) associated with certain taboo words*1. It's certainly not my intention to "promote" confusion.
Part of the "issue" though, may be your own rigid Certainty about questions that are inherently Uncertain. I imagine our contentious dialog as similar to that of a conservative "Baptist" and a liberal "Methodist"*2 : they both read from the same Bible, but reach different interpretations. Your problem with my carefully chosen words seems to be more political or religious than philosophical.
You accuse me of being deliberately deceptive. But it's more likely a case of self-deception, and I can't help you with that personal problem. Please don't expect me to change my worldview, or my vocabulary, just because it makes you uncomfortable. I guess we'll just have to go to different "churches", where our words won't be mis-interpreted. :smile:
PS___ But we can still meet in the street or the forum, without getting into fruitless arguments about the "true" meanings of words.
*1. For example, I use the uncommon word "ideality" to indicate the other side of the same coin as "reality". Is the meaning of that term so hard to guess? If it's still opaque to you, I have linked to a large publicly-available Glossary of terms, specifically relevant to my personal worldview*3. So I'm not hiding my intentions behind unfamiliar words. See the more conventional dictionary definition below.
*2. It's a metaphor, so please don't take it literally, or get huffy (look it up). I'll let you decide which symbolic denomination is yours. A science metaphor would be : the common-sense Classical mechanical (actual) Reality versus the philosophical-sense Quantum statistical (potential) Reality. But that complex analogy might be "confusing" for simple minds. And the inherent quantum Uncertainty Principle will leave the best minds in a state of "uncertainty".
*3. Ideality :
[i]*** In Platos theory of Forms, he argues that non-physical forms (or ideas) represent the most accurate or perfect reality. Those Forms are not physical things, but merely definitions or recipes of possible things. What we call Reality consists of a few actualized potentials drawn from a realm of infinite possibilities.
*** Materialists deny the existence of such immaterial ideals, but recent developments in Quantum theory have forced them to accept the concept of virtual particles in a mathematical field, that are not real, but only potential, until their unreal state is "collapsed" into reality by a measurement or observation. To measure is to extract meaning into a mind. [Measure, from L. Mensura, to know; from mens-, mind]
*** Some modern idealists find that scenario to be intriguingly similar to Platos notion that ideal Forms can be realized, i.e. meaning extracted, by knowing minds. For the purposes of this blog, Ideality refers to an infinite pool of potential (equivalent to a quantum field), of which physical Reality is a small part. . . . .[/i] https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
*#. Ideality :
[i]a> the state or quality of being ideal.
b> the quality of expressing or being characterized by ideals.
c> an ideal or idealized thing.[/i]
___Oxford dictionary
d> the state or quality of that which is not materially real, but a human concept or experience. ___Gnomon
*#. The "one word one meaning fallacy" suggests that: People often mistakenly believe that a word can have only one correct meaning. Which of the following best explains why Hayakawa believes that a word never has exactly the same meaning twice: because the context surrounding the word is never twice the same.
*#. Dave Mason's song : We Just Disagree
[i]So let's leave it alone 'cause we can't see eye to eye
There ain't no good guy, there ain't no bad guy
There's only you and me and we just disagree[/i]
No. I simply changed your mis-interpretation of my views --- not my "claims".
No.
I haven't been referring to you, but to what I believe is the goal of Analytic and OL philosophers like Austin and others--Gilbert Ryle, for example--and the motivation behind their work. And I certainly don't think you're trying to deceive.
Let me try to explain my views regarding metaphysics. I'm not necessarily adverse to it, and have a respect for what has been called the "naturalistic metaphysics" of Dewey and other Pragmatists. But I think that there are limits to what philosophy and philosophers can achieve. There are certain matters which cannot be explained but must be shown, or felt, or evoked, or experienced.
Artists are good at evoking and showing, and in making us feel, through painting, or poetry, or music. Philosophers, in my opinion, are very, very bad at doing so. They become bewildered by our language to paraphrase Wittgenstein, and problems result.
For example, I'm a lapsed Christian of the Catholic variety. The reasons I left Holy Mother Church are many, but in part I did so because felt its doctrines to be inadequate reflections of the divine and contrary to our nature. That's difficult to explain in words, but I found it expressed wonderfully in art, specifically in the poem Sunday Morning written by Wallace Stevens.
I think this may have been the view of Carnap as expressed in the quote from him I noted earlier in this thread. He said that metaphysicians are like musicians without musical ability. They seek to achieve what art can achieve, if anything can, but fail because they're terrible artists.
I had never heard that term before. Sounds similar to Panpsychism or Pantheism or Pandeism. As I had suspected, despite our differences, it seems that we may have something in common : reliance on Reason instead of Revelation for understanding the world, and our place in it. I sometimes use the term PanEnDeism to characterize my non-religious philosophical worldview --- from the perspective of uncensored Reasoning, that can imagine a view of the world from outside of space-time. That reflective perspective allows us to infer that the Causal Power behind the Big Bang existed prior to the bang, and is now immanent in the world we know, as the many & various forms of essential Information or EnFormAction.
As noted, I am willing to allow un-aided, but not transcendent, human Reason to speculate beyond the sensory boundaries of physical space-time reality. Quite a few respectable scientists have made detailed conjectures about the unknowable Source of the power that materialized in the hypothetical Big Bang. But most seem to take Cosmic Energy & Evolutionary Laws for granted. Though some may even interpret that Source as a God of some kind, which is now manifested in the reality of our human experience. Others, less imaginative, transcend the physical evidence, to conclude that the Before (e.g. Multiverse) was merely more of the same forever & ever, amen. Serial immanence? :smile:
Immanentism :
A philosophical position maintaining that human experience is the only ultimate source of verification. Absolute immanentism insists upon the self-sufficiency of man as the measure of all reality and defends its doctrine on the grounds that any supposed transcendence of reason would be, by definition, "beyond reason" and therefore beyond the scope of discourse or rational penetration.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/immanentism
The meaning of IMMANENTISM is any of several theories according to which God or an abstract mind or spirit pervades the world.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/immanentism
Note --- My personal abstract power of causation is called EnFormAction. It works like physical Energy, serially transforming from invisible Causation into tangible Matter, and back again, in accordance with the rules of Evolution, to create Darwin's "forms most beautiful" from formless Potential.
To jar your memory, an excerpt from a reply to you, Gnomon, on an old thread "What is Metaphysics? Yet again" ...
Quoting 180 Proof
Simply put, an immanentist rejects 'transcendent ideas / values / entities' as rationally unwarranted (i.e. wholly subjective). Thus my short list of notable philosophers ...
Quoting 180 Proof
& all other anti-supernaturalists, or anti-antirealists. :mask:
Addendum to
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/842279
As usual, interprets "outside, beyond, and transcendent" in a physical sense, while I use those terms for their metaphysical meaning. His Immanentist worldview seems to deny the possibility of Meta-Physics. The American Heritage Dictionary defines Metaphysics as "the branch of philosophy that systematically investigates the nature of first principles and problems of ultimate reality". One example of a First Principle is "an axiom*1 that cannot be deduced from any other within that system". In other words, it's an imaginary view (an inference, not an observation) of the system from the outside (not immanent, but extrinsic). Ultimate Reality is a view from the outside, not in a literal sense, as 180 alleges, but from an imaginary perspective, as philosophers do routinely. Presumably, Immanentism would not include the human talent for looking at the world from a vantage that exists only in a mind.
In philosophical Cosmology, the system of interest is the universe as a whole -- as seen from the outside -- including such immaterial elements as Minds, Ideas, Theories, Symbols, etc -- that are excluded from the Immanentist world. Such non-physical things are meta-physical, in the sense that they transcend the physical boundaries of material objects, and of proximate reality --- which Immanentism believes to be the only reality. Which is OK for scientists probing material phenomena, However, philosophers are focused on immaterial noumena : res cogitans of internal Ideality, not res extensa of external Reality. 180 may interpret "transcendence" in the religious sense of a super-natural realm, but philosophers use the term in the sense you noted : "we're capable of knowing it or making inferences regarding it". Inferences are not observations with the physical eyes, but logical computations by means of the mind's eye, which is in meta res : as you put it, "what is beyond the {physical} Universe or transcends it". {my brackets}
180 uses the analogy of a 2D plane to illustrate his Flatland worldview, which ignores the 3D & 4D aspects of reality. For example, cosmologists don't limit themselves to a view of the world from the inside, but they go beyond the limits of proximate space-time to imagine an ultimate pre-time Multiverse, or hypothetical Many Worlds, that lie beyond (transcending) the world of physical experience, and of empirical evidence. Such ultimate worlds are not Real, but Ideal. Ironically, those imaginary models are not "perfect versions", but merely mundane replicas of our proximate imperfect reality. :smile:
*1. Axiom : in logic, an indemonstrable first principle, rule, or maxim, that has found general acceptance or is thought worthy of common acceptance whether by virtue of a claim to intrinsic merit or on the basis of an appeal to self-evidence.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/axiom
Note --- Self-evident concepts are imaginary mental phenomena, not "demonstrable" or empirical physical observations. They are useful for abstract reasoning, but have no material substance.
:roll: Strawman unless you can cite where I have actually done so.
:rofl:
In other words, the alleged (incoherent) "god's-eye view from nowhere" woo-of-the-gaps. :sparkle:
Sorry, but nobody sees the Universe from outside it. Someone may imagine something "beyond it", or speculate regarding something "beyond it" but that, of course, doesn't indicate there is any such thing. Thinking is something we do. It takes place in the Universe because we're there. It doesn't take place outside the Universe, because we're not outside of it. We think by virtue of our interaction with the rest of the Universe; thinking is something we do as active living organisms which are part of an environment.
Your reference to "non-physical things" which "transcend the physical boundaries of material objects" suggests you treat mind, theories, symbols or ideas as equivalent to "things," immaterial but nonetheless existing, like objects, and therefore existing somewhere; but somewhere else (outside the Universe). That's one of the peculiarities of philosophical positions that Analytic and OL philosophy has tried to address (e.g. Gilbert Ryle regarding "mind", addressing Cartesian dualism ).
I hereby cite all of your replies to my posts, which typically assert "strawman" versions of my own arguments, to make them seem like pseudo-science, instead of metaphysical philosophical views. For the record, as a non-scientist, I never make authoritative physical scientific claims, only amateur meta-physical philosophical opinions. I do however, link to the expertise of practicing scientists to support my philosophical points. So, your imputations of pseudoscience are made of imaginary straw. Your "physical interpretations" are invalid for meta-physical concepts.
The proof of my own "interpretation" of your interpretation will be in your inability to deny the assertion of an anti-metaphysical bias. For example, do you deny that for you "transcendent" means "unreal, immaterial, or non-physical", hence pseudoscientific ; even when used in a philosophical context, a la Kant? Was Kant's Transcendental Idealism*1 a scientific claim about material reality, or an observation about how human minds interpret the world?
Do you deny your belief that posts on a philosophy forum require empirical physical evidence of validity? Do you have empirical evidence to support that belief? Like Materialism, your Immanentism is itself a non-empirical metaphysical belief system that lies outside the realm of physical reality. Note that I use "outside" with a meta-physical meaning, not a literal physical sense.
Do you deny that, for you, "outside or beyond" always refers to a super-natural religious realm, as opposed to, for example, a psychological concept -- with no objective material substance -- unless you equate neurons with ideas in your personal imaginary worldview? Do you deny the validity of Psychology as a "soft" science?*2 Does your worldview of Immanentism make allowances for subjective mental noumena with that lie "beyond" the reach of empirical testing? If not, please show me one of your physical ideas. :smile:
*1. Kants Transcendental Idealism :
In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant argues that space and time are merely formal features of how we perceive objects, not things in themselves that exist independently of us, or properties or relations among them. Objects in space and time are said to be appearances, and he argues that we know nothing of substance about the things in themselves of which they are appearances. Kant calls this doctrine (or set of doctrines) transcendental idealism,
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental-idealism/
*2. Is Psychology a Science? :
An open letter, signed by 124 researchers some specializing in consciousness and others notmade the provocative claim that one of the most widely discussed theories in the field, Integrated Information Theory (IIT), should be consideredpseudoscience. . . . The open letter justified the charge primarily on the grounds that IIT has commitments to panpsychism the idea that consciousness is fundamental and ubiquitous and that the theory as a whole may not be empirically testable. . . . Regarding testability, Quantum mechanics, for example, is highly productive, even though nobody can figure out how to experimentally test its various interpretations." ___ Anil Seth, professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex.
https://nautil.us/the-worth-of-wild-ideas-399097/
Note --- Technically, as a scientific hypothesis, IIT postulates something like Pan-mathematics, instead of traditional Panpsychism. Although some proponents admit to a Panpsychic philosophical interpretation.
*3. Immanentism :
Logically, the immanent makes sense in terms of the non-immanent, or of that which transcends or falls outside the immanent; it follows that the very meaning of immanence implies its own limit, i.e., transcendence.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/immanentism
Such as ? A link to a post or specific quote will do the trick to make your (non)point. :smirk:
Yes --- except for the "outside the universe" implication. By "see" I meant "to imagine", not to sense photons in a physical sense. Human minds, and the cultural Meme-sphere*1, are literally inside the universe as a concept, but not in the sub-category of Material stuff. Culture -- including philosophy -- is not a material object, is it? That should go without saying on a philosophy forum. Except for those who imagine that this is a Science forum discussing material objects, instead of mental subjects. Where is the Internet located : in the universe of rocks, or of minds?
The English language is a pragmatic vocabulary, hence matter-based. For philosophical terminology though, we typically turn to Latin & Greek, not because they are any less matter-based, but because their literal meanings have been adapted for scientific & philosophical & metaphorical purposes. So, when I refer to a "thing"*2 on a philosophy forum, it's intended to be interpreted in a meta-physical or metaphorical sense. Yet, some prejudicially equate "metaphysical" with Religious. For Aristotle, Meta-physics was merely a different conceptual category from Physics ; the realm of philosophical interpretations & inferences about the physical world.
The "somewhere else" you interpreted is obviously not a physical location in the great beyond. But merely a conventional cultural notion, not located in the material world but in the common social "realm" of memes*3, not things. The term "sphere" is a metaphor, not to be taken literally, capish?. Some people on this forum seem to take all words in a post for their literal meaning, instead of allowing for the philosophical use of metaphorical language. I am not one of those unimaginative prosaic one-word-one-meaning thinkers. :smile:
*1. Memesphere :
meme + sphere the entire human community through which simple or simplified ideas pass quickly, irrespective of the quality or reliability of the idea.
https://www.urbandictionary.com define term=meme
*2. Thing :
Derived from the Greek meta ta physika ("after the things of nature"); referring to an idea, doctrine, or posited reality outside of human sense perception. In modern philosophical terminology, metaphysics refers to the studies of what cannot be reached through objective studies of material reality.
https://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/metaph-body.html
*3. Memes : an element of a culture or system of behavior passed from one individual to another by imitation or other nongenetic means.
Io capisco, I think, but I also think that using metaphors, while apposite in poetry, isn't useful in philosophy--nor is it necessary. In poetry metaphors may be witty or evocative but in philosophy they merely invite misunderstanding and, worse, reification. Minds, ideas, concepts may not be considered
things literally, but are treated as if they were things. Why resort to metaphor in philosophy?
Quoting Gnomon
No, nor is it a thing. Material objects may be constituents of a culture, though, like works of art or structures, and books. Culture may include dances and religions as well.
Those with a Physicalist or Materialist worldview tend to think that Philosophy should aspire to the mathematical clarity of Physics. But even Physics, since the advent of Quantum Theory (intrinsically uncertain & statistical), is forced to use metaphors & analogies to describe physical objects --- e.g. Virtual Particles & Mathematical Fields --- that are not knowable via the physical senses. A virtual particle is not a real particle, but only the statistical potential for a future piece of matter. A Quantum Field is not a physical field of grass, but merely the concept of an infinite array of non-local virtual particles. Don't you find the analogies easier to conceive than the ghostly reality?
If your subject is a physical object, a physical description (appearances, properties) would be sufficient. Yet, if the subject is an abstract concept, such as Consciousness or Reality, then a metaphorical analogy may be the only way to define what you are talking about. The ancient ideal of philosophy would be a series of verifiable postulations (premises) with true or false implications (conclusion). However, do you know of any modern philosophical questions that are simple true/false issues? :smile:
On Using Metaphors in Philosophy :
Blumenberg holds an extreme position in his advocacy of metaphors. In his opinion, metaphors are fundamental elements of philosophy.
https://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Meth/MethPere.htm
Metaphor in analytic philosophy :
In the Anglo-American tradition of analytic philosophy (in particular, in the philosophy of language), metaphor has attracted interest because it does not conform to accepted truth-conditional semantics, the conditions which determine whether or not a statement is true. . . . . in a different, naturalist, approach, some English-speaking philosophers close to cognitive science, such as Lakoff, have made metaphor the central aspect of human rationality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor_in_philosophy
Metaphors in Philosophy and Science :
Many philosophers and scientists reach for metaphors, to help their readers get a handle on abstract concepts.
https://www.evidentia.net/evidentia/metaphors-in-philosophy-and-science/
@unenlightened
Regarding God, in my opinion, God is beyond reality and objective realities are manifestations of God, God is the truth, and objective realities are manifestations of truth.
In this context, Spinoza's view is significant.
He believed that everything that exists is in God and nothing can exist or be imagined without God. He also believed that God is the internal cause of all things.
Of course, this does not mean that I completely agree with Spinoza's point of view.
Yep.
Prove it.
@Corvus
Feel it to prove it.
You made the claim, therefore you must prove it. :)
Please prove the claim using your argument with reasoning and logical evidence.
Are you saying they are all incorrect? You seemed to be saying earlier that everyone has their own reality, and they can be different. Now there seems to be one God and reality is in Him, and if that is the truth as you say, then all the other realities must surely be false.
@unenlightened
You consider reality and truth to be the same, while the realities are different as I said before, because they are completely dependent on the perception of the beings of the truth, pay attention to the following explanation that I presented earlier:
@Ali Hosein
In the above statement, I have mentioned that there is a truth that is absolute, but the realities are different based on the recognition of the truth by each entity according to its cognitive structure.
The reality is the manifestation of truth in the cognitive systems of beings, and not the violation of God's uniqueness as truth, and the contradiction between the unique truth and different realities.
@Corvus
But all that's just your reality. How do we know it's the truth?
Perhaps you have not noticed, but you are on a roundabout of positivity here, because you have not made room in your own reality for falsehood.
@unenlightened
It is true, these are my realities and not the truth, why? Because neither I, nor you, nor any other material being has access to the truth. But how do we know that there is a truth? From the effect that affects our cognitive system and It causes the emergence of realities. We do not create realities out of nothing, an effect affects our senses and realities emerge through our cognitive apparatus. (Probably, this can be taken from the combination of Leibniz's and Locke's views.)
The truth of this is an effect that originates from effecting.
I don't know what the truth is, but through the realities I can realize the existence of the truth, although I don't know what the nature of the truth is, but I know it exists.
No problem, you are free to like whatever reality you want.
:flower:
You say that something exists. What is the evidence that something exists? For example, have you seen it, touched it, heard it, smelt it? Where was it, on the mountain, hill, in your garden, or in your room? What did it look like? What shape was it? Were you able to communicate with the object that you say that exists? What was the conversation you had with the existence?
The truth is the judgment you make with your mind, when you have evidence for proving your claim is doubtlessly matching with the reality at investigation.
If I read the detail of the evidence or argument that you supply with your claim, and if I judged it DOES make sense, or it is correct, right beyond reasonable doubt, then I will agree that your claim is true. If not, I will judge it false.
Before that, I will regard your claim as not making sense, because I don't understand what it is that you say that exists. I don't know what it is that you say that exists, and why it has to be truth, and why truth is absolute. I am not sure even what you mean by absolute at this stage.
@Corvus
If you have paid attention to my talk about realities, you will realize that all realities are not objective or have no precedent outside of our mind. For example, a concept like force, can you tell exactly what force is, what it looks like, where it is. .. or a concept (hypothetical model) like the electron? (I suggest you refer to Leibniz's philosophy for a better understanding).
But if you are looking to find out what is the truth that affects us, I have to say sorry, in my opinion it is not possible, why? Because between you and the truth is a cognitive system consisting of the brain and the senses, which transforms every effect into a reality that you can understand, therefore access to the truth is not possible.
My reality is my mental and physical world accessible to me exclusively. Your reality is your mental and physical world accessible to yourself exclusively. They are totally separate worlds, therefore there is no point talking about reality.
If I talk about my reality bla bla ... then it is just imaginative propositions I am making to you. If you talk about your reality bla bla ... then it is just imaginative propositions you are making to me.
I don't have access to your world. So it is meaningless to talk about the reality which is inaccessible to other beings.
Truth, from my definition, only emerges after our judgement on some proposition, facts or perception. It is not some entity existing in the external physical world. Truth is a concept emerged from judgement. So if X is true, then X must be a content of your judgement in the form of a proposition. So when you say God is truth, it is your proposition. You judge it as true or false. Is God is Truth true or false? The proposition lacks reasons and evidence why God is truth. So you cannot make a judgment yet either true or false. It still stands meaningless.
My friend, there are not only unique realities, some realities are common like "science".
So if we express a concept based on our common realities, they have more comprehensive validity. In my opinion, even the truth and falsity of propositions are based on accepted common realities (logical relations) and are only realities, not truth.
I do not claim that I have presented a completely scientific or philosophical argument, but I have tried to present a convincing argument to myself based on studies taken from accepted facts (by studying the opinions of some reliable scientific and philosophical people) and I presented it So that maybe it will be useful for people who agree with me or friends like you can help me with their criticisms to get a better understanding.
You call them "common realities", and I call them as "language, logic and reasoning".
Thanks for presenting your own argument on the topic. Yes we can keep discussing trying to improve our knowledge and understanding on the world and ourselves by continuous studies, readings and discussions.
How do you know there is "beyond" (especially since it is "beyond" knowing)?
On what grounds do you assume "reality" has a boundary and therefore an exterior?
You mention Spinoza, but he teaches that reality (i.e. substance) is unbounded in time and space (i.e. eternal and infinite, respectively), therefore not transcended. Even if you do not agree with Spinoza, Ali, your notion of "beyond reality" seems as ad hoc and incoherent as 'north of the north pole' or '"up" on 2-d plane'.
I have used "beyond" here to mean beyond the limit of cognition and beyond our cognitive apparatus.
The boundary between reality and truth is our cognition and cognitive apparatus, our cognitive apparatus creates an internal reality from an external effect (truth) that affects the senses.
In my opinion, this border between reality and truth has been created by our senses and cognitive system.
About Spinoza, I am not sure that substance is the same as reality, because he believed that only two attributes "thought" and "dimension" can be perceived from the divine attributes. "Attributes" seems to fit my definition of reality better than substance.
The next issue is that the structural limitation of the cognitive system does not mean limited realities, when the external effect is unlimited, the realities derived from it will also be unlimited, so we due to the consider Impact that the external effect has on us We can perceive various realities.
Ah, we cannot have access to the truth. And so it follows that what anyone says must not be the truth, else we woudl have access to the truth. Yet since you said it, we have access to it.
It follows that what you have said is not the truth.
No my friend, acknowledging the existence of the truth does not mean knowing what it is, not having access to the truth means not knowing it and not its non-existence.
And I think it is correct that what someone says is not truth, but it is reality.
To say that we cannot have the truth, is to contradict yourself. You can't consistently claim that you do and don't have access to the truth.
That is, your arguments are inconsistent.
if you read this my quote:
@Ali Hosein
and this:
@Ali Hosein
Then you will realize that I differentiate between existence and reality. Existence is necessary and is related to truth and precedes reality.
Why? Because our cognitive system creates reality from an effect that affects us, and reality is a relative thing.
Therefore, if I say that we do not have access to the truth, it means that we do not have access to the "what" of the truth, because there is a border between us and the truth called the cognitive system, and this does not conflict with with "existence" as a truth attribute.
What I mean by "access" is the possibility of asking "what" and "why" about a thing.
So what does that have to do with your phrase
Quoting Ali Hosein
which I took issue with in my previous post? "Cognitive apparatus" and "reality" are completely different, unrelated, concepts.
Well then, carefully re-read what Spinoza wrote (re: Ethics, I "Of God") because that is his point.
Depends on how it is formulated.
But even Kant - whatever you think of him - put strict limits on what could be said about it, which turns out to be extremely little.
And the little he does day does not go beyond all possible experience.
This last claim is fashionable in some mystic circles and whatnot. It's whatever, but, it's been a bit too popular recently, often without taking into account what is being said.
Hegel is a bit of a mess, imo. Others disagree.
Yes, it's just a question of how you choose to talk about stuff; of grammar. So some folk choose a non-bivalent logic, such that there are propositions about the thing-in-itself that are neither true nor false. I prefer to stick with a bivalent logic, and say that there are no propositions about the thing-in-itself. I take this as discouraging mysticism.
Why discourage it?
Man, I mean I think some mystical stuff is pretty cool, like Wittgenstein's stuff in the last parts of Tractatus. It's when it becomes New Agey or "Divine Wisdom" that I find it annoying, like, all of a sudden this person has an experience and thinks they're being insightful. :roll:
There's more stuff in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our philosophy. Probably.
:snicker:
:nerd:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD9rMahFFHc
@180 Proof
If you read my comment, you will understand their connection.
@180 Proof
On what basis do you say that these concepts are unrelated?
Please refer to Kant.
@180 Proof
This is your understanding of Spinoza. According to Capleston's history of philosophy, Spinoza considered "thought" and "dimension" as attributes of substance. I have said in previous talks that "thought" is our inner reality, so my definition of reality is more It is similar to Spinoza's definition of the attributes of substance rather than substance itself.
Anyway, I respect your opinion and you are free to disagree with my opinion.
Yes, I try to say that we cannot say anything about it Except that it can be said that there is.
@180 Proof
This is your perception and your reality, my reality and perception is different from yours.
@180 Proof
You are free to judge me as you wish, but accusing me of insufficient studies is not a philosophical argument, it is simply a fallacy!
Good luck.
Apparently, you did not profit from our discussion on your old thread Spinoza's Philosophy, Ali ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/785092
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/785169
@180 Proof
That your reality is that I have not benefited from your discussion in the said thread, is only your reality and not mine.
I used your words (even if you don't believe me,but that doesn't mean I completely agree with your words), thank you for them. :flower:
This must be one of the most oxymoronic, incoherent, word combos in common (sophistical) usage. I've no idea what "your reality" like that other bit of pop nonsense "your truth" even means. Pure effin' p0m0 Dada. :zip:
@180 Proof
That you don't know what it means is your reality and not my reality! :lol:
~Humpty Dumpty, Through the Looking Glass
Quoting Ali Hosein
How patently psychoceramic ... :sparkle:
@180 Proof
That she thinks she is psychoceramic is your reality, not my reality! :rofl:
The term is inherently imprecise and any consensus regarding its meaning would render it useless.
Copleston is a good example of why we should not rely on secondary texts or comprehensive stories of the history of philosophy.
In my opinion, anyone using Copleston as the primary text for a philosophy course, even for an introductory level course, is guilty of a dereliction of duty.
And what is not THAT, always regurgitated? I love it.
I think, therefore I am real.