If the reality we experience is the only thing that we have experienced, how do we know that there isnt anything beyond our reality?
We know for a fact there are things we do not, and perhaps cannot, currently experience that we will be able to sometime in the future. I dont think thats what youre talking about.
If, instead, you were talking about aspects of reality that we will never have access to, even in theory, then the question is meaningless. Or maybe metaphysics.
If, instead, you were talking about aspects of reality that we will never have access to, even in theory, then the question is meaningless
OK, pretend I'm a well-meaning philosophical novice, and explain to me, as simply as you can, why the question is meaningless. It looks to me as if it's referring to aspects of reality that humans can't access; there may be none we can ever know of, making the question unanswerable, but why is it meaningless?
explain to me, as simply as you can, why the question is meaningless.
I didnt say it was meaningless. I said it was meaningless or metaphysics. Metaphysics doesnt have to be true or false. As a matter of fact, as I understand it, it cant be. Something that is metaphysical becomes meaningless when there is no possible use for it. I dont classify making people say golly geewhilikers as useful.
180 ProofNovember 12, 2025 at 19:29#10246090 likes
If the reality we experience is the only thing that we have experienced
You don't dream? How do we know dreams are really just our mind "attempting to work out" problems and conundrums even in unconsciousness like the prevailing theory claims? Sure, it can be measured with an EEG, but all that proves is the mind is being stimulated by activity, not that the activity is a contained system.
I take this as a fun thread, which is refreshing every now and then. Conversely, however, how do we know there isn't a horrible swamp monster under our bed at all times that goes away once we look under it? We don't, now do we? Not really. Like the prevailing sentiment of the replies thus far suggests, it seems there are much more "relevant" affairs and states of matter to tend to. But never let someone tell you what and what not (or how) to think.
Identity is knowledge. You likely thought you knew all there was to know at six years old. Your entire set of knowledge and view of the world likely (or at least should have) changed significantly from then by age 12. As it did in comparison to when you became 18. And then again at 21. And 30. And so on and so on. Effectively, we become a new person with a new understanding of reality (effectively, a new reality altogether) every time we learn something. Can this not be said and argued as fact?
But surely the statement, "There is a reality that humans can't experience" is either true or false, isn't it? I still don't see the leap from "unanswerable" to either "meaningless" or "neither true nor false."
But surely the statement, "There is a reality that humans can't experience" is either true or false, isn't it? I still don't see the leap from "unanswerable" to either "meaningless" or "neither true nor false."
@T Clarks mottoIf there is no way of knowing whether a statement is true or false, even in theory, then its either metaphysics or meaningless.
If you ask any more questions, Im going to give you my prerecorded RG Collingwood metaphysics lecture, which youve probably heard before.
If the reality we experience is the only thing that we have experienced, how do we know that there isnt anything beyond our reality?
Because if it would be something than it would literally be 'some thing', meaning a thing we can identify. Something beyond our reality is exactly that, beyond our reality and then it would not be recognizable as something for us. The speculation therefore is idle. Of course there may well be a lot of things that are not part of our reality yet, just like iron was beyond the reality of the people in the stone age. At such a point though, it is not 'not part of our reality per se', but 'not yet part of our reality'.
Fire OlogistNovember 12, 2025 at 21:44#10246280 likes
Does your question only assume we know something that is inside our reality? You drew a line in reality and said we are in reality over hear, and over there is beyond our reality. You also only mentioned how we cant know anything beyond our reality. This implying we can know reality, but only know the reality that is not beyond.
So is your issue here merely a version of the Kantian phenomenal/noumenal distinction? Is it essentially epistemological about knowing, or is it getting ant something metaphysical or ontological about the nature of reality?
If there is no way of knowing whether a statement is true or false, even in theory, then its either metaphysics or meaningless.
OK, no more questions, just pointing out that your motto, while no doubt useful, isn't likely to convince someone who hasn't already adopted it as a motto. (The question I would have asked is, Why does the lack of a definitive answer drain the meaning from a question? But I won't!) (Also, if I understand you, it's not really a matter of "either metaphysics or meaningless." You're saying that metaphysics doesn't have to be true or false. But the statement in question does have to be. Ergo, it's not metaphysics. Ergo, it's meaningless. But see my [unasked!] previous question -- where did the meaning go away to? It seemed perfectly meaningful when it was posed.)
180 ProofNovember 12, 2025 at 21:57#10246310 likes
OK, no more questions, just pointing out that your motto, while no doubt useful, isn't likely to convince someone who hasn't already adopted it as a motto.
I really wasnt trying to convince anyone, I guess I was just pointing out that we were headed off into a more complicated discussion which is probably outside the intended scope of this thread.
Why does the lack of a definitive answer drain the meaning from a question?
What value, meaning, is there in a question that cant be answered, even in theory? What do you do with it? What does it teach you? What implications, consequences does it have? How do I use the OPs opening question?
how do we know that there isnt anything beyond our reality?
Do something with that. Show me what value it has. Lets go further than that. Well assume there is something beyond the reality we can experience that is not accessible and never will be. How does that change anything?
These are the kinds of questions that make philosophy look ridiculous. I guess thats why they bother me so much.
OutlanderNovember 12, 2025 at 22:46#10246390 likes
Well assume there is something beyond the reality we can experience that is not accessible and never will be.
This, me thinks, is the arbitrarily-placed, obsequious stipulation that when removed makes the entire topic just a tad bit more open to conversation, no? :smile:
This, me thinks, is the arbitrarily-placed, obsequious stipulation that when removed makes the entire topic just a tad bit more open to conversation, no?
No.
180 ProofNovember 13, 2025 at 00:00#10246450 likes
How do we know there isnt anything beyond our reality?
Because reality is what there is.
To posit something "beyond reality" is to posit more of what there is. It is to extend reality.
This is why the extent of our language is the extent of our world.
Hopefully, replacing "limit" with "extent" will head off some of the misplaced criticism of that phrase.
The other mistake here is to equate what we experience with what is real, and so to conflate "How do we know there isnt anything beyond our experience" with "How do we know there isnt anything beyond our reality".
"Beyond reality" is not a region; it is a grammatical error.
How do we know there isnt anything beyond our reality?
Because reality is what there is.
I know what you mean, but I don't think @an-salad is defining it that way. They're making a distinction between "our reality" and "reality = our reality + whatever else there might be". The last thing we need is a debate on how to use the term "reality"! :smile: Using the word in the way an-salad uses it, wouldn't you agree that the question is a sensible one? And if you'd rather not use "reality" in the more restricted way an-salad means, we can come up with a different term, it doesn't matter.
Maybe put the question this way: Could there be anything that humans will never be able to know or experience?
The set of true sentences is never complete, if that helps. I suspect that is what Reply to an-salad and Reply to J are trying to capture - that there is always more to be said.
OutlanderNovember 13, 2025 at 22:16#10248110 likes
All of existence is a prison. The question is, what is outside that prison?
This is unexpectedly profound, perhaps that was your intent, perhaps not. For the average person, even those who claim to have found the charms of love or who otherwise remain placated by the juvenile pleasures life has to offer (wealth, physicality ie. "the flesh" or "pleasure", feeling of esteem and respect from strangers, hollow as these things are, they remain the sole driving force behind most of life's actions and ambitions, and of course, naturally, most of life's suffering) all have the same thing in common. We inevitably want more. No, we delude ourselves, often passively with empty gratitude shared in public (ie. "I'm so grateful, I couldn't ask for more") so as to sell an image to an ultimately uncaring world. But this inevitability manifests in "mid life crises", peculiar hobbies, marital strife, microaggressions, and more if left unexamined and unaddressed. Not to mention those who have yet to find peace and purpose.
Regardless of our status in lifeperceived, real, deluded or anything in betweenwe all have one sobering dynamic in common. We all hunger and thirst. Both physically and of course symbolically, for that which we do not have, and even that which we do have. This is clear as day and does not require any sort of explanation for someone living in abject poverty or afflicted with a debilitating condition or ailment, naturally. But what of an upperclassman with everything the average man (or woman) reasonably strives for in life? Stable, high-paying job, big house, loving partner, beautiful family, good friends, respect from his or her peers, an abundance of wealth (including time)and above allthat ever so elusive feeling of true peace at the very last moments of one's day to be followed by true purpose and drive at the start of the following, only to repeat indefinitely until the last of one's days. What of that man? Is he simply deluded? Or are those who compare his life and status to imprisonment merely jealous and disappointed with their own (projection, perhaps)? Surely this must be the only relevant dynamic (a binary "one or the other") in relation to the aforementioned questions posed. Mustn't it?
Surely he (and anyone else with half a mind) would never attempt to equate such a charmed and privileged existence to that of a "prison", would they? No, not in a million years. Or so it seems. One argumentand not a particularly good one (without the right biases in my opinion)would be to start by taking a page from the stereotypical "anti-materialism" playbook. Along the lines of "one doesn't own possessions, one's possessions own the person, requiring constant and daily vigilance and occasional villainy to ensure one continues from one day to the next living in the manner in which one has become accustomed, all the while knowing, deep down, he would be not only hopelessly lost but simply destroyed if he were to lose any one of these things many men live life without, for even the slave with golden shackles undoubtedly remains but a slave." No, it's not particularly great, but it has merit given the right context.
I notice you go one further by saying all existence is a prison, so even an enlightened anti-materialist who has given up all worldly desire is still "imprisoned" due to him being conscious of himself. No different than a historical wealthy monarch in charge of vast swathes of lands, armies, and treasure. This would seem to betray an almost "antinatalist" or "anti-human" sort of world view, along the lines of "all life is bad and the less of it, the better." Not a very popular position to hold, quite dangerous even, yet the philosophical validity is not lost entirely.
The brevity (or simplicity) or your remarks, while profound, do leave much to interpretation. "All of existence" is a very broad term. Perhaps a bit broader than one initially realizes. Logically speaking, if "all of existence" is a prison, that would mean, the only thing beyond "existence" and "not a prison" would be... non-existence? This makes your remark astonishingly less profound, or at the very least, less vast in terms of philosophical context. There would seem to be two possible dynamics that can follow from that point. A sort of spiritual or metaphysical reality that transcends (has existed before and will exist after) the life and death of the body. Or, as mentioned previously, a sort of, in my view rather myopic, "anti-life" or "antinatalist" view of the world.
Either of which are validif not somewhat tired and largely titularpositions to hold, sure. Life, particularly the majority of human existence before the modern age of science and technology that largely alleviated the prevalence and tenacity of human suffering, is seemingly skewed in disproportionate favor of opportunity of things like pain, injury, illness, suffering, death, etc. Simply put, there's more things that can go wrong than go right as far as the human experience goes in the context of existence as we know and define it. But what of it? Where do you make the leap from "I think, therefore I am" to "I think, therefore I am not?" Was this intended or merely an adverse side affect? :chin:
It would be a kind of miracle if what we experience is all there is - a kind of evolutionary freak accident. So, I highly doubt that there is not more to the world than what we experience.
The set of true sentences is never complete, if that helps. I suspect that is what ?an-salad and ?J are trying to capture - that there is always more to be said.
I think this is true, and I'd go further: We have no warrant for believing that "what can be said" is a perfect match for "what can be said by humans." It's a big universe out there . . .
Reply to J we might have such warrant. I think we need to introduce Davidson here. If it cant be said by a human, then what reason could you have to think that it could be said?
Reply to Banno Well, two thoughts: First, to establish my point, I don't need a reason to think it could be said by a non-human, I only have to note that there is no reason why not. But, second, I think there is a pretty good reason to imagine sayable things that humans can't grasp. Consider the ant. Are there thoughts and experiences it cannot, in principle, have? Yes. And the badger? Yes. And the chimp? Yes. So why would this chain stop with humans? What makes us think we have access to all thinkable or sayable thoughts?
180 ProofNovember 14, 2025 at 02:14#10248350 likes
[R]eality is what there is. To posit something "beyond reality" is to posit more [than] what there is. "Beyond reality" is not a region; it is a grammatical error.
Reply to J somewhat off the track here. Ill try again. If an alien says something that is utterly incomprehensible, what grounds could you have to think it had said something rather than just grunted?
Consider the ant. Are there thoughts and experiences it cannot, in principle, have? Yes. And the badger? Yes. And the chimp? Yes. So why would this chain stop with humans? What makes us think we have access to all thinkable or sayable thoughts?
somewhat off the track here. Ill try again. If an alien says something that is utterly incomprehensible, what grounds could you have to think it had said something rather than just grunted?
Assuming the alien got here by traveling faster than the speed of light in some contraption (an impossibility given the physics we know of) theres some good reason to presume some form of communication might be attempted. In line with how we teach dogs and, to lesser extents, cats to understand us via the things we say. Yes, all they hear are meaningful grunts, but theyre still meaningful to them as far as communication goes.
Then again, what idiot believes him/herself capable of linguistically communicating complex thoughts to lesser beings of comparatively minuscule intelligence? Like, anyone earnestly trying to communicate the laws of physics or the aesthetics of a Rembrandt to an ant, dog, etc., is bound to be missing some marbles (and not the non-human animal for not understanding). Given the greater intelligence of the alien, they might want to communicate complex thoughts to us telepathically, or via some other weird manner, but not in the language they themselves speak. Otherwise, theyd be missing marbles (yes, this is conceivable: we all know that the greater the intelligence, the greater the likelihood and intensities of possible insanity).
Yup, my deep thought of the day.
------
The smiles youll give/and the tears youll cry/and all you touch/and all you see/is all your life will ever be -- lyrics from Breathe by Pink Floyd
I like sushiNovember 14, 2025 at 06:46#10248770 likes
Reply to an-salad Because we can only experience what we experience. We can discover only what is availble to us via experience-- because that is all there is for us.
We cannot even speculate about what we cannot ever comprehend. This is basically Kantian Noumena (a term which defies itself!). Obvious, but confusing if you get hold of the wrong end of it.
OutlanderNovember 14, 2025 at 08:09#10248860 likes
Why would you suppose that? Do you think the big bang is beyond comprehension?
My implication was, based on said theory, there was a point before what is commonly referred to as "the universe." A point (no pun intended) where "reality" or "all there is" was substantially different than what it is currently. So much so it can barely even be discussed and remains but a humble, albeit generally-accepted theorem.
If, hypothetically, one could place themself, as they are, prior to the "Big Bang", everything we know now, the entire Universe as we know it, would, in theory, be "outside" or "beyond" reality. Wouldn't it? It didn't exist at that point. Not in any conceivable or fathomable form. Not really. No different than saying consciousness existed before intelligent beings came about.
The current universe would be "beyond reality" at the time prior to the Big Bang. Just as consciousness would be "beyond reality" prior to the first intelligent being. Is this not correct?
Reply to Banno I wasn't really trying to imagine an alien encounter. I agree that would certainly pose all sorts of conceptual problems. It's more a logical or intuitive idea: Why should we think that humans represent some sort of pinnacle of what can be thought or said? The only way to get that, it seems to me, would be by defining "what can be thought or said" in human terms. But is that realistic?
I meant all of the "therefores" to be mistakes, trying to show that they don't follow from the initial statements. For this one, the idea is that we can't speculate about anything we can't comprehend, which is quite true. But why would that mean that what we can speculate about and comprehend is all there is?
...and this and the rest is comprehensible - since you are here comprehending it.
Thanks. Im glad to hear that what I said was comprehensible, if only to me. :grin: :wink: But then, so too is comprehensible the notion that there is yet more to discover and understand than humanity, and any individual within. has to date discovered and understood. And that some of these yet to be made discoveries and understandings might require new terminology so as to be properly linguistically communicated between us humans. (Im with Reply to J on this one.)
That said, what you mentioned about it only being an extension of reality, rather than it being outside of reality, I find very valid.
Why should we think that humans represent some sort of pinnacle of what can be thought or said?
Indeed - notice that my objection is to the way the issue is phrased. As "there is stuff beyond our reality" when it should be "there is stuff that is true but unknown". (It's actually positing realism, or at least showing up some of the limitations of idealism.)
Indeed - notice that my objection is to the way the issue is phrased. As "there is stuff beyond our reality" when it should be "there is stuff that is true but unknown"
Yes, I think we're all in accord that the culprit here is the word "reality," no surprise. "Stuff we can know as humans" and "all the stuff that can be known" are fine with me instead, as long as the two aren't supposed to mean the same thing.
Reply to javra An analogy. Any integer can be named in a finite number of words. Yet a list of all the integers is not finite. Analogicaly, perhaps anything true can be said, but not everything that is true.
(All sorts of implications here, making it an interesting area of logic. Like that we can write down the set of all the integers in a finite set of words - I just did; but by stepping outside the rules for writing down the integers and using sets instead.)
Again, the payoff is that there is always more to be said.
I think any useful metaphysic has to be able to disinguish reality, being and existence. These terms all have overlapping meanings, but theyre not exactly synonymous.
Peirce distinguishes reality and existence. For Peirce the real is that which is what it is independent of what any one person or definite group of people may think it is. It is the object of the final opinion of the indefinite community of investigators. But note this does not refer to material objects as such, as for example the law of conservation of energy is real, because its action is independent of what any one person or group thinks about it. It would hold true even if all humans vanished. It is a stable, general pattern or "habit" of the universe (although personally, I believe that the fact that human intelligence is alone capable of grasping such principles is itself metaphysically significant.)
Existence (or Actuality) refers to the primitive dyadic fact of an object reacting against or related to something else. It corresponds to Peirce's category of Secondness (Action/Fact/Brute Force).
Scope: Existence is limited to particular, individual, spatio-temporal facts, occurrences, and things that are actually here and now, having a brute impact on us or on other things. What is real extends far beyond that.
For Peirce, something can be real without existing (e.g., a universal law or a potential quality), but anything that exists is also real. The existing things are just the particular instances where the real generalities (laws and habits) are manifested in brute, immediate interaction.
I find the reality of potentialities or possibilities are particularly interesting in this respect. There are real possibilities, such as the fact that one out of 12 horses will win a race tomorrow, and impossibilities, such as that it might be won by some animal other than a horse. Some possibilities or potentialities are real, but others are not. A range of possibilities may be impossible to determine. The Schrodinger equation in physics is basically a strictly-formulated range of possible outcomes.
Being is not something specifically addressed in Peirce's lexicon in the same sense that it is in (for example) philosophical theology or 20thc existentialism. A large topic in its own right, but I would just observe the fact that we ourselves are beings (rather than existents or objects) is a clue to the nature of any enquiry into the nature of being, insofar as we ourselves are part of what we are seeking to understand.
Yes, I think we're all in accord that the culprit here is the word "reality," no surprise. "Stuff we can know as humans" and "all the stuff that can be known" are fine with me instead, as long as the two aren't supposed to mean the same thing.
Right. Presuming that the human species doesnt bring about its own extinction (the pressing of a few red buttons could be sufficient for this to occur), then theres bound to someday be a future species of life that evolves from that of the human species (no transhumanism required). Such that as regards intelligence relative to this future species we might be just as modern day chimps are relative to us. Their more refined conceptualizations and understandings then being out of reach to the human species not only in practice but also in principle.
Otherwise, there will always be something of reality which dwells beyond our own individually unique umwelt, this just as much as our collectively shared umwelt(s). This since no one individual umwelt can of itself be omniscient as regards all aspects of reality in general.
An analogy. Any integer can be named in a finite number of words. Yet a list of all the integers is not finite. Analogicaly, perhaps anything true can be said, but not everything that is true.
(All sorts of implications here, making it an interesting area of logic. Like that we can write down the set of all the integers in a finite set of words - I just did; but by stepping outside the rules for writing down the integers and using sets instead.)
Again, the payoff is that there is always more to be said.
If I read you right, I can only address the issue by pointing back to newly coined English terms that express complex enough concepts in manners that typically would otherwise require, at minimum, an entire sentence to properly express, and some requiring vast bodies of English language to so do: a meme (noun), copesetic (adjective), and words imported into English from other languages, such as the Germanic umwelt and zeitgeist. Devoid of at least some of these newly minted English terms, the concepts they convey could not be succinctly conveyed and manipulated within thoughts.
Then, so too will occur for concepts that are out of reach for the human species, as per my most recent reply to J on this thread. Language is reducible to semantics and the signs used to convey and manipulate these. So, I via reasons such as these find grounds to uphold that not everything which is an aspect of that which is can be currently said by us humans. Heres but one example:
Suppose that in ontological fact time is neither linear nor recurring (i.e., circular, as in Nietzsches and others eternal return) but, instead, is a conflux of both that thereby amounts to neither. Not only would this require volumes to properly express in validly justified coherent manners (philosophically to not mention empirically) but, furthermore, the entire notion could not be pragmatically, succinctly, communicated and manipulated in thoughts devoid of an accordant term for this metaphysical understanding of time a term which currently cannot be said for it does not yet (to the best of my knowledge) exist.
Now consider a vast spectrum of terms we've never heard of each with its own deep enough conceptual meanings all being stringed together in grammatically correct sentences so as to convey and manipulate concepts. These thoughts we, at the very least at present, have no access to and cannot express in words that we ourselves have at our disposal.
Existence (or Actuality) refers to the primitive dyadic fact of an object reacting against or related to something else. It corresponds to Peirce's category of Secondness (Action/Fact/Brute Force).
I grant that reality, existence, and being overlap while having different referents. But, finding little to no use for Pierces tripartite system of firstness/secondness/thirdness myself, I dont subscribe to the definitions youve provided.
Following common speech and understandings, I deem reality to consist of what is real, with real being synonymous to actual (and with real and actual sharing a common Latin root). And youre right: when so conceived, actual/real potentials (in contrast to unreal and hence impossible potentials) and the like get very interesting, and at times frustrating, to further enquire into.
Existence, as per its etymology, I then find consists of those aspects of reality which in any way, manner, or form stand out to us as conscious observers: thoughts thereby exist, just as much as rocks do. We as conscious observes, though an aspect of reality at large (for we as conscious observers are indeed actual, hence real), however do not exist, not in this formal means of understanding the term, for we dont stand out to ourselves, not even conceptually via the concepts that do exist for us. As another example of common speech, think of Tillich's notions regarding the existence of God, such that to affirm the existence of God is to deny the actuality/reality of God. Were existence to be synonymous to actuality, this notion could not be properly conveyed via the terms used.
Being, on the other hand, at core to me specifies all that in any conceivable way in fact is (and is hence real) this to include was and will be, though how so will be contingent on metaphysics adopted. Being, though, gets tricky in certain metaphysics wherein it is not synonymous to reality, this on account of a division between what in fact is real in an ultimate sense and what in fact is illusory in an ultimate sense of reality (e.g., the maya of Indian religions ). Which then chimes with the English understanding of beings being sentience-endowed, unlike anything else which is within reality at large (reality at large consisting of both maya and that which is not maya).
I am curious if you find substantial reason to prefer Peirce's account of "real" and "existing" over those I've just presented, this given common speech understandings of the two terms.
Reply to javraIve noticed Peirces distinctions, mainly through interactions with @apokrisis over the years, and have read up on them a little. I find them useful precisely because he maintains a distinction between the real and the existenta distinction I think is crucial, but which has largely dropped out of contemporary philosophical discourse. It survives, in a thinner form, in modern modal metaphysics, but typically only along strictly semantic lines (as in possible-worlds semantics), rather than with anything like Peirces richer, ontologically structured metaphysics.
In addition to 'res potentia', we also have to consider the reality of abstractions, such as the natural numbers. Here my sympathies lie with Platonism, although much of the debate around 'platonism in philosophy of math' is abstruse. But I take the point in the SEP article on same, that:
Mathematical platonism has considerable philosophical significance. If the view is true, it will put great pressure on the physicalist idea that reality is exhausted by the physical. For platonism entails that reality extends far beyond the physical world and includes objects that arent part of the causal and spatiotemporal order studied by the physical sciences. Mathematical platonism, if true, will also put great pressure on many naturalistic theories of knowledge. For there is little doubt that we possess mathematical knowledge. The truth of mathematical platonism would therefore establish that we have knowledge of abstract (and thus causally inefficacious) objects. This would be an important discovery, which many naturalistic theories of knowledge would struggle to accommodate.
I find the 'this would be an important discovery' unintentially ironic, as according to many, this was already evident to the ancient Greeks and probably the ancient Egyptians. But, in any case, the whole reason that this is such a controversial topic is straightforward: if number is real but not material, then it undercuts philosophical materialism and a lot of empiricist philosophy:
...scholarsespecially those working in other branches of scienceview Platonism with skepticism. Scientists tend to be empiricists; they imagine the universe to be made up of things we can touch and taste and so on; things we can learn about through observation and experiment. The idea of something existing outside of space and time makes empiricists nervous: It sounds embarrassingly like the way religious believers talk about God, and God was banished from respectable scientific discourse a long time ago.
Platonism, as mathematician Brian Davies has put it, has more in common with mystical religions than it does with modern science. The fear is that if mathematicians give Plato an inch, hell take a mile. If the truth of mathematical statements can be confirmed just by thinking about them, then why not ethical problems, or even religious questions? Why bother with empiricism at all?
Reply to Wayfarer Yes, but then a platonic number or form (e.g., the perfect circle, devoid of which there is no pi, devoid of which there is no QM) will all "stand out" to us. Whereas consciousness (via which we apprehend objects of awareness such as the, I'll here say, universal of a perfect circle) does not. Were existence to be synonymous to actuality, as per what you've said of Peirce's interpretation, this discrepancy would not be accounted for.
Yes, I think we're all in accord that the culprit here is the word "reality," no surprise.
Yes. But the challenge is to explain exactly what the word "reality" is guilty of - or, better, what we are guilty of when we misuse the word "reality", if it is possible to misuse something that we have created. (I mean the word. not the reality.)
"Reality" is an example of the common philosophical mistake of over-generalizing, or perhaps better, of decontextualizing a perfectly useful word, which then becomes virtually useless. What counts as "real" and "unreal" depends on the context, which is specified when you complete a sentence and specify what the context is. The idea that you can lump everything real into one group and everything unreal into another group is just wrong. Things are often unreal under one description and perfectly real under another. Similarly, what existence depends on what kind of thing you are thinking of. Superman exists - as a character in comic books, but not as someone you might meet at a bus stop.
we can write down the set of all the integers in a finite set of words - I just did; but by stepping outside the rules for writing down the integers and using sets instead.
Yes. It is often possible to do something impossible by changing the rules. I'm not sure that proves anything - except that we wrote the rules in the first place. So we can change the rules or invent new ones any time we want to. Even mathematicians have been known to indulge in that - especially where infinity is concerned. But I don't think that really undermines the point you originally made.
For Peirce, something can be real without existing (e.g., a universal law or a potential quality), but anything that exists is also real. The existing things are just the particular instances where the real generalities (laws and habits) are manifested in brute, immediate interaction.
That's all very neat and tidy. But I don't think it reflects the complexity of the relationship between reality and existence. On the contrary, it looks like reading in a real distinction - between laws and generalities on one hand and the particular and individual on the other - into the difference between real things and things that exist. I think it is perfectly reasonable to say that there is a natural law about conservation of energy. If that's true, the law exists. Superman is a well-known comic-book character, but everyone knows that he is a fictional character and so not a real person.
These thoughts we, at the very least at present, have no access to and cannot express in words that we ourselves have at our disposal.
Fair enough. Our languages, natural and artificial, are not closed. There is plenty of room for new concepts. I don't see a problem.
BTW - isn't the existing theory of quantum physics an example of what you are talking about? Something that is both a wave and a particle?
We as conscious observes, though an aspect of reality at large (for we as conscious observers are indeed actual, hence real), however do not exist, not in this formal means of understanding the term, for we dont stand out to ourselves, not even conceptually via the concepts that do exist for us.
Well, you are welcome to define a new use for "exists", but if it means that we, - you and I - do not exist, I think you might find it rather difficult to sell.
I find them useful precisely because he maintains a distinction between the real and the existenta distinction I think is crucial, but which has largely dropped out of contemporary philosophical discourse.
I agree that there is a neglected distinction between "real" and "existent". But I don't think Peirce remotely captures it.
In addition to 'res potentia', we also have to consider the reality of abstractions, such as the natural numbers. Here my sympathies lie with Platonism, although much of the debate around 'platonism in philosophy of math' is abstruse.
I agree with that. The problem with platonism is not so much about the reality of abstract numbers and shapes but the denial of the reality of physical objects. Both exist and are real; but they are different knds of object, that's all.
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We as conscious observes, though an aspect of reality at large (for we as conscious observers are indeed actual, hence real), however do not exist, not in this formal means of understanding the term, for we dont stand out to ourselves, not even conceptually via the concepts that do exist for us. javra
Well, you are welcome to define a new use for "exists", but if it means that we, - you and I - do not exist, I think you might find it rather difficult to sell.
That's not what I said, is it? You and I are selves, and selves do stand out ... this to the consciousness embedded in each which, as consciousness, does not. One does not see "consciousness" in the mirror but only one's own physiological self.
"Reality" is an example of the common philosophical mistake of over-generalizing, or perhaps better, of decontextualizing a perfectly useful word, which then becomes virtually useless. What counts as "real" and "unreal" depends on the context, which is specified when you complete a sentence and specify what the context is. The idea that you can lump everything real into one group and everything unreal into another group is just wrong. Things are often unreal under one description and perfectly real under another. Similarly, what existence depends on what kind of thing you are thinking of. Superman exists - as a character in comic books, but not as someone you might meet at a bus stop.
Nicely summarized. I might question whether the word was ever "perfectly useful," but other than that, you've said it well.
Nabokov said, "'Reality' is the one word that should always appear in quotation marks." He meant pretty much what you mean here. We could, for instance, create "Peirce-marks" to indicate when the word is being used as Peirce defined it.
The big bang is as an explanation for, and from, what we see around us; the very opposite of what you are suggesting.
If you were to somehowright nowgo back in time to a few moments before the Big Bangwith no idea that it was about to create what we call "the known Universe"yet retain your knowledge of the known Universe, such knowledge would technically be "beyond reality" since the known Universe hasn't been created at that point.
The "known Universe" doesn't exist in reality at that point in time, other than in your head. Yet a few moments laterunbeknownst to youit would. This is an explicit example (albeit hypothetical and per current scientific knowledge, currently impossible) of not only a valid posit of something "beyond reality" but a (theoretically) factual occurrence of reality being extended to something it was not previously.
Trivially, maybe "Big Bangs" happen all the time (in an "eternal" sense or context of frequency/occurrence) and another might happen in the future, removing all traces of the current Universe (this one) in favor of a new Universe that currently does not exist in any form (which technically, may have been what happened and may very well be the origins of this Universe, one simply does not know). Run it through ChatGPT if for whatever reason I'm not communicating to you sufficiently.
I'm basically saying there was a time this Universe (rather everything that we consider part of this Universe) didn't exist in any sort of recognizable form like it is now (ie. "pre-Big Bang" reality). At that time, talking about the Universe would be referring to something "beyond reality", yet would eventually become reality. It's the only example I got, but one example is all it takes to turn something from "100% absolute every single time" to "well, in most cases..." Which is a crucial distinction in philosophy (and basically anything else).
I mention consciousness arising from simplex organisms in case you say something like "but this Universe DID always exist, it was just all inside of the Singularity!", which I would respond by saying "that would be like saying consciousness always existed inside the first single-celled organism it just 'became active' once organisms evolved highly-functioning brains and resulting intelligence", which would be patently false.
...go back in time to a few moments before the Big Bang
There's no such time. Time came into existence along with the universe; the Big Bang is not an event in time but a boundary of time.
This sort of speculative physics makes for poor threads.
But time is a conceptual scheme embedded in our total belief network, hence asking about time before time is a misuse of those concepts, a confusion generated by stretching the scheme beyond its application to the worlds causal structure. The physics describes causal structure; those structures fix what makes sense to call earlier or later. If the causal structure doesnt extend, neither does the temporal vocabulary.
There's no such time. Time came into existence along with the universe; the Big Bang is not an event in time but a boundary of time.
Maybe. There's a theory that we're in a black hole, which is inside a bigger universe. Instead of one Big Bang, there are Big Bounces that spawn universes. So our universe is in a bigger one, and our's is spawning more universes, which we detect as black holes.
The philosophical import being that we really don't know.
a platonic number or form (e.g., the perfect circle, devoid of which there is no pi, devoid of which there is no QM) will all "stand out" to us. Whereas consciousness (via which we apprehend objects of awareness such as the....universal of a perfect circle) does not. Were existence to be synonymous to actuality, as per what you've said of Peirce's interpretation, this discrepancy would not be accounted for.
Here, I want to come back to the reality of intelligibles. Scientific principles, mathematical relations, and the natural numbers are not dependent on any individual mind, yet they can only be grasped by a mind. That is the sense in which I hold they are real (in the noumenal or intelligible sense) but not existent (in the phenomenal, spatiotemporal sense. This is nearer to the pre-Kantian sense of 'noumenal', which Kant adapted, and changed, for his own purposes.)
This isnt meant as a full metaphysical system, but as an heuristic:
* existent = that which appears in space, time, and causal relations; what can be encountered as a phenomenon
* real = that which has objective validity or logical necessity, but is not a physical particular
This is very close to Peirces schema: laws, generalities, and mathematical structures are real even though they do not exist as phenomena of Secondness. On those grounds, I dont think reality can be collapsed into existence without erasing the ontological standing of intelligibles altogether.
Furthermore language depends on such abstractions. Whenever we use the terms same as, equal to, different from, less than, and so on, were making use of our capacity for rational abstraction, without the requirement of being aware of doing so. This capacity is anticipated by a discussion in Platos Phaedo called The Argument from Equality. In it, Socrates argues that in order to judge the equal length of two like objects two sticks, say, or two rocks we must already have the idea of equals present in our minds, otherwise we wouldnt know how to go about comparing them; we must already have the idea of equals. And this idea must be innate, he says. It cant be acquired by mere experience, but must have been present at birth.
I dont know if its necessary for us to accept the implied belief in the incarnation of the soul to make sense of the claim: the fact that its innate is what is at issue. It is the innate capacity which provides us the ability to make such judgements, which we as rational creatures do effortlessly. It is just this kind of innate capabiiity which empiricism tends to deprecate (subject of Steve Pinker's book The Blank Slate).
On a larger scale, the same kind of capacities of abstraction are brought to bear on formulating the mathematical bases of theoretical physics. Science sees the Universe through such mathematical hypotheses, which provide the indispensable framework for making judgements (in accordance with the oft-quoted Galilean expression that the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics).
Thus intellectual abstractions, the grasp of abstract relations and qualities, are quite literally the ligatures of reason they are what binds rational conceptions together to form coherent ideas.
Reply to Banno You did ask me once what I meant by that expression.
OutlanderNovember 15, 2025 at 03:38#10250490 likes
There's no such time. Time came into existence along with the universe; the Big Bang is not an event in time but a boundary of time.
Huh. Interesting. I was not focally aware of that. There's no semi-equivalent (I get it's not a matter of simple terminology or verbatim but a truly transcendental concept altogethersomewhat)? There's no hypothetical future where humans have mastered time travel (and beyond?) that any matter currently in existence can be somehow "placed" or otherwise "end up" at such a point? Why is that? (It's honestly fascinating to ponder, is all)
This sort of speculative physics makes for poor threads.
Perhaps. That said, I don't need to remind anyone here that all generally-accepted theories as well as most if not all scientific facts began as mere speculation. I fail to see an intrinsic evil in the practice per se, though I can see how it can be a bit disfavored and come off as irrelevant.
Either way, I appreciate the newfound knowledge. :smile:
Yes, I think we're all in accord that the culprit here is the word "reality," no surprise. "Stuff we can know as humans" and "all the stuff that can be known" are fine with me instead, as long as the two aren't supposed to mean the same thing.
These guys are idealists masquerading as physicalists. They just want to shut down the debate and confine the physical material to their idealism. If they were true physicalists they would have brought the Many Worlds Theory to the table by now, but they havent.
The simplest answer to the OP is we dont know what else there is. There might be all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff, that we cant see. We just cant see it.
This can then be elaborated by saying we know that there is a lot we dont know about the world we find ourselves in. So we know that we dont know things about things that we [B] can[/B] see. Therefore we are not in a position to say, or know anything about what we cant see. So we cant say what else isnt there, just like we cant give a full account of what we know is there.
You and I are selves, and selves do stand out ... this to the consciousness embedded in each which, as consciousness, does not. One does not see "consciousness" in the mirror but only one's own physiological self.
I find myself floundering here. There is a regrettable tendency to think of anyone's self - including one's own - as if it were an object of some sort. If it is, it is remarkably elusive for something that is omni-present in one's life and experience. What's worse, is that one tends to find oneself positing more than one - a physiological self, as opposed to various others; none of these can possibly be one's true self - whatever that means. In addition, while I can supply some sort of (metaphorical) meaning to "stand out" as a description of what existent objects do, I can't grasp a meaning clear enough to be sure that I'm making the right sense of what you are saying. I am confused by the fact that if something "stands out" in my experience, I find that it does so against a background, which also exists.
I might question whether the word was ever "perfectly useful," but other than that, you've said it well.
Perhaps. "perfectly" was really a rhetorical flourish, meant to underline that there are uses of "real" and of "reality" that are not problematic in the way that this peculiar, specifically philosophical, use, is.
We could, for instance, create "Peirce-marks" to indicate when the word is being used as Peirce defined it.
Well, yes, "P-real" could become a (real) word. There would be a swarm of other, similar, words. It would be interesting to see which of them would survive for, say, ten years. Definitions can only work if there is a consensus about how the term is to be used. But there is no such consensus in philosophy about "exists", so there is no sound basis for evaluating any definition. I'm also deeply suspicious of any definition that sets out to define a single word. (Dictionaries nowadays recognize the relationships of a given word to others.)
Curious if you disagree with this: In commonsense language, then, Superman, the comic-book character, exists (in our culture) but is not real.
I think that's right. But it's perhaps worth adding that he is a real comic-book character, just not a real person. As a cautious generalization, I would say that the problem with "real" is that things are often real under one description and unreal under another. "Exists" seems to be binary (unless you are Meinong).
Speculative physicists don't seem to think so (sc. that speculation is a waste of time)..
That may be because they are working in a context that gives some traction to discussion and argument. On the other hand, it may be that that kind of response is not really appropriate. The speculation may be fun or exciting or something. Truth is, perhaps, only relevant when the speculation gets tied down into a
critical framework. It may or may not be true that Kekule came up with the carbon ring after he had a dream, which then gave him the idea of the benzene ring, which sent him into the laboratory. But it illustrates the point. No-one is concluding that dreams are a reliable source of scientific hypotheses.
The transition may involve a high casualty rate and a good deal of fruitless discussion. Is it worth it? I don't know.
There's no hypothetical future where humans have mastered time travel (and beyond?) that any matter currently in existence can be somehow "placed" or otherwise "end up" at such a point? Why is that? (It's honestly fascinating to ponder, is all)
I can see your point. But I think it is important to recognize that the fascination is not the same thing as truth. If you don't, you'll find yourself believing in dragons and world conspiracies. "What if.." can be great fun. But it doesn't always play into truth and falsity. (Who cares that Superman is impossible? We all understand the context and can enjoy the stories, but let's not get carried away into political philosophy.)
That is the sense in which I hold they (sc. abstract objects) are real (in the noumenal or intelligible sense) but not existent (in the phenomenal, spatiotemporal sense.
Well, they are not phenomenal or spatiotemporal objects. But why does that mean they don't exist? Or, why do you restrict existence to such objects?
This capacity (sc. to grasp abstract objects) is anticipated by a discussion in Platos Phaedo called The Argument from Equality. In it, Socrates argues that in order to judge the equal length of two like objects two sticks, say, or two rocks we must already have the idea of equals present in our minds, otherwise we wouldnt know how to go about comparing them; we must already have the idea of equals. And this idea must be innate, he says. It cant be acquired by mere experience, but must have been present at birth.
Yes, but Plato is wrong to think that the idea of equality must be innate. We learn how to measure things and so when things are the same length or weight - and even when there are two sticks or rocks. True, we are born with the capacity to learn, but that's not the same thing.
The simplest answer to the OP is we dont know what else there is. There might be all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff, that we cant see. We just cant see it.
This can then be elaborated by saying we know that there is a lot we dont know about the world we find ourselves in. So we know that we dont know things about things that we can see. Therefore we are not in a position to say, or know anything about what we cant see. So we cant say what else isnt there, just like we cant give a full account of what we know is there.
Yes. That seems straightforward and right to me. It also seems to me that the difficulties arise only when we insist on trying to drag "reality" and "existence" and a metaphorical use of "beyond" into it.
That is the sense in which I hold they (sc. abstract objects) are real (in the noumenal or intelligible sense) but not existent (in the phenomenal, spatiotemporal sense.
Wayfarer
Well, they are not phenomenal or spatiotemporal objects. But why does that mean they don't exist?
If I ask you to point to the number 7, what would you actually point to? At most, you could indicate a tokena mark on paper, a glyph on a screen, or the word seven. But the number itself is not any of these tokens. We both understand 7 because we can perform the intellectual act of counting and grasping numerical relations. The token is a symbol, not the referent, which is a numerical value.
This is why I say that numbers, logical principles, and laws of nature are intelligible rather than phenomenal. They are not given in sensation the way tables, colours, or sounds are. You dont encounter the number 7 in space and time; you grasp it by a capacity of the intellect. That makes them real, but not existent in the empirical sense.
Of course, we say colloquially that the number 7 exists, and I wouldn't take issue with that. But this is a philosophical distinction and in this context such distinctions are significant.
I'm not making arbitrary distinctions - Im distinguishing two modes of existence. Phenomenal things exist as objects of sense. Intelligible things are real insofar as they can be grasped by a rational intellect, but they are not phenomena, in the way that sense objects are.
This distinction between phenomenal and intelligible objects isnt something Ive invented; its a well-established feature of the classical philosophical tradition. From Plato and Aristotle through the medievals and into early modern rationalism, the difference between what is apprehended by the senses and what is apprehended by the intellect was taken to be fundamental. Its only with the rise of empiricism and the narrowing of existence to what can be observed or measured that this distinction began to fade from view.
Im simply trying to keep both modes of understanding in play, because collapsing everything into the empirical domain obscures the reality of the intelligible structures we rely on in logic, mathematics, and science itself. And it is actually germane to the subject under discussion.
Metaphysician UndercoverNovember 15, 2025 at 13:09#10250850 likes
The set of true sentences is never complete, if that helps.
If the set is not complete, then you imply that there are more true sentences which are not in the set. So, do you mean by this, that "the set of true sentences" does not refer to all the true sentences?
I like sushiNovember 15, 2025 at 13:19#10250880 likes
Reply to J Because what 'is' for us is all there is for us. Anything beyond is not anything. (again, Kantian noumenon).
Because what 'is' for us is all there is for us. Anything beyond is not anything. (again, Kantian noumenon).
But tomorrow isn't here yet.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
there are uses of "real" and of "reality" that are not problematic in the way that this peculiar, specifically philosophical, use, is.
Maybe. Even in ordinary conversation, it can get vague really quickly. I guess I'd agree that we know how to use "real" in the context of "Simone de Beauvoir was real" vs. "Santa Claus is not real".
"P-real" could become a (real) word. There would be a swarm of other, similar, words. It would be interesting to see which of them would survive for, say, ten years.
Yes, it would! Have there been other philosophical definitions which had to compete for survival against competitors using the same term? I feel there must have been, but I can't think of one at the moment. Maybe "logic"?
I'm also deeply suspicious of any definition that sets out to define a single word.
In philosophy, yes, since we lack a reliable means to go and check whether we've got it right. Binomial nomenclature, in contrast, seems a noble and successful task.
Because what 'is' for us is all there is for us. Anything beyond is not anything.
I'm not being stubborn, but I just don't see how it follows. If you said, "Anything beyond is not anything for us," I'd see your point. But why would you assert that "for us" encompasses all there is?
I'm not being stubborn, but I just don't see how it follows. If you said, "Anything beyond is not anything for us," I'd see your point. But why would you assert that "for us" encompasses all there is?
Have you read Kant? If you have then refer to what he says about negative and positive noumenon.
Nothing more to say (you can search this very site to find examples of myself and others pointing out this difficult obviousness).
I wouldnt want to name names as I feel cheeky enough saying what I said.
There is a point though, only an idealist, of some kind, would restrict what is to what can be said, or known by a person. Surely by contrast, a physicalist of some kind would allow any of an infinite number of other possibilities and the fact that we cannot observe them directly doesnt preclude their existence.
Reply to Punshhh OK, I see what you're saying. Yes, a physicalist would probably agree there are things that humans can't know, but fortunately you don't have to be a physicalist to reach that conclusion!
The idealism question is a little harder. A hardcore Wittgensteinian/Davidsonian position on what we can talk about meaningfully isn't idealist, by my definition. That position raises doubts about going beyond human experience on what I'd call methodological grounds, rather than a skepticism based on some interpretation of Kantian idealism, say.
PatternerNovember 15, 2025 at 17:03#10251120 likes
There is a point though, only an idealist [immaterislist], of some kind, would restrict what is to what can be said, or known by a person. Surely by contrast, a physicalist [materialist] of some kind would allow any of an infinite number of other possibilities and the fact that we cannot observe them directly doesnt preclude their existence.
If the reality we experience is the only thing that we have experienced, how do we know that there isnt anything beyond our reality?
We can't "know" there's more (in the strict sense of "knowlwdge"). But we innately have a sense that there is a world beyond ourselves, and this constitutes a rational basis. Given that we have this belief, it is rational to maintain it unless it is defeated by other facts and valid reasoning. The mere fact that it is possibly false is not a defeater.
180 ProofNovember 15, 2025 at 19:10#10251300 likes
The token is a symbol, not the referent, which is a numerical value.
Just a small point. What I "actually" point to is a mark on wall or paper. That mark is a token of the type "7". It is a sign or symbol for the number, which is an abstract object. We often refer to tokens as numbers, but I agree that they are not.
This is why I say that numbers, logical principles, and laws of nature are intelligible rather than phenomenal. They are not given in sensation the way tables, colours, or sounds are. You dont encounter the number 7 in space and time; you grasp it by a capacity of the intellect. That makes them real, but not existent in the empirical sense.
I'm surprised you are bothered about the empirical sense of "existent". I'm not, at least if you think that sense is "to be is to be perceived". The issue is whether inferences from what we perceive to things that are not (directly) perceived are allowed.
Im distinguishing two modes of existence. Phenomenal things exist as objects of sense. Intelligible things are real insofar as they can be grasped by a rational intellect, but they are not phenomena, in the way that sense objects are.
Well, that's true. But it doesn't follow from the fact that intelligible objects are not phenomena that they do not exist.
From Plato and Aristotle through the medievals and into early modern rationalism, the difference between what is apprehended by the senses and what is apprehended by the intellect was taken to be fundamental.
Perhaps so. But even Berkeley, for all his rhetoric, had to concede exceptions. The existence of his own self, other people, and God were all inferred from his perceptions (ideas). Physics and other sciences have no trouble with that - so far as I know. Microscopes, telescopes, dials and meters of all sorts.
I think that our language here leads us in to unnecessary difficulties. At first sight, it seems that "what we perceive" and "what is apprehended by the intellect" are two distinct sets of objects. But perception and intellect do not work separately, in distinct silos. They are both involved in everything. Perception involves understanding and understanding involves perception. It's not an accident that "I see" or "I hear you" can mean "I understand".
Im distinguishing two modes of existence. Phenomenal things exist as objects of sense. Intelligible things are real insofar as they can be grasped by a rational intellect, but they are not phenomena, in the way that sense objects are.
The awkward thing here is that there is a gap between phenomenal things like sights and sounds, smells and tastes, etc. on one hand and intelligible things like circles and squares and numbers and functions. Ordinary life relies mostly on objects that involve both perception and understanding.
But there are lots of different kinds of object. Do we really need a "mode of existence" for each kind? I don't see that as necessary, though I'm not dogmatic about it.
I guess I'd agree that we know how to use "real" in the context of "Simone de Beauvoir was real" vs. "Santa Claus is not real".
Santa Claus and Pegasus &c. are a bit atypical. Standard cases are quite clear. Forged money is not real money, but exists; it is real in that it is a copy of real money. A model car is not a real car, but it exists because it is a real model of a car. A fisherman's fly is not a real fly, but it is exists because it is real bait. An actor is not a real policeman, but exists because they are a real person.
The last of these illustrates the peculiarities of fictional characters. Santa Clause is not just not a real person; he exists as a fictional or mythical character, which is to say that he does not exist.
how do we know that there isnt anything beyond our reality?
We know that there are things we don't know about, because we have questions we cannot answer. We also know that there are things we don't know about because we know that we know things that people in the past didn't know.
Of course none of those things are beyond our reality. Or at least, if they are, they will become part of our reality as soon as we know about them.
Does that help?
If the reality we experience is the only thing that we have experienced, how do we know that there isnt anything beyond our reality?
Who is "we"?
If you're referring to "mankind" and assuming it's somehow unified and uniform, then you're clearly wrong.
Secondly, there's no need to get all exotic and extraterrestrial. Let's rephrase your question to, "If the reality Tom experiences is the only thing that Tom has experienced, how does Tom know that there isnt anything beyond Tom's reality?"
How about the internal states of Dick and Harry? Are they a reality for Tom? Does Tom care about the about the internal states of Dick and Harry? Does Tom even acknowledge the possibility that the internal states of Dick and Harry might be other than what Tom supposes?
And not a valid one. The mark is a symbol. What it represents is a mathematical value, not an object.
Yes. You are right. My main point, though, was the structure of type and token that enables to say that it is the same symbol in many places and many occasions. Or at least, I thought that was what you meant.
The system, begun by Linnaeus, of identifying creatures by genus and species, e.g., Homo sapiens. I offered it as an example of a single, useful definition that can save everyone a lot of trouble. It has to be agreed to, of course.
We can be more specific. We can't assess physical theories without doing the maths.
And there is no maths here.
Quite so. That gives us some ground to treat the speculative physics that we hear so much about as somewhat different from this game. The speculations are at least candidates for the status of a hypothesis.
But it's not a free-standing game like noughts and crosses or tic-tac-toe. It's an extension of the language-game that's played in everyday language, and it is a puzzle game, not a competition between the players. Solving the puzzle is what it is all about. The solution is to understand the extension and see not only that it can't be played but why it can't be played. (Or, just possibly, to see whether there is a way that it might be playable.)
The system, begun by Linnaeus, of identifying creatures by genus and species, e.g., Homo sapiens. I offered it as an example of a single, useful definition that can save everyone a lot of trouble. It has to be agreed to, of course.
Of course. I should have understood. However, definitions like that are contextualized in a specialized field where the definition is a stipulation rather than a codification of an existing practice. Another advantage in the context of zoology is that it is possible to nominate a specimen as a reference, to supplement the words and help make decisions about borderline cases. So they are not like the philosophical attempts to define words that already have a use.
Reply to Ludwig V Yes, yet through all that, my initial comments stand. Reality is what there is, hence to posit something "beyond reality" is to posit more of what there is, and "beyond reality" is a grammatical error. And what I experience is not the very same as what is real, what we know is not the very same as what I experience.
My main point, though, was the structure of type and token that enables to say that it is the same symbol in many places and many occasions. Or at least, I thought that was what you meant.
It is indeed a part of what I meant! But the additional point is that what is denoted by the symbol is an intellectual act, not a phenomenal existent. And I say that is a real, vital, and largely neglected distinction.
definitions like that are contextualized in a specialized field where the definition is a stipulation rather than a codification of an existing practice.
Yes. As you say, very few philosophical terms could undergo such an evolution. It's for that reason, as I've said so often on TPF, that I'd like to see philosophers avoid terms like "reality" whenever possible. Or else put it in Peirce-marks or Kant-marks or Carnap-marks etc. if that's what you mean. :smile:
what is denoted by the symbol is an intellectual act, not a phenomenal existent. And I say that is a real, vital, and largely neglected distinction.
If I may . . . This is right, and perhaps not so neglected if we see the connection with the many discussions we've had about the status of propositions. The whole point of trying to separate out something called a proposition is to preserve that very distinction. Sentences denote propositions (when they have the appropriate form), not objects or even individual thoughts. Nor are propositions objects in the world, though they may be about objects in the world. At least, that's the standard account. See Rodl though . . .
Reality is what there is, hence to posit something "beyond reality" is to posit more of what there is, and "beyond reality" is a grammatical error.
Well I think it's implicit that we're talking about known reality.
The way I look at it is this: I think hypotheses that we are living in the matrix or whatever are vulnerable to occam's razor. They have no better explanatory power than the hypothesis that I am a Homo sapiens on earth 2025, but posit additional entities.
And I think it's also important to stay within this explantory / hypothesis space. Because sometimes people make the claim that everything around us being a dream is somehow simpler than believing in a gigantic universe. But scale, and physicality, are not complexity. Or you sometimes get allusions to a an idea of a universe being "easier"; both of these claims are baseless and/or irrelevant at this time.
The whole point of trying to separate out something called a proposition is to preserve that very distinction. Sentences denote propositions (when they have the appropriate form), not objects or even individual thoughts. Nor are propositions objects in the world, though they may be about objects in the world. At least, that's the standard account.
:up: And this ties back to Wittgenstein's statement that the world is all that is the case. He was referring to the insight that the world does not seem to be made of a set of objects, but of objects doing things. That gives us the notion that the world is a set of true propositions.
Well I think it's implicit that we're talking about known reality.
Yes, there are things we don't know. That is, there are true statements of which we do not have any knowledge. The person that realism should bother most is @Wayfarer, but he has convinced himself that he can have both antirealism and unknown truths.
Reply to frank Interesting how this connects to the previous considerations about "reality." Like "reality," the term "the world" is capable of being used in many ways. Wittgenstein's insight is valuable whether or not we want to use "the world" the way he uses it. His point is that, apart from objects, there are states of affairs, facts, construals, propositions, ways of thinking and speaking -- and when we ask "What is the case?" it is those items we're asking about, not the objects.
ADDED But propositions are made true by whether the arrangements of objects (crudely) are that way. We need the objects to help make a Wittgensteinian world.
This is right, and perhaps not so neglected if we see the connection with the many discussions we've had about the status of propositions. The whole point of trying to separate out something called a proposition is to preserve that very distinction
Which I am seeking to leverage to make a point about metaphysics a point which I still dont think is being acknowledged.
Reply to Banno Actually if you'd bothered reading anything I've said in this particular thread, you would see i've said nothing of the kind (although I've never said anything of the sort in any other thread, either). As the discussion had turned into a general one on metaphysics, I was trying to make the distinction between phenomenal and intelligible objects, but no avail.
180 ProofNovember 16, 2025 at 03:54#10252030 likes
Let's be clear: I'm pointing out that the OP isa a word game.
No more than your replies are a word game.
And "No".
The game seems to be, lets insist there isnt anything else (other than our reality), because we dont have the vocabulary to do its ising justice. Meanwhile smuggling in the acknowledgement that there probably is something else (as a nod to the idea that you cant prove a negative).
Anti-realism says: every truth must be knowable.
But you also say: there are truths we dont and maybe cant know.
Fitch shows you cant have both.
If there are unknown truths, then not every truth is knowable, which just is the denial of anti-realism.
Reply to Banno Please refer to what I said in this thread. As I interpreted this discussion as being about metaphysics I responded accordingly here and here. These are not recapitulations of the mind-created world OP, although I believe theyre compatible with it.
Reality is what there is, hence to posit something "beyond reality" is to posit more of what there is, and "beyond reality" is a grammatical error. And what I experience is not the very same as what is real, what we know is not the very same as what I experience.
In a way, I'm fine with the first sentence. My problem is that we seem to hunger for a way of metaphorically pulling everything together under one heading. I just did exactly that with "everything". and that itself reveals the fundamental issue. In normal contexts, the scope of everything is set by the context (and sometimes we talk about "domains" in this context. But here, I'm attempting to use "everything" without a limiting context. We do the same with "reality", "existence", "being", "world", "universe" and "cosmos". The catch is that we can't let go of the expectation that the scope will be limited, and so we undermine our own attempt by positing something that is outside the scope of how we are using the term - a possibility that we set out to exclude.
Your second sentence is very tempting. It turns on the fact that these terms are not synonymous, but are conceptually linked and inter-related. But we don't have a clear grasp of those links and inter-relationship, so that we get lost in them. This second sentence is tempting, but if one asks what "the very same" means (and particularly wonder what the difference is between "same" and "very same"), the meaning suddenly becomes elusive. (I'm skating over the issue how "experience" and "knowledge" relate to the terms in the first sentence, because our idealist tendencies seem to me to explain that.)
But the additional point is that what is denoted by the symbol is an intellectual act, not a phenomenal existent. And I say that is a real, vital, and largely neglected distinction.
Does the following explain why you think the distinction is so important? Quoting Wayfarer
Thus intellectual abstractions, the grasp of abstract relations and qualities, are quite literally the ligatures of reason they are what binds rational conceptions together to form coherent ideas.
I don't want to elide the distinction you are trying to make - though I confess I don't fully understand it. I can attribute meaning to the idea of "phenomenal objects" and to the idea of "intelligible objects". But it does seem to me very important not to let go of the idea that we often understand the things that we perceive and often perceive the things we understand. I think I may be arguing for a third class of objects, which can both be perceived and understood. I hope that makes some sense.
As you say, very few philosophical terms could undergo such an evolution. It's for that reason, as I've said so often on TPF, that I'd like to see philosophers avoid terms like "reality" whenever possible. Or else put it in Peirce-marks or Kant-marks or Carnap-marks etc. if that's what you mean.
I sympathize and try not to use those terms unnecessarily. But they are so deeply embedded in philosophy, that it seems impossible to not use them - and I can't resist joining in the discussion.
This is right, and perhaps not so neglected if we see the connection with the many discussions we've had about the status of propositions. The whole point of trying to separate out something called a proposition is to preserve that very distinction. Sentences denote propositions (when they have the appropriate form), not objects or even individual thoughts. Nor are propositions objects in the world, though they may be about objects in the world.
Well I think it's implicit that we're talking about known reality.
The trouble is that by referring to "known reality" you open up the possibility of unknown reality. Any limit that you try to set, immediately creates the idea that there is something beyond or in addition to that limit. Wittgenstein tries valiantly to get round that problem in the Tractatus, but ends up with a compromise - "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." - which sits oddly beside "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."
Interesting how this connects to the previous considerations about "reality." Like "reality," the term "the world" is capable of being used in many ways. Wittgenstein's insight is valuable whether or not we want to use "the world" the way he uses it. His point is that, apart from objects, there are states of affairs, facts, construals, propositions, ways of thinking and speaking -- and when we ask "What is the case?" it is those items we're asking about, not the objects.
Oh, surely, what he says is stronger than that. "The world is all that is the case." and "The world is the totality of facts, not things." Of course, this is related to the Fregean insistence that words only have meaning in the context of sentences and Wittgenstein's belief that sentences work in virtue of the similarity (identity?) of their structure with the structure of the world.
The game seems to be, lets insist there isnt anything else (other than our reality), because we dont have the vocabulary to do its ising justice. Meanwhile smuggling in the acknowledgement that there probably is something else (as a nod to the idea that you cant prove a negative).
Yes, we give with one hand and take back with the other. Berkeley is a spectacular example. He says nothing can exist unperceived and that he does not deny the existence of "any one thing" that common sense believes in. (He reconciles the two by pointing out that God always perceives everything.)
Hes doing a neat trick whereby the phenomenal has to become intelligible (therefore an intelligible object) before it can be acknowledged.
Yes, that's the price you pay for positing phenomenal and intelligible objects as distinct kinds of objects. The obvious solution is to insist that perception and intelligence deal with the same objects at least sometimes.
Anti-realism says: every truth must be knowable.
But you also say: there are truths we dont and maybe cant know.
Fitch shows you cant have both.
If there are unknown truths, then not every truth is knowable, which just is the denial of anti-realism.
On a quick look-up, SEP explains the paradox thus:-
The ally of the view that all truths are knowable (by somebody at some time) is forced absurdly to admit that every truth is known (by somebody at some time).
I'm not impressed. It seems to follow that at any given time, there can be unknown truths. That these truths may be known at some other time is not particularly interesting.
Metaphysician UndercoverNovember 16, 2025 at 13:38#10252490 likes
On a quick look-up, SEP explains the paradox thus:-
The ally of the view that all truths are knowable (by somebody at some time) is forced absurdly to admit that every truth is known (by somebody at some time).
I'm not impressed. It seems to follow that at any given time, there can be unknown truths. That these truths may be known at some other time is not particularly interesting.
Fitch's paradox only demonstrates the obvious, that every truth must be known. Since "truth" refers to a relation between propositions and reality, and only intelligent minds can produce this relation through the application of meaning, and the process of knowing, it is very obvious that all truths must be known.
So, what Fitch does, is take a clearly false premise, that there may be a truth which is unknown, and shows how one might produce an absurd conclusion from that false premise. That's common practise in philosophy, it's a way of demonstrating the falsity of the premise, to those who do not grasp the obvious.
The issue with the possibility of truths which we as human beings do not know, involves the assumption of a higher, divine intelligence, like God. If we understand that the human mind is deficient in its capacity to know, and we assume the possibility of an actually existing higher mind with a greater capacity to understand and know, then we accept the possibility of truths which are not known by any human mind, but are known by the higher mind.
Oh, surely, what he says is stronger than that. "The world is all that is the case." and "The world is the totality of facts, not things.
I agree, it's open to several interpretations. Consider the first dictum. Is it definitional? That is, should we read it as "'The world' is 'all that is the case'"? Or is it descriptive: "The world is all that is the case"? i.e., there is nothing beyond the world. I favor the first reading, because I find it more provocative.
The same bifurcation of interpretation can be applied to the second dictum.
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." - which sits oddly beside "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."
This one also seems to fit with the "definitional" interpretation, where it doesn't appear so odd. The limits of my world are not the limits of the world. I may know that there are more facts, more "things that are the case," without being able to find them or speak about them. A great deal hinges on the question, "What does a limit do?" Does it prevent knowledge that there is more, or only knowledge about whatever that "more" is?
But [terms like 'reality'] are so deeply embedded in philosophy, that it seems impossible to not use them - and I can't resist joining in the discussion.
Yes. My proposal for reform is quixotic. But at least we can be more conscious of how we use them -- and maybe use them a bit less often.
Anti-realism says: every truth must be knowable.
But you also say: there are truths we dont and maybe cant know.
Fitch shows you cant have both.
If there are unknown truths, then not every truth is knowable, which just is the denial of anti-realism.
"True" is a judgement. Judgements are only made by intelligent minds in the process called "knowing". Therefore all truths are known.
Interesting how this connects to the previous considerations about "reality." Like "reality," the term "the world" is capable of being used in many ways. Wittgenstein's insight is valuable whether or not we want to use "the world" the way he uses it. His point is that, apart from objects, there are states of affairs, facts, construals, propositions, ways of thinking and speaking -- and when we ask "What is the case?" it is those items we're asking about, not the objects.
ADDED But propositions are made true by whether the arrangements of objects (crudely) are that way. We need the objects to help make a Wittgensteinian world.
I agree. As you say, the idea is that the world is made of events and states.
180 ProofNovember 16, 2025 at 17:48#10252750 likes
That these truths may be known at some other time is not particularly interesting.
The argument is not tensed. It is not based on "Not known now, but could be known later."
It begins with Up(p??Kp), which is not temporally dependent. It is modal. the supposition is the antirealist one that if something is true, it is possible to know it is true. The direct conclusion is that there is no p such that p is true and not known. This follows without reference to any time or duration. There cannot be any unknown truths if every truth is knowable.
If we are to hold that we do not know everything, then there are things we cannot know.
If we do not know everything, then antirealism is not an option.
"True" is a judgement. Judgements are only made by intelligent minds in the process called "knowing". Therefore all truths are known.
True isnt the judgement; it is the relative quality of the judgement;
Judgements are, but not necessarily only, made by rational intellects in the process of understanding;
All truths are known, but not because of either of those.
The necessary condition of empirical truth as such, in general, is the accordance with a cognition with its object, cognition itself being the relation of conceptions to each other in a logical proposition, re: a judgement, or, the relation of judgements to each other, re: a syllogism. It is impossible not to know whether the relation of conceptions or of judgements accord with each other, for in either there is contradiction with experience if they do not. It is not given by that knowledge the cause of such discord, only that there resides no truth in it.
It is not that all true things are known, insofar as the sum of all possible cognitions is incomplete, some of which may be true respecting their objects, but that the criterion of any truth is known, for which the sum of possible cognitions is irrelevant.
The necessary condition of empirical truth as such, in general, is the accordance with a cognition with its object, cognition itself being the relation of conceptions to each other in a logical proposition, re: a judgement, or, the relation of judgements to each other, re: a syllogism. It is impossible not to know whether the relation of conceptions or of judgements accord with each other, for in either there is contradiction with experience if they do not. It is not given by that knowledge the cause of such discord, only that there resides no truth in it.
But isn't it the case that whether or not there is "accordance" is itself a judgement? You say that truth is "accordance" but isn't accordance a judgement? That "the cat is on the mat" is in accordance with reality, is a judgement. If you don't think that accordance is a judgement, then maybe you could explain how it could be anything other than a judgement?
It is not that all true things are known, insofar as the sum of all possible cognitions is incomplete, some of which may be true respecting their objects, but that the criterion of any truth is known, for which the sum of possible cognitions is irrelevant.
If there is such a thing as "the criterion of any truth", doesn't this imply that truth is a judgement as to whether the specific criterion is fulfilled?
Yes, we give with one hand and take back with the other. Berkeley is a spectacular example. He says nothing can exist unperceived and that he does not deny the existence of "any one thing" that common sense believes in. (He reconciles the two by pointing out that God always perceives everything.)
Yes, that is the only way around it, we are part of God and God sees everything. Therefore there isnt anything that isnt seen.
If this isnt the case, then there must be other things that are not seen, even by an anti-realist. Because there might be more than one anti-realist.
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." - which sits oddly beside "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."
Ludwig V
This one also seems to fit with the "definitional" interpretation, where it doesn't appear so odd. The limits of my world are not the limits of the world. I may know that there are more facts, more "things that are the case," without being able to find them or speak about them. A great deal hinges on the question, "What does a limit do?" Does it prevent knowledge that there is more, or only knowledge about whatever that "more" is?
"The argument is not tensed. It is not based on "Not known now, but could be known later."
That wasn't my summary of the argument. I think it may be based on the point that the manifestation of a disposition or capacity is an event, therefore not tenseless.
It begins with Up(p??Kp), which is not temporally dependent. It is modal.[/quote]
You won't be surprised that I don't know modal logic. But I had the impression that if it is possible to know that p, it is also possible to not know that p. So (forgive me that I can't do the formula properly,) the formula should read "For all p (if p is true then it is possible to know that p and possible not to know that p). I doubt that the conclusion would follow from that.
If we are to hold that we do not know everything, then there are things we cannot know. If we do not know everything, then antirealism is not an option.
I don't see any problem about holding that we do not know everything.
Probability. A toss of a coin. It may land heads or tails and must land one or the other and we know that. We know the probabilities of each outcome, but we do not know which it will be.
Most questions identify things that are not known to the questioner. Many of them have answers in the sense that somebody knows the answer. But sometimes research is necessary. It's not really a problem.
I have more difficulty with the idea that there are things that we cannot know. In some cases, it is just a question of technology. Discovering the speed of light may be an example. Seeing what's on the far side of the moon is another.
But I do have a problem with the idea that there are things that we cannot know in some way that is not just a technological issue. Ex hypothesi, if we knew of some such thing, it would be something we knew.
You asked, I answered. You could have just said thanks.
Ill end with this: an invitation to the dreaded Cartesian theater in your critique of my perspective. It is self-defeating, systemic nonsense, to conflate the thing with a necessary condition for it.
Metaphysician UndercoverNovember 17, 2025 at 12:57#10253960 likes
You asked, I answered. You could have just said thanks.
Ill end with this: an invitation to the dreaded Cartesian theater in your critique of my perspective. It is self-defeating, systemic nonsense, to conflate the thing with a necessary condition for it.
I didn't see anything to thank you for. But since you seem to be inviting me to critique your perspective, I will.
The substance of your reply, I see as based on incorrect assumptions which make your perspective impossible to understand.
That is the following:
It is impossible not to know whether the relation of conceptions or of judgements accord with each other, for in either there is contradiction with experience if they do not. It is not given by that knowledge the cause of such discord, only that there resides no truth in it.
It's fundamentally wrong, to say that it's impossible not to know whether a relation is a relation of accordance. More often than not, we do not know that. That is because whether or not it is a relation of accordance requires a judgement of that nature.
And, the proposed problem of "contradiction with experience" does not support that basic premise, because this phrase makes no sense. What could "contradiction with experience" even mean? What is experienced must be put into words, before anything can contradict this. So that would not be contradiction with experience, but contradiction with the description of what was experienced.
Then you mention the cause of discord, but causation is irrelevant here.
Further, you conclude with a statement about "possible cognitions". But we were talking about actual judgements or actual cognitions, and neither one of us provided any principles to establish a relation between actual and possible judgements/cognitions. You simply assumed another meaningless, nonsense principle, "the sum of all possible cognitions is incomplete".
It's nonsense because "possible cognitions", as individual items which could be counted, summed, doesn't make any sense in itself. To count them requires that they be cognized. Therefore the sum would be a sum of actual cognitions. A sum of possible cognitions is nonsensical, due to that impossibility.
So youre saying, because how I represent my perspective, insofar as it is at least non-sensical or at most just plain wrong, I couldnt possibly agree with you that all truths are known?
WTF, man. You shoulda just left it at thanks, and gone your merry way.
Comments (134)
We know for a fact there are things we do not, and perhaps cannot, currently experience that we will be able to sometime in the future. I dont think thats what youre talking about.
If, instead, you were talking about aspects of reality that we will never have access to, even in theory, then the question is meaningless. Or maybe metaphysics.
OK, pretend I'm a well-meaning philosophical novice, and explain to me, as simply as you can, why the question is meaningless. It looks to me as if it's referring to aspects of reality that humans can't access; there may be none we can ever know of, making the question unanswerable, but why is it meaningless?
I didnt say it was meaningless. I said it was meaningless or metaphysics. Metaphysics doesnt have to be true or false. As a matter of fact, as I understand it, it cant be. Something that is metaphysical becomes meaningless when there is no possible use for it. I dont classify making people say golly geewhilikers as useful.
:confused: (e.g. north of the North Pole)
You don't dream? How do we know dreams are really just our mind "attempting to work out" problems and conundrums even in unconsciousness like the prevailing theory claims? Sure, it can be measured with an EEG, but all that proves is the mind is being stimulated by activity, not that the activity is a contained system.
I take this as a fun thread, which is refreshing every now and then. Conversely, however, how do we know there isn't a horrible swamp monster under our bed at all times that goes away once we look under it? We don't, now do we? Not really. Like the prevailing sentiment of the replies thus far suggests, it seems there are much more "relevant" affairs and states of matter to tend to. But never let someone tell you what and what not (or how) to think.
Identity is knowledge. You likely thought you knew all there was to know at six years old. Your entire set of knowledge and view of the world likely (or at least should have) changed significantly from then by age 12. As it did in comparison to when you became 18. And then again at 21. And 30. And so on and so on. Effectively, we become a new person with a new understanding of reality (effectively, a new reality altogether) every time we learn something. Can this not be said and argued as fact?
But surely the statement, "There is a reality that humans can't experience" is either true or false, isn't it? I still don't see the leap from "unanswerable" to either "meaningless" or "neither true nor false."
@T Clarks mottoIf there is no way of knowing whether a statement is true or false, even in theory, then its either metaphysics or meaningless.
If you ask any more questions, Im going to give you my prerecorded RG Collingwood metaphysics lecture, which youve probably heard before.
Because if it would be something than it would literally be 'some thing', meaning a thing we can identify. Something beyond our reality is exactly that, beyond our reality and then it would not be recognizable as something for us. The speculation therefore is idle. Of course there may well be a lot of things that are not part of our reality yet, just like iron was beyond the reality of the people in the stone age. At such a point though, it is not 'not part of our reality per se', but 'not yet part of our reality'.
Does your question only assume we know something that is inside our reality? You drew a line in reality and said we are in reality over hear, and over there is beyond our reality. You also only mentioned how we cant know anything beyond our reality. This implying we can know reality, but only know the reality that is not beyond.
So is your issue here merely a version of the Kantian phenomenal/noumenal distinction? Is it essentially epistemological about knowing, or is it getting ant something metaphysical or ontological about the nature of reality?
Aaaaaa! :wink:
Quoting T Clark
OK, no more questions, just pointing out that your motto, while no doubt useful, isn't likely to convince someone who hasn't already adopted it as a motto. (The question I would have asked is, Why does the lack of a definitive answer drain the meaning from a question? But I won't!) (Also, if I understand you, it's not really a matter of "either metaphysics or meaningless." You're saying that metaphysics doesn't have to be true or false. But the statement in question does have to be. Ergo, it's not metaphysics. Ergo, it's meaningless. But see my [unasked!] previous question -- where did the meaning go away to? It seemed perfectly meaningful when it was posed.)
"How do we know that Frodo was on the balcony with a torch as described by Cicero in his testimony?"
The request to confirm what cannot be reported upon is a diving board extended over an empty pool.
I really wasnt trying to convince anyone, I guess I was just pointing out that we were headed off into a more complicated discussion which is probably outside the intended scope of this thread.
Quoting J
What value, meaning, is there in a question that cant be answered, even in theory? What do you do with it? What does it teach you? What implications, consequences does it have? How do I use the OPs opening question?
Quoting an-salad
Do something with that. Show me what value it has. Lets go further than that. Well assume there is something beyond the reality we can experience that is not accessible and never will be. How does that change anything?
These are the kinds of questions that make philosophy look ridiculous. I guess thats why they bother me so much.
This, me thinks, is the arbitrarily-placed, obsequious stipulation that when removed makes the entire topic just a tad bit more open to conversation, no? :smile:
No.
:up:
When it strikes back.
An OP can't be clickbait; only a thread title can be, eager beavers.
Because reality is what there is.
To posit something "beyond reality" is to posit more of what there is. It is to extend reality.
This is why the extent of our language is the extent of our world.
Hopefully, replacing "limit" with "extent" will head off some of the misplaced criticism of that phrase.
The other mistake here is to equate what we experience with what is real, and so to conflate "How do we know there isnt anything beyond our experience" with "How do we know there isnt anything beyond our reality".
"Beyond reality" is not a region; it is a grammatical error.
I know what you mean, but I don't think @an-salad is defining it that way. They're making a distinction between "our reality" and "reality = our reality + whatever else there might be". The last thing we need is a debate on how to use the term "reality"! :smile: Using the word in the way an-salad uses it, wouldn't you agree that the question is a sensible one? And if you'd rather not use "reality" in the more restricted way an-salad means, we can come up with a different term, it doesn't matter.
Maybe put the question this way: Could there be anything that humans will never be able to know or experience?
Wow... I find that more ... idealist than I would ever dare to be ... :wink:
Not that we know of.
:wink:
How rude. :wink:
The set of true sentences is never complete, if that helps. I suspect that is what and are trying to capture - that there is always more to be said.
This is unexpectedly profound, perhaps that was your intent, perhaps not. For the average person, even those who claim to have found the charms of love or who otherwise remain placated by the juvenile pleasures life has to offer (wealth, physicality ie. "the flesh" or "pleasure", feeling of esteem and respect from strangers, hollow as these things are, they remain the sole driving force behind most of life's actions and ambitions, and of course, naturally, most of life's suffering) all have the same thing in common. We inevitably want more. No, we delude ourselves, often passively with empty gratitude shared in public (ie. "I'm so grateful, I couldn't ask for more") so as to sell an image to an ultimately uncaring world. But this inevitability manifests in "mid life crises", peculiar hobbies, marital strife, microaggressions, and more if left unexamined and unaddressed. Not to mention those who have yet to find peace and purpose.
Regardless of our status in lifeperceived, real, deluded or anything in betweenwe all have one sobering dynamic in common. We all hunger and thirst. Both physically and of course symbolically, for that which we do not have, and even that which we do have. This is clear as day and does not require any sort of explanation for someone living in abject poverty or afflicted with a debilitating condition or ailment, naturally. But what of an upperclassman with everything the average man (or woman) reasonably strives for in life? Stable, high-paying job, big house, loving partner, beautiful family, good friends, respect from his or her peers, an abundance of wealth (including time)and above allthat ever so elusive feeling of true peace at the very last moments of one's day to be followed by true purpose and drive at the start of the following, only to repeat indefinitely until the last of one's days. What of that man? Is he simply deluded? Or are those who compare his life and status to imprisonment merely jealous and disappointed with their own (projection, perhaps)? Surely this must be the only relevant dynamic (a binary "one or the other") in relation to the aforementioned questions posed. Mustn't it?
Surely he (and anyone else with half a mind) would never attempt to equate such a charmed and privileged existence to that of a "prison", would they? No, not in a million years. Or so it seems. One argumentand not a particularly good one (without the right biases in my opinion)would be to start by taking a page from the stereotypical "anti-materialism" playbook. Along the lines of "one doesn't own possessions, one's possessions own the person, requiring constant and daily vigilance and occasional villainy to ensure one continues from one day to the next living in the manner in which one has become accustomed, all the while knowing, deep down, he would be not only hopelessly lost but simply destroyed if he were to lose any one of these things many men live life without, for even the slave with golden shackles undoubtedly remains but a slave." No, it's not particularly great, but it has merit given the right context.
I notice you go one further by saying all existence is a prison, so even an enlightened anti-materialist who has given up all worldly desire is still "imprisoned" due to him being conscious of himself. No different than a historical wealthy monarch in charge of vast swathes of lands, armies, and treasure. This would seem to betray an almost "antinatalist" or "anti-human" sort of world view, along the lines of "all life is bad and the less of it, the better." Not a very popular position to hold, quite dangerous even, yet the philosophical validity is not lost entirely.
The brevity (or simplicity) or your remarks, while profound, do leave much to interpretation. "All of existence" is a very broad term. Perhaps a bit broader than one initially realizes. Logically speaking, if "all of existence" is a prison, that would mean, the only thing beyond "existence" and "not a prison" would be... non-existence? This makes your remark astonishingly less profound, or at the very least, less vast in terms of philosophical context. There would seem to be two possible dynamics that can follow from that point. A sort of spiritual or metaphysical reality that transcends (has existed before and will exist after) the life and death of the body. Or, as mentioned previously, a sort of, in my view rather myopic, "anti-life" or "antinatalist" view of the world.
Either of which are validif not somewhat tired and largely titularpositions to hold, sure. Life, particularly the majority of human existence before the modern age of science and technology that largely alleviated the prevalence and tenacity of human suffering, is seemingly skewed in disproportionate favor of opportunity of things like pain, injury, illness, suffering, death, etc. Simply put, there's more things that can go wrong than go right as far as the human experience goes in the context of existence as we know and define it. But what of it? Where do you make the leap from "I think, therefore I am" to "I think, therefore I am not?" Was this intended or merely an adverse side affect? :chin:
But - we can't know much - if anything, about it.
But the fact that we don't know of it could hardly demonstrate that it's impossible.
Quoting Banno
I think this is true, and I'd go further: We have no warrant for believing that "what can be said" is a perfect match for "what can be said by humans." It's a big universe out there . . .
:fire:
Quoting Banno
Assuming the alien got here by traveling faster than the speed of light in some contraption (an impossibility given the physics we know of) theres some good reason to presume some form of communication might be attempted. In line with how we teach dogs and, to lesser extents, cats to understand us via the things we say. Yes, all they hear are meaningful grunts, but theyre still meaningful to them as far as communication goes.
Then again, what idiot believes him/herself capable of linguistically communicating complex thoughts to lesser beings of comparatively minuscule intelligence? Like, anyone earnestly trying to communicate the laws of physics or the aesthetics of a Rembrandt to an ant, dog, etc., is bound to be missing some marbles (and not the non-human animal for not understanding). Given the greater intelligence of the alien, they might want to communicate complex thoughts to us telepathically, or via some other weird manner, but not in the language they themselves speak. Otherwise, theyd be missing marbles (yes, this is conceivable: we all know that the greater the intelligence, the greater the likelihood and intensities of possible insanity).
Yup, my deep thought of the day.
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The smiles youll give/and the tears youll cry/and all you touch/and all you see/is all your life will ever be -- lyrics from Breathe by Pink Floyd
We cannot even speculate about what we cannot ever comprehend. This is basically Kantian Noumena (a term which defies itself!). Obvious, but confusing if you get hold of the wrong end of it.
Quoting Banno
Are we to understand you reject the Big Bang hypothesis, then? What theory as to the origins of this universe might you favor, pray tell? :smile:
...and this and the rest is comprehensible - since you are here comprehending it.
Quoting Outlander
What?
Why would you suppose that? Do you think the big bang is beyond comprehension?
:angry:
My implication was, based on said theory, there was a point before what is commonly referred to as "the universe." A point (no pun intended) where "reality" or "all there is" was substantially different than what it is currently. So much so it can barely even be discussed and remains but a humble, albeit generally-accepted theorem.
If, hypothetically, one could place themself, as they are, prior to the "Big Bang", everything we know now, the entire Universe as we know it, would, in theory, be "outside" or "beyond" reality. Wouldn't it? It didn't exist at that point. Not in any conceivable or fathomable form. Not really. No different than saying consciousness existed before intelligent beings came about.
The current universe would be "beyond reality" at the time prior to the Big Bang. Just as consciousness would be "beyond reality" prior to the first intelligent being. Is this not correct?
Quoting I like sushi
Even if that's (more or less) true, how do these follow?:
We can only experience what we experience; therefore there is nothing else.
We can discover only what is available to us via experience; therefore there is nothing else to discover.
That is all there is for us; therefore that is all there is.
We cannot even speculate about what we cannot ever comprehend; therefore, there is nothing we cannot speculate about or comprehend.
I think you made a mistake there.
I meant all of the "therefores" to be mistakes, trying to show that they don't follow from the initial statements. For this one, the idea is that we can't speculate about anything we can't comprehend, which is quite true. But why would that mean that what we can speculate about and comprehend is all there is?
Thanks. Im glad to hear that what I said was comprehensible, if only to me. :grin: :wink: But then, so too is comprehensible the notion that there is yet more to discover and understand than humanity, and any individual within. has to date discovered and understood. And that some of these yet to be made discoveries and understandings might require new terminology so as to be properly linguistically communicated between us humans. (Im with on this one.)
That said, what you mentioned about it only being an extension of reality, rather than it being outside of reality, I find very valid.
Indeed - notice that my objection is to the way the issue is phrased. As "there is stuff beyond our reality" when it should be "there is stuff that is true but unknown". (It's actually positing realism, or at least showing up some of the limitations of idealism.)
Quoting Banno
Yes, I think we're all in accord that the culprit here is the word "reality," no surprise. "Stuff we can know as humans" and "all the stuff that can be known" are fine with me instead, as long as the two aren't supposed to mean the same thing.
(All sorts of implications here, making it an interesting area of logic. Like that we can write down the set of all the integers in a finite set of words - I just did; but by stepping outside the rules for writing down the integers and using sets instead.)
Again, the payoff is that there is always more to be said.
Peirce distinguishes reality and existence. For Peirce the real is that which is what it is independent of what any one person or definite group of people may think it is. It is the object of the final opinion of the indefinite community of investigators. But note this does not refer to material objects as such, as for example the law of conservation of energy is real, because its action is independent of what any one person or group thinks about it. It would hold true even if all humans vanished. It is a stable, general pattern or "habit" of the universe (although personally, I believe that the fact that human intelligence is alone capable of grasping such principles is itself metaphysically significant.)
Existence (or Actuality) refers to the primitive dyadic fact of an object reacting against or related to something else. It corresponds to Peirce's category of Secondness (Action/Fact/Brute Force).
Scope: Existence is limited to particular, individual, spatio-temporal facts, occurrences, and things that are actually here and now, having a brute impact on us or on other things. What is real extends far beyond that.
For Peirce, something can be real without existing (e.g., a universal law or a potential quality), but anything that exists is also real. The existing things are just the particular instances where the real generalities (laws and habits) are manifested in brute, immediate interaction.
I find the reality of potentialities or possibilities are particularly interesting in this respect. There are real possibilities, such as the fact that one out of 12 horses will win a race tomorrow, and impossibilities, such as that it might be won by some animal other than a horse. Some possibilities or potentialities are real, but others are not. A range of possibilities may be impossible to determine. The Schrodinger equation in physics is basically a strictly-formulated range of possible outcomes.
Being is not something specifically addressed in Peirce's lexicon in the same sense that it is in (for example) philosophical theology or 20thc existentialism. A large topic in its own right, but I would just observe the fact that we ourselves are beings (rather than existents or objects) is a clue to the nature of any enquiry into the nature of being, insofar as we ourselves are part of what we are seeking to understand.
Right. Presuming that the human species doesnt bring about its own extinction (the pressing of a few red buttons could be sufficient for this to occur), then theres bound to someday be a future species of life that evolves from that of the human species (no transhumanism required). Such that as regards intelligence relative to this future species we might be just as modern day chimps are relative to us. Their more refined conceptualizations and understandings then being out of reach to the human species not only in practice but also in principle.
Otherwise, there will always be something of reality which dwells beyond our own individually unique umwelt, this just as much as our collectively shared umwelt(s). This since no one individual umwelt can of itself be omniscient as regards all aspects of reality in general.
If I read you right, I can only address the issue by pointing back to newly coined English terms that express complex enough concepts in manners that typically would otherwise require, at minimum, an entire sentence to properly express, and some requiring vast bodies of English language to so do: a meme (noun), copesetic (adjective), and words imported into English from other languages, such as the Germanic umwelt and zeitgeist. Devoid of at least some of these newly minted English terms, the concepts they convey could not be succinctly conveyed and manipulated within thoughts.
Then, so too will occur for concepts that are out of reach for the human species, as per my most recent reply to J on this thread. Language is reducible to semantics and the signs used to convey and manipulate these. So, I via reasons such as these find grounds to uphold that not everything which is an aspect of that which is can be currently said by us humans. Heres but one example:
Suppose that in ontological fact time is neither linear nor recurring (i.e., circular, as in Nietzsches and others eternal return) but, instead, is a conflux of both that thereby amounts to neither. Not only would this require volumes to properly express in validly justified coherent manners (philosophically to not mention empirically) but, furthermore, the entire notion could not be pragmatically, succinctly, communicated and manipulated in thoughts devoid of an accordant term for this metaphysical understanding of time a term which currently cannot be said for it does not yet (to the best of my knowledge) exist.
Now consider a vast spectrum of terms we've never heard of each with its own deep enough conceptual meanings all being stringed together in grammatically correct sentences so as to convey and manipulate concepts. These thoughts we, at the very least at present, have no access to and cannot express in words that we ourselves have at our disposal.
I grant that reality, existence, and being overlap while having different referents. But, finding little to no use for Pierces tripartite system of firstness/secondness/thirdness myself, I dont subscribe to the definitions youve provided.
Following common speech and understandings, I deem reality to consist of what is real, with real being synonymous to actual (and with real and actual sharing a common Latin root). And youre right: when so conceived, actual/real potentials (in contrast to unreal and hence impossible potentials) and the like get very interesting, and at times frustrating, to further enquire into.
Existence, as per its etymology, I then find consists of those aspects of reality which in any way, manner, or form stand out to us as conscious observers: thoughts thereby exist, just as much as rocks do. We as conscious observes, though an aspect of reality at large (for we as conscious observers are indeed actual, hence real), however do not exist, not in this formal means of understanding the term, for we dont stand out to ourselves, not even conceptually via the concepts that do exist for us. As another example of common speech, think of Tillich's notions regarding the existence of God, such that to affirm the existence of God is to deny the actuality/reality of God. Were existence to be synonymous to actuality, this notion could not be properly conveyed via the terms used.
Being, on the other hand, at core to me specifies all that in any conceivable way in fact is (and is hence real) this to include was and will be, though how so will be contingent on metaphysics adopted. Being, though, gets tricky in certain metaphysics wherein it is not synonymous to reality, this on account of a division between what in fact is real in an ultimate sense and what in fact is illusory in an ultimate sense of reality (e.g., the maya of Indian religions ). Which then chimes with the English understanding of beings being sentience-endowed, unlike anything else which is within reality at large (reality at large consisting of both maya and that which is not maya).
I am curious if you find substantial reason to prefer Peirce's account of "real" and "existing" over those I've just presented, this given common speech understandings of the two terms.
In addition to 'res potentia', we also have to consider the reality of abstractions, such as the natural numbers. Here my sympathies lie with Platonism, although much of the debate around 'platonism in philosophy of math' is abstruse. But I take the point in the SEP article on same, that:
I find the 'this would be an important discovery' unintentially ironic, as according to many, this was already evident to the ancient Greeks and probably the ancient Egyptians. But, in any case, the whole reason that this is such a controversial topic is straightforward: if number is real but not material, then it undercuts philosophical materialism and a lot of empiricist philosophy:
Me, I'd take the mile.
Do you disagree?
Yes. But the challenge is to explain exactly what the word "reality" is guilty of - or, better, what we are guilty of when we misuse the word "reality", if it is possible to misuse something that we have created. (I mean the word. not the reality.)
"Reality" is an example of the common philosophical mistake of over-generalizing, or perhaps better, of decontextualizing a perfectly useful word, which then becomes virtually useless. What counts as "real" and "unreal" depends on the context, which is specified when you complete a sentence and specify what the context is. The idea that you can lump everything real into one group and everything unreal into another group is just wrong. Things are often unreal under one description and perfectly real under another. Similarly, what existence depends on what kind of thing you are thinking of. Superman exists - as a character in comic books, but not as someone you might meet at a bus stop.
Quoting Banno
Yes. It is often possible to do something impossible by changing the rules. I'm not sure that proves anything - except that we wrote the rules in the first place. So we can change the rules or invent new ones any time we want to. Even mathematicians have been known to indulge in that - especially where infinity is concerned. But I don't think that really undermines the point you originally made.
Quoting Wayfarer
That's all very neat and tidy. But I don't think it reflects the complexity of the relationship between reality and existence. On the contrary, it looks like reading in a real distinction - between laws and generalities on one hand and the particular and individual on the other - into the difference between real things and things that exist. I think it is perfectly reasonable to say that there is a natural law about conservation of energy. If that's true, the law exists. Superman is a well-known comic-book character, but everyone knows that he is a fictional character and so not a real person.
Quoting javra
Perhaps so. But each umwelt is a part of the same reality in general, isn't it?
Quoting javra
Fair enough. Our languages, natural and artificial, are not closed. There is plenty of room for new concepts. I don't see a problem.
BTW - isn't the existing theory of quantum physics an example of what you are talking about? Something that is both a wave and a particle?
Quoting javra
Well, you are welcome to define a new use for "exists", but if it means that we, - you and I - do not exist, I think you might find it rather difficult to sell.
Quoting Wayfarer
I agree that there is a neglected distinction between "real" and "existent". But I don't think Peirce remotely captures it.
Quoting Wayfarer
I agree with that. The problem with platonism is not so much about the reality of abstract numbers and shapes but the denial of the reality of physical objects. Both exist and are real; but they are different knds of object, that's all.
`
Of course.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yea, neither do I.
Quoting Ludwig V
No. Just keeping things philosophical.
Quoting Ludwig V
That's not what I said, is it? You and I are selves, and selves do stand out ... this to the consciousness embedded in each which, as consciousness, does not. One does not see "consciousness" in the mirror but only one's own physiological self.
Nicely summarized. I might question whether the word was ever "perfectly useful," but other than that, you've said it well.
Nabokov said, "'Reality' is the one word that should always appear in quotation marks." He meant pretty much what you mean here. We could, for instance, create "Peirce-marks" to indicate when the word is being used as Peirce defined it.
Curious if you disagree with this: In commonsense language, then, Superman, the comic-book character, exists (in our culture) but is not real.
Theres actually a vast literature on whether or in what sense scientific laws exist, whether theyre laws etc.
If you were to somehowright nowgo back in time to a few moments before the Big Bangwith no idea that it was about to create what we call "the known Universe"yet retain your knowledge of the known Universe, such knowledge would technically be "beyond reality" since the known Universe hasn't been created at that point.
The "known Universe" doesn't exist in reality at that point in time, other than in your head. Yet a few moments laterunbeknownst to youit would. This is an explicit example (albeit hypothetical and per current scientific knowledge, currently impossible) of not only a valid posit of something "beyond reality" but a (theoretically) factual occurrence of reality being extended to something it was not previously.
Trivially, maybe "Big Bangs" happen all the time (in an "eternal" sense or context of frequency/occurrence) and another might happen in the future, removing all traces of the current Universe (this one) in favor of a new Universe that currently does not exist in any form (which technically, may have been what happened and may very well be the origins of this Universe, one simply does not know). Run it through ChatGPT if for whatever reason I'm not communicating to you sufficiently.
I'm basically saying there was a time this Universe (rather everything that we consider part of this Universe) didn't exist in any sort of recognizable form like it is now (ie. "pre-Big Bang" reality). At that time, talking about the Universe would be referring to something "beyond reality", yet would eventually become reality. It's the only example I got, but one example is all it takes to turn something from "100% absolute every single time" to "well, in most cases..." Which is a crucial distinction in philosophy (and basically anything else).
I mention consciousness arising from simplex organisms in case you say something like "but this Universe DID always exist, it was just all inside of the Singularity!", which I would respond by saying "that would be like saying consciousness always existed inside the first single-celled organism it just 'became active' once organisms evolved highly-functioning brains and resulting intelligence", which would be patently false.
There's no such time. Time came into existence along with the universe; the Big Bang is not an event in time but a boundary of time.
This sort of speculative physics makes for poor threads.
But time is a conceptual scheme embedded in our total belief network, hence asking about time before time is a misuse of those concepts, a confusion generated by stretching the scheme beyond its application to the worlds causal structure. The physics describes causal structure; those structures fix what makes sense to call earlier or later. If the causal structure doesnt extend, neither does the temporal vocabulary.
What's south of the South Pole?
Maybe. There's a theory that we're in a black hole, which is inside a bigger universe. Instead of one Big Bang, there are Big Bounces that spawn universes. So our universe is in a bigger one, and our's is spawning more universes, which we detect as black holes.
The philosophical import being that we really don't know.
Outside of GR, anything goes, so again the idea of a time outside the universe is undefined.
Either way, such speculation is a waste of time.
That's not true. The GR math doesn't say anything about a singularity. The idea of a singularity is just a product extrapolation.
So the black hole cosmology theory isn't outside GR.
@SophistiCat. is that correct?
Quoting Banno
Speculative physicists don't seem to think so.
Yeah it is - it's an extension of GR to another universe.
I'll leave you to it. :roll:
I think you meant "Wow. I read the article you posted, and that's an amazing possibility. Thanks for sharing."
You're welcome.
Here, I want to come back to the reality of intelligibles. Scientific principles, mathematical relations, and the natural numbers are not dependent on any individual mind, yet they can only be grasped by a mind. That is the sense in which I hold they are real (in the noumenal or intelligible sense) but not existent (in the phenomenal, spatiotemporal sense. This is nearer to the pre-Kantian sense of 'noumenal', which Kant adapted, and changed, for his own purposes.)
This isnt meant as a full metaphysical system, but as an heuristic:
* existent = that which appears in space, time, and causal relations; what can be encountered as a phenomenon
* real = that which has objective validity or logical necessity, but is not a physical particular
This is very close to Peirces schema: laws, generalities, and mathematical structures are real even though they do not exist as phenomena of Secondness. On those grounds, I dont think reality can be collapsed into existence without erasing the ontological standing of intelligibles altogether.
Furthermore language depends on such abstractions. Whenever we use the terms same as, equal to, different from, less than, and so on, were making use of our capacity for rational abstraction, without the requirement of being aware of doing so. This capacity is anticipated by a discussion in Platos Phaedo called The Argument from Equality. In it, Socrates argues that in order to judge the equal length of two like objects two sticks, say, or two rocks we must already have the idea of equals present in our minds, otherwise we wouldnt know how to go about comparing them; we must already have the idea of equals. And this idea must be innate, he says. It cant be acquired by mere experience, but must have been present at birth.
I dont know if its necessary for us to accept the implied belief in the incarnation of the soul to make sense of the claim: the fact that its innate is what is at issue. It is the innate capacity which provides us the ability to make such judgements, which we as rational creatures do effortlessly. It is just this kind of innate capabiiity which empiricism tends to deprecate (subject of Steve Pinker's book The Blank Slate).
On a larger scale, the same kind of capacities of abstraction are brought to bear on formulating the mathematical bases of theoretical physics. Science sees the Universe through such mathematical hypotheses, which provide the indispensable framework for making judgements (in accordance with the oft-quoted Galilean expression that the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics).
Thus intellectual abstractions, the grasp of abstract relations and qualities, are quite literally the ligatures of reason they are what binds rational conceptions together to form coherent ideas.
You did ask me once what I meant by that expression.
Huh. Interesting. I was not focally aware of that. There's no semi-equivalent (I get it's not a matter of simple terminology or verbatim but a truly transcendental concept altogethersomewhat)? There's no hypothetical future where humans have mastered time travel (and beyond?) that any matter currently in existence can be somehow "placed" or otherwise "end up" at such a point? Why is that? (It's honestly fascinating to ponder, is all)
Quoting Banno
Perhaps. That said, I don't need to remind anyone here that all generally-accepted theories as well as most if not all scientific facts began as mere speculation. I fail to see an intrinsic evil in the practice per se, though I can see how it can be a bit disfavored and come off as irrelevant.
Either way, I appreciate the newfound knowledge. :smile:
Schopenhauer says time began with the first eye opening.
These guys are idealists masquerading as physicalists. They just want to shut down the debate and confine the physical material to their idealism. If they were true physicalists they would have brought the Many Worlds Theory to the table by now, but they havent.
The simplest answer to the OP is we dont know what else there is. There might be all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff, that we cant see. We just cant see it.
This can then be elaborated by saying we know that there is a lot we dont know about the world we find ourselves in. So we know that we dont know things about things that we [B] can[/B] see. Therefore we are not in a position to say, or know anything about what we cant see. So we cant say what else isnt there, just like we cant give a full account of what we know is there.
Perhaps you are right. Quantum physics always seem to shroud everything in a fog, anyway.
Quoting javra
I may well have misunderstood you.
Quoting javra
I find myself floundering here. There is a regrettable tendency to think of anyone's self - including one's own - as if it were an object of some sort. If it is, it is remarkably elusive for something that is omni-present in one's life and experience. What's worse, is that one tends to find oneself positing more than one - a physiological self, as opposed to various others; none of these can possibly be one's true self - whatever that means. In addition, while I can supply some sort of (metaphorical) meaning to "stand out" as a description of what existent objects do, I can't grasp a meaning clear enough to be sure that I'm making the right sense of what you are saying. I am confused by the fact that if something "stands out" in my experience, I find that it does so against a background, which also exists.
Quoting J
Perhaps. "perfectly" was really a rhetorical flourish, meant to underline that there are uses of "real" and of "reality" that are not problematic in the way that this peculiar, specifically philosophical, use, is.
Quoting J
Well, yes, "P-real" could become a (real) word. There would be a swarm of other, similar, words. It would be interesting to see which of them would survive for, say, ten years. Definitions can only work if there is a consensus about how the term is to be used. But there is no such consensus in philosophy about "exists", so there is no sound basis for evaluating any definition. I'm also deeply suspicious of any definition that sets out to define a single word. (Dictionaries nowadays recognize the relationships of a given word to others.)
Quoting javra
I think that's right. But it's perhaps worth adding that he is a real comic-book character, just not a real person. As a cautious generalization, I would say that the problem with "real" is that things are often real under one description and unreal under another. "Exists" seems to be binary (unless you are Meinong).
Quoting Banno
I agree with you. But see below.
Quoting frank
That may be because they are working in a context that gives some traction to discussion and argument. On the other hand, it may be that that kind of response is not really appropriate. The speculation may be fun or exciting or something. Truth is, perhaps, only relevant when the speculation gets tied down into a
critical framework. It may or may not be true that Kekule came up with the carbon ring after he had a dream, which then gave him the idea of the benzene ring, which sent him into the laboratory. But it illustrates the point. No-one is concluding that dreams are a reliable source of scientific hypotheses.
The transition may involve a high casualty rate and a good deal of fruitless discussion. Is it worth it? I don't know.
Quoting Outlander
I can see your point. But I think it is important to recognize that the fascination is not the same thing as truth. If you don't, you'll find yourself believing in dragons and world conspiracies. "What if.." can be great fun. But it doesn't always play into truth and falsity. (Who cares that Superman is impossible? We all understand the context and can enjoy the stories, but let's not get carried away into political philosophy.)
Quoting Wayfarer
Well, they are not phenomenal or spatiotemporal objects. But why does that mean they don't exist? Or, why do you restrict existence to such objects?
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, but Plato is wrong to think that the idea of equality must be innate. We learn how to measure things and so when things are the same length or weight - and even when there are two sticks or rocks. True, we are born with the capacity to learn, but that's not the same thing.
Quoting Punshhh
Yes. That seems straightforward and right to me. It also seems to me that the difficulties arise only when we insist on trying to drag "reality" and "existence" and a metaphorical use of "beyond" into it.
If I ask you to point to the number 7, what would you actually point to? At most, you could indicate a tokena mark on paper, a glyph on a screen, or the word seven. But the number itself is not any of these tokens. We both understand 7 because we can perform the intellectual act of counting and grasping numerical relations. The token is a symbol, not the referent, which is a numerical value.
This is why I say that numbers, logical principles, and laws of nature are intelligible rather than phenomenal. They are not given in sensation the way tables, colours, or sounds are. You dont encounter the number 7 in space and time; you grasp it by a capacity of the intellect. That makes them real, but not existent in the empirical sense.
Of course, we say colloquially that the number 7 exists, and I wouldn't take issue with that. But this is a philosophical distinction and in this context such distinctions are significant.
I'm not making arbitrary distinctions - Im distinguishing two modes of existence. Phenomenal things exist as objects of sense. Intelligible things are real insofar as they can be grasped by a rational intellect, but they are not phenomena, in the way that sense objects are.
This distinction between phenomenal and intelligible objects isnt something Ive invented; its a well-established feature of the classical philosophical tradition. From Plato and Aristotle through the medievals and into early modern rationalism, the difference between what is apprehended by the senses and what is apprehended by the intellect was taken to be fundamental. Its only with the rise of empiricism and the narrowing of existence to what can be observed or measured that this distinction began to fade from view.
Im simply trying to keep both modes of understanding in play, because collapsing everything into the empirical domain obscures the reality of the intelligible structures we rely on in logic, mathematics, and science itself. And it is actually germane to the subject under discussion.
If the set is not complete, then you imply that there are more true sentences which are not in the set. So, do you mean by this, that "the set of true sentences" does not refer to all the true sentences?
But tomorrow isn't here yet.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Maybe. Even in ordinary conversation, it can get vague really quickly. I guess I'd agree that we know how to use "real" in the context of "Simone de Beauvoir was real" vs. "Santa Claus is not real".
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes, it would! Have there been other philosophical definitions which had to compete for survival against competitors using the same term? I feel there must have been, but I can't think of one at the moment. Maybe "logic"?
Quoting Ludwig V
In philosophy, yes, since we lack a reliable means to go and check whether we've got it right. Binomial nomenclature, in contrast, seems a noble and successful task.
Quoting I like sushi
I'm not being stubborn, but I just don't see how it follows. If you said, "Anything beyond is not anything for us," I'd see your point. But why would you assert that "for us" encompasses all there is?
Quoting Punshhh
Who are "these guys"?
Have you read Kant? If you have then refer to what he says about negative and positive noumenon.
Nothing more to say (you can search this very site to find examples of myself and others pointing out this difficult obviousness).
I wouldnt want to name names as I feel cheeky enough saying what I said.
There is a point though, only an idealist, of some kind, would restrict what is to what can be said, or known by a person. Surely by contrast, a physicalist of some kind would allow any of an infinite number of other possibilities and the fact that we cannot observe them directly doesnt preclude their existence.
The idealism question is a little harder. A hardcore Wittgensteinian/Davidsonian position on what we can talk about meaningfully isn't idealist, by my definition. That position raises doubts about going beyond human experience on what I'd call methodological grounds, rather than a skepticism based on some interpretation of Kantian idealism, say.
:100: :up: :up:
:up: :up:
Your replies read like a word game. But the OP is asking about what is, are you confining what is to what can be known by the use of words?
We can't "know" there's more (in the strict sense of "knowlwdge"). But we innately have a sense that there is a world beyond ourselves, and this constitutes a rational basis. Given that we have this belief, it is rational to maintain it unless it is defeated by other facts and valid reasoning. The mere fact that it is possibly false is not a defeater.
Physicalist (philosophical naturalist).
Just a small point. What I "actually" point to is a mark on wall or paper. That mark is a token of the type "7". It is a sign or symbol for the number, which is an abstract object. We often refer to tokens as numbers, but I agree that they are not.
Quoting Wayfarer
I'm surprised you are bothered about the empirical sense of "existent". I'm not, at least if you think that sense is "to be is to be perceived". The issue is whether inferences from what we perceive to things that are not (directly) perceived are allowed.
Quoting Wayfarer
Well, that's true. But it doesn't follow from the fact that intelligible objects are not phenomena that they do not exist.
Quoting Wayfarer
Perhaps so. But even Berkeley, for all his rhetoric, had to concede exceptions. The existence of his own self, other people, and God were all inferred from his perceptions (ideas). Physics and other sciences have no trouble with that - so far as I know. Microscopes, telescopes, dials and meters of all sorts.
I think that our language here leads us in to unnecessary difficulties. At first sight, it seems that "what we perceive" and "what is apprehended by the intellect" are two distinct sets of objects. But perception and intellect do not work separately, in distinct silos. They are both involved in everything. Perception involves understanding and understanding involves perception. It's not an accident that "I see" or "I hear you" can mean "I understand".
Quoting Wayfarer
The awkward thing here is that there is a gap between phenomenal things like sights and sounds, smells and tastes, etc. on one hand and intelligible things like circles and squares and numbers and functions. Ordinary life relies mostly on objects that involve both perception and understanding.
But there are lots of different kinds of object. Do we really need a "mode of existence" for each kind? I don't see that as necessary, though I'm not dogmatic about it.
Quoting J
Santa Claus and Pegasus &c. are a bit atypical. Standard cases are quite clear. Forged money is not real money, but exists; it is real in that it is a copy of real money. A model car is not a real car, but it exists because it is a real model of a car. A fisherman's fly is not a real fly, but it is exists because it is real bait. An actor is not a real policeman, but exists because they are a real person.
The last of these illustrates the peculiarities of fictional characters. Santa Clause is not just not a real person; he exists as a fictional or mythical character, which is to say that he does not exist.
Quoting J
I had the impression that philosophy was a war of all against all all of the time - in a collegial way, of course.
Quoting J
What is binomial nomenclature?
Quoting Punshhh
Of course not. We can observe them indirectly.
Quoting an-salad
We know that there are things we don't know about, because we have questions we cannot answer. We also know that there are things we don't know about because we know that we know things that people in the past didn't know.
Of course none of those things are beyond our reality. Or at least, if they are, they will become part of our reality as soon as we know about them.
Does that help?
And not a valid one. The mark is a symbol. What it represents is a mathematical value, not an object.
Who is "we"?
If you're referring to "mankind" and assuming it's somehow unified and uniform, then you're clearly wrong.
Secondly, there's no need to get all exotic and extraterrestrial. Let's rephrase your question to, "If the reality Tom experiences is the only thing that Tom has experienced, how does Tom know that there isnt anything beyond Tom's reality?"
How about the internal states of Dick and Harry? Are they a reality for Tom? Does Tom care about the about the internal states of Dick and Harry? Does Tom even acknowledge the possibility that the internal states of Dick and Harry might be other than what Tom supposes?
Yes. You are right. My main point, though, was the structure of type and token that enables to say that it is the same symbol in many places and many occasions. Or at least, I thought that was what you meant.
Let's be clear: I'm pointing out that the OP isa a word game.
And "No".
We can be more specific. We can't assess physical theories without doing the maths.
And there is no maths here.
The system, begun by Linnaeus, of identifying creatures by genus and species, e.g., Homo sapiens. I offered it as an example of a single, useful definition that can save everyone a lot of trouble. It has to be agreed to, of course.
Quite so. That gives us some ground to treat the speculative physics that we hear so much about as somewhat different from this game. The speculations are at least candidates for the status of a hypothesis.
But it's not a free-standing game like noughts and crosses or tic-tac-toe. It's an extension of the language-game that's played in everyday language, and it is a puzzle game, not a competition between the players. Solving the puzzle is what it is all about. The solution is to understand the extension and see not only that it can't be played but why it can't be played. (Or, just possibly, to see whether there is a way that it might be playable.)
Quoting J
Of course. I should have understood. However, definitions like that are contextualized in a specialized field where the definition is a stipulation rather than a codification of an existing practice. Another advantage in the context of zoology is that it is possible to nominate a specimen as a reference, to supplement the words and help make decisions about borderline cases. So they are not like the philosophical attempts to define words that already have a use.
It is indeed a part of what I meant! But the additional point is that what is denoted by the symbol is an intellectual act, not a phenomenal existent. And I say that is a real, vital, and largely neglected distinction.
Yes. As you say, very few philosophical terms could undergo such an evolution. It's for that reason, as I've said so often on TPF, that I'd like to see philosophers avoid terms like "reality" whenever possible. Or else put it in Peirce-marks or Kant-marks or Carnap-marks etc. if that's what you mean. :smile:
If I may . . . This is right, and perhaps not so neglected if we see the connection with the many discussions we've had about the status of propositions. The whole point of trying to separate out something called a proposition is to preserve that very distinction. Sentences denote propositions (when they have the appropriate form), not objects or even individual thoughts. Nor are propositions objects in the world, though they may be about objects in the world. At least, that's the standard account. See Rodl though . . .
Well I think it's implicit that we're talking about known reality.
The way I look at it is this: I think hypotheses that we are living in the matrix or whatever are vulnerable to occam's razor. They have no better explanatory power than the hypothesis that I am a Homo sapiens on earth 2025, but posit additional entities.
And I think it's also important to stay within this explantory / hypothesis space. Because sometimes people make the claim that everything around us being a dream is somehow simpler than believing in a gigantic universe. But scale, and physicality, are not complexity. Or you sometimes get allusions to a an idea of a universe being "easier"; both of these claims are baseless and/or irrelevant at this time.
:up: And this ties back to Wittgenstein's statement that the world is all that is the case. He was referring to the insight that the world does not seem to be made of a set of objects, but of objects doing things. That gives us the notion that the world is a set of true propositions.
Yes, there are things we don't know. That is, there are true statements of which we do not have any knowledge. The person that realism should bother most is @Wayfarer, but he has convinced himself that he can have both antirealism and unknown truths.
Name one.
ADDED But propositions are made true by whether the arrangements of objects (crudely) are that way. We need the objects to help make a Wittgensteinian world.
Which I am seeking to leverage to make a point about metaphysics a point which I still dont think is being acknowledged.
:smirk:
No more than your replies are a word game.
The game seems to be, lets insist there isnt anything else (other than our reality), because we dont have the vocabulary to do its ising justice. Meanwhile smuggling in the acknowledgement that there probably is something else (as a nod to the idea that you cant prove a negative).
Hes doing a neat trick whereby the phenomenal has to become intelligible (therefore an intelligible object) before it can be acknowledged.
So its Multiverses all the way down then?
I see your "bothered to read" and raise you Fitch's paradox of knowability.
So yes, you did say something of that kind.
Anti-realism says: every truth must be knowable.
But you also say: there are truths we dont and maybe cant know.
Fitch shows you cant have both.
If there are unknown truths, then not every truth is knowable, which just is the denial of anti-realism.
In a way, I'm fine with the first sentence. My problem is that we seem to hunger for a way of metaphorically pulling everything together under one heading. I just did exactly that with "everything". and that itself reveals the fundamental issue. In normal contexts, the scope of everything is set by the context (and sometimes we talk about "domains" in this context. But here, I'm attempting to use "everything" without a limiting context. We do the same with "reality", "existence", "being", "world", "universe" and "cosmos". The catch is that we can't let go of the expectation that the scope will be limited, and so we undermine our own attempt by positing something that is outside the scope of how we are using the term - a possibility that we set out to exclude.
Your second sentence is very tempting. It turns on the fact that these terms are not synonymous, but are conceptually linked and inter-related. But we don't have a clear grasp of those links and inter-relationship, so that we get lost in them. This second sentence is tempting, but if one asks what "the very same" means (and particularly wonder what the difference is between "same" and "very same"), the meaning suddenly becomes elusive. (I'm skating over the issue how "experience" and "knowledge" relate to the terms in the first sentence, because our idealist tendencies seem to me to explain that.)
Quoting Wayfarer
Does the following explain why you think the distinction is so important? Quoting Wayfarer
I don't want to elide the distinction you are trying to make - though I confess I don't fully understand it. I can attribute meaning to the idea of "phenomenal objects" and to the idea of "intelligible objects". But it does seem to me very important not to let go of the idea that we often understand the things that we perceive and often perceive the things we understand. I think I may be arguing for a third class of objects, which can both be perceived and understood. I hope that makes some sense.
Quoting J
I sympathize and try not to use those terms unnecessarily. But they are so deeply embedded in philosophy, that it seems impossible to not use them - and I can't resist joining in the discussion.
Quoting J
There's another term I would like to avoid.
Quoting Mijin
The trouble is that by referring to "known reality" you open up the possibility of unknown reality. Any limit that you try to set, immediately creates the idea that there is something beyond or in addition to that limit. Wittgenstein tries valiantly to get round that problem in the Tractatus, but ends up with a compromise - "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." - which sits oddly beside "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."
Quoting J
Oh, surely, what he says is stronger than that. "The world is all that is the case." and "The world is the totality of facts, not things." Of course, this is related to the Fregean insistence that words only have meaning in the context of sentences and Wittgenstein's belief that sentences work in virtue of the similarity (identity?) of their structure with the structure of the world.
Quoting Punshhh
Yes, we give with one hand and take back with the other. Berkeley is a spectacular example. He says nothing can exist unperceived and that he does not deny the existence of "any one thing" that common sense believes in. (He reconciles the two by pointing out that God always perceives everything.)
Quoting Punshhh
Yes, that's the price you pay for positing phenomenal and intelligible objects as distinct kinds of objects. The obvious solution is to insist that perception and intelligence deal with the same objects at least sometimes.
Quoting Banno
On a quick look-up, SEP explains the paradox thus:-
I'm not impressed. It seems to follow that at any given time, there can be unknown truths. That these truths may be known at some other time is not particularly interesting.
Fitch's paradox only demonstrates the obvious, that every truth must be known. Since "truth" refers to a relation between propositions and reality, and only intelligent minds can produce this relation through the application of meaning, and the process of knowing, it is very obvious that all truths must be known.
So, what Fitch does, is take a clearly false premise, that there may be a truth which is unknown, and shows how one might produce an absurd conclusion from that false premise. That's common practise in philosophy, it's a way of demonstrating the falsity of the premise, to those who do not grasp the obvious.
The issue with the possibility of truths which we as human beings do not know, involves the assumption of a higher, divine intelligence, like God. If we understand that the human mind is deficient in its capacity to know, and we assume the possibility of an actually existing higher mind with a greater capacity to understand and know, then we accept the possibility of truths which are not known by any human mind, but are known by the higher mind.
I agree, it's open to several interpretations. Consider the first dictum. Is it definitional? That is, should we read it as "'The world' is 'all that is the case'"? Or is it descriptive: "The world is all that is the case"? i.e., there is nothing beyond the world. I favor the first reading, because I find it more provocative.
The same bifurcation of interpretation can be applied to the second dictum.
Quoting Ludwig V
This one also seems to fit with the "definitional" interpretation, where it doesn't appear so odd. The limits of my world are not the limits of the world. I may know that there are more facts, more "things that are the case," without being able to find them or speak about them. A great deal hinges on the question, "What does a limit do?" Does it prevent knowledge that there is more, or only knowledge about whatever that "more" is?
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes. My proposal for reform is quixotic. But at least we can be more conscious of how we use them -- and maybe use them a bit less often.
Quoting Ludwig V
Which one? "Proposition"?
"True" is a judgement. Judgements are only made by intelligent minds in the process called "knowing". Therefore all truths are known.
I agree. As you say, the idea is that the world is made of events and states.
Nope, afaik the quantum vacuum is the ground state of nature.
I certainly agree with that, but Id re-state your premises justifying it.
OK, care to make that re-statement for me? Just so I can understand your perspective on this.
Righto.
The argument is not tensed. It is not based on "Not known now, but could be known later."
It begins with Up(p??Kp), which is not temporally dependent. It is modal. the supposition is the antirealist one that if something is true, it is possible to know it is true. The direct conclusion is that there is no p such that p is true and not known. This follows without reference to any time or duration. There cannot be any unknown truths if every truth is knowable.
If we are to hold that we do not know everything, then there are things we cannot know.
If we do not know everything, then antirealism is not an option.
That this is resisted hereabouts is a bit sad.
True isnt the judgement; it is the relative quality of the judgement;
Judgements are, but not necessarily only, made by rational intellects in the process of understanding;
All truths are known, but not because of either of those.
The necessary condition of empirical truth as such, in general, is the accordance with a cognition with its object, cognition itself being the relation of conceptions to each other in a logical proposition, re: a judgement, or, the relation of judgements to each other, re: a syllogism. It is impossible not to know whether the relation of conceptions or of judgements accord with each other, for in either there is contradiction with experience if they do not. It is not given by that knowledge the cause of such discord, only that there resides no truth in it.
It is not that all true things are known, insofar as the sum of all possible cognitions is incomplete, some of which may be true respecting their objects, but that the criterion of any truth is known, for which the sum of possible cognitions is irrelevant.
Anti-realists don't have to explain how there are unstated statements.
Oh. :grin:
But isn't it the case that whether or not there is "accordance" is itself a judgement? You say that truth is "accordance" but isn't accordance a judgement? That "the cat is on the mat" is in accordance with reality, is a judgement. If you don't think that accordance is a judgement, then maybe you could explain how it could be anything other than a judgement?
Quoting Mww
If there is such a thing as "the criterion of any truth", doesn't this imply that truth is a judgement as to whether the specific criterion is fulfilled?
Yes, that is the only way around it, we are part of God and God sees everything. Therefore there isnt anything that isnt seen.
If this isnt the case, then there must be other things that are not seen, even by an anti-realist. Because there might be more than one anti-realist.
Cool.
Quoting J
Yes. "Sentence" and "statement" are just about acceptable. "Thought" and "judgement" are also very dubious.
Quoting Banno
That wasn't my summary of the argument. I think it may be based on the point that the manifestation of a disposition or capacity is an event, therefore not tenseless.
It begins with Up(p??Kp), which is not temporally dependent. It is modal.[/quote]
You won't be surprised that I don't know modal logic. But I had the impression that if it is possible to know that p, it is also possible to not know that p. So (forgive me that I can't do the formula properly,) the formula should read "For all p (if p is true then it is possible to know that p and possible not to know that p). I doubt that the conclusion would follow from that.
Quoting Banno
That sounds like "If it is possible that it is raining, it is raining." More generally "possible" does not imply "actual".
Quoting Banno
I don't see any problem about holding that we do not know everything.
Probability. A toss of a coin. It may land heads or tails and must land one or the other and we know that. We know the probabilities of each outcome, but we do not know which it will be.
Most questions identify things that are not known to the questioner. Many of them have answers in the sense that somebody knows the answer. But sometimes research is necessary. It's not really a problem.
I have more difficulty with the idea that there are things that we cannot know. In some cases, it is just a question of technology. Discovering the speed of light may be an example. Seeing what's on the far side of the moon is another.
But I do have a problem with the idea that there are things that we cannot know in some way that is not just a technological issue. Ex hypothesi, if we knew of some such thing, it would be something we knew.
No.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No.
You asked, I answered. You could have just said thanks.
Ill end with this: an invitation to the dreaded Cartesian theater in your critique of my perspective. It is self-defeating, systemic nonsense, to conflate the thing with a necessary condition for it.
I didn't see anything to thank you for. But since you seem to be inviting me to critique your perspective, I will.
The substance of your reply, I see as based on incorrect assumptions which make your perspective impossible to understand.
That is the following:
Quoting Mww
It's fundamentally wrong, to say that it's impossible not to know whether a relation is a relation of accordance. More often than not, we do not know that. That is because whether or not it is a relation of accordance requires a judgement of that nature.
And, the proposed problem of "contradiction with experience" does not support that basic premise, because this phrase makes no sense. What could "contradiction with experience" even mean? What is experienced must be put into words, before anything can contradict this. So that would not be contradiction with experience, but contradiction with the description of what was experienced.
Then you mention the cause of discord, but causation is irrelevant here.
Further, you conclude with a statement about "possible cognitions". But we were talking about actual judgements or actual cognitions, and neither one of us provided any principles to establish a relation between actual and possible judgements/cognitions. You simply assumed another meaningless, nonsense principle, "the sum of all possible cognitions is incomplete".
It's nonsense because "possible cognitions", as individual items which could be counted, summed, doesn't make any sense in itself. To count them requires that they be cognized. Therefore the sum would be a sum of actual cognitions. A sum of possible cognitions is nonsensical, due to that impossibility.
So youre saying, because how I represent my perspective, insofar as it is at least non-sensical or at most just plain wrong, I couldnt possibly agree with you that all truths are known?
WTF, man. You shoulda just left it at thanks, and gone your merry way.