How real is reality?

[Deleted]

What exactly is the nature of reality? Is the computer on which I type these words an actual, physical object, occupying real space and with real qualities of length, breadth and extension?

Is the world we perceive with our senses the real world or simply the result of our brain's interpretation of data?

Is the observer-created model of the universe correct?

What do we mean when we say that something is real?

[beth]

May 16, 2010 11:35:43 GMT -5 @mikemarshall said:

What exactly is the nature of reality? Is the computer on which I type these words an actual, physical object, occupying real space and with real qualities of length, breadth and extension?

Is the world we perceive with our senses the real world or simply the result of our brain's interpretation of data?

Is the observer-created model of the universe correct?

What do we mean when we say that something is real?

To get myself on track with this, I went out a moment and consulted Google. These definitions were the first result.

Reality

1) all of your experiences that determine how things appear to you . .

2) the state of being actual or real

3) the state of the world as it really is rather than as you might want it to be (or fear that it is) parenthesis thought, my own

4) the quality possessed by something that is real


Def. #1 is enlightening because it suggests a subjective reality for each of us, based on our experiences and acquired knowledge.

Def. #3 is especially critical because it zeros in on our own role in perceiving what is real.

I'm going to give some thought to the topic and come back when it's settled .

A question for you: Is reality the same as truth, or are you only considering the physical characteristics of the world around us?

. . . or, am I trying to make this more complicated than it needs to be ;D ?

[Deleted]

No, Jen, you are NOT trying to make it over complicated.

(That is more MY department!)

Definition 1 is actually a statement of classic phenomenalism, in other words, it simply takes the position that all we CAN or DO know is the world as it appears to us through sense perception (often called in philosophical jargon 'experience.)

Definition 2 is what us philosophers call a 'trivial truth' because it is 'tautologically true.'

For instance, it is 'true' in the same way that the statement 'a triangle is a three-sided figure' is true, in that its definition admits of no other possible answer. It is true by definition but need not be true of the world outside ourselves, if any such exists.

Definition 3 asserts that there IS a world outside ourselves and from which we are separate though with which we interact.

Definition 4, like Definition 2, is a 'tautological truth.' It is rather as if we were to describe, for instance, a cake as being 'a cake like substance.'

Is reality the same as truth? Yes and no and maybe. ISorry - us philosophers are worse than politicians when it comes to giving a straight answer!)

If you believe in the correspondence theory of truth, you believe that truth consists in the correspondence of facts to reality.

If you believe in the coherence theory of truth, you believe that truth consists in the coherent interaction of everything within a totality.

Reality is a highly complex matter. Some of the greatest thinkers have considered that the material world is nothing more than an illusion.

The 'argument from error' such as the misperception of mirages, blue elephants when we are drunk, the hallucinations of drug users and so on is relatively familiar.

Dreams are another difficult area, particularly when lucid dreams are involved.

The 'common sense' view, often described as 'naive realism,' simply asserts that things ARE as they appear and that there is no problem of error. Few serious thinkers still believe that.

I will go into the alternative viewpoints tomorrow!

[beth]

Thanks, Mike. Looking forward to tomorrow's installment.

[Erasmus]

It all depends what you mean by real and exist doesn't it/ That's where the fun starts with certain people who insist on a world of phenomena that they call objective entirely described by our measurement - which is purely subjective. According to the Copenhagen Agreement which Schroedinger and Einstein did not like one little bit, we can't really know (or measure) what is there at or more fundamental than the quantum level, so have to restrict ourselves to defining real in terms of what we can measure: if we measure a particle then it is and if we measure a wave then it is a wave and if one measures one speed and another another speed and the two speeds together should add up to more than the speed of light, then one measuring the other will find that they do not - and all these different measurements are real.

At least the measurement is consistent with reason that it's not possible to measure something travelling faster than the means of conveying information about its position. And the gain in mass measured through 'light' bears some comparison to the compression of sound into s sonic boom which has become more of a chockwave than 'sound'.

I don't like this way of looking at it. For one thing it seems to return to Aristotle's view that Man is the measure of all things and it allows a materialistic projection that what we cannot measure (or aren't aware of so haven't tried) cannot exist.

On the other hand, if we take the most recent concepts of holographic cosmos and of course Einstein's identification of matter as in effect solidified energy or standing waves (don't as of what? - virtual particles quantum foam maybe?) then we find ourselves in striking agreement with every mystical and magical system through the ages: there is a fundamental reality but it is far beyond our sensory perception (because all sense and sensors are derivatives at many removes from that ultimate level, so what we perceive is a genuine perception of whatever the ultimate reality may be, but at the same time, it is only our interpreted aspect of that ultimate reality. To complicate matters further, in the usual sense of 'exist', any ultimate reality probably does not: it is what existence derives from or is a form of; it comes prior to existence and if we could find it, there would be nothing because it is more fundamental than 'things'.

I think we are like players so immersed in a role that they have come to believe it their real existence. If we look at it scientifically, we already know about at least five distinct levels between the quantum world and the sensory one, each with their own set of rules. We don't know if there are others more fundamental that can't really be thought of as 'material' at all.

In one way we do 'create' the world around us because the level of what exists to the senses is not what is beyond them. In the past, the language of symbols was personified as figures, where today it is mathematical. They externalized the way we perceive as a hierarchy of personifications controlling the levels of perception, where in reality these images only represent the way we relate to our surroundings, as inimical forces beyond our control that primitives seek to appease, or as phenomena in a much larger 'world' that we cannot understand entirely intellectually because intellect and logic lie within it, but can begin to experience intuitively because intuition and reason are its echo in this experience trapped within the 'role-play'.

Some project their own ego onto the Darwinian battle around them and imagine it all directed by an Entity they call their god that they confuse with the ideals deep within them. Others accept that these symbols have their uses but represent powers and processes inferior to the ideals of perfection within ourselves, not dependent on any deity out there. Doesn't the gospel say the Kingdom of God is within you and Buddhism likewise that Nirvarna, freedom from control is a state of mind, not a place?

[beth]

Erasmus, as usual with your essays that interest me, I read this one through more than once - 3 times actually: First just to enjoy the way you put words together , next to get an overview of where you're coming from and going to and lastly, to identify a few things with which I can relate.

In one way we do 'create' the world around us because the level of what exists to the senses is not what is beyond them. In the past, the language of symbols was personified as figures, where today it is mathematical. They externalized the way we perceive as a hierarchy of personifications controlling the levels of perception, where in reality these images only represent the way we relate to our surroundings, as inimical forces beyond our control that primitives seek to appease, or as phenomena in a much larger 'world' that we cannot understand entirely intellectually because intellect and logic lie within it, but can begin to experience intuitively because intuition and reason are its echo in this experience trapped within the 'role-play'.

That's vital to consider and true, I think. I used to know someone who was a Jung scholar and he would have agreed with this, too.

[beth]

Quote:
The 'common sense' view, often described as 'naive realism,' simply asserts that things ARE as they appear and that there is no problem of error. Few serious thinkers still believe that.


But, often "things" appear differently to different people. My brother used to say he and his first wife perceived things so differently that they could stand and look at the same tree from the same vantage point, yet each see a different tree.

Likewise, the eyes of an artist often see a world most of us could only imagine. So, it seems we "see" with our mind as much as with our eyes.

[Deleted]

Naive realism asserts that the world we perceive simply IS the world of reality. This doctrine takes three main forms - one is to state that error is impossible and that the senses are entirely adequate to describe the world around us accurately. That was in essence the viewpoint of most mediaeval philosophers. It fitted in well with a world in which devils and goblins were seen everywhere and women allegedly rode at night on broomsticks to consort with the Prince of Darkness. Everything perceived, however irrational and dubious, was real.

The second one is to claim that the world around us IS real and that we DO perceive it as it is but that our minds interpet the data they receive and often misinterpret it. That is the claim of most modern naive realists. However, it fails to explain how or why this is possible and the contortions through which believers in this theory are forced to put themselves show clearly its inadequacy.

The final one is to claim that the world of our minds is as real as the world outside us and that we are able to see everything and know everything. This view is generally found among a small section of writers on the paranormal or patients in mental institutions.

Neo-realism and transcendental realism - both far more sophisticated attempts to provide a realistic explanation of sense perception and the universe around us - are both highly complex ideas and I will attempt to explain them in more detail tomorrow.

Idealism breaks down into five main schools. There is the pluralistic idealism of Leibniz, which in essence holds that ultimate reality consists in a multiplicity of perceiving mental or spiritual beings. There is the personal idealism of Berkeley, which essentially claims that the world we perceive would not exist without our perception of it and that outside the act of perception it has no existence. There is the transcendental idealism of Kant, which claims that there IS a world of ultimate reality - the 'noumenon' - underlying the world of appearance or sense experience - the 'phenomenon' - but that we can never know the noumenal world. There is the neo-Kantian idealism of Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer and (in his early work) Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, which agrees with Kant that there IS a reality underlying the world of appearance but claims that we CAN know the noumenal world. There is also the absolute idealism of Hegel, which essentially claims that all reality is spirit and in essence, God.

All these views have their strengths and weaknesses. On a purely personal level, my own views are closest to Leibniz and Schopenhauer but I also believe that the neo-realists are partly right as well (especially in the formulation of their ideas put forward by Samuel Alexander.)

I will try and explain better tomorrow - it has been a frantic day today!

[Wonder Woman]

Not to oversimplify, but...........

Perception IS reality.

[Deleted]

OK, Lynne. I've already mentioned that many people have taken the same viewpoint.

How do YOU explain colour blindness?

The perception of a mirage in a desert?

The perception of demons by mental patients?

How do you explain this away? (It actually happened to me about six months ago)

I and my wife were asleep in bed and we heard the door bell ring. I woke up and went to go down the stairs and heard the front door open and close again. I rushed down the stairs and all over the house and found no one.

Yes, I WAS fully awake when I heard the door open.

Yes, the chain WAS still on the front door latch.

This is the second time in about five years that the door has opened and closed behind of its own accord - though we often hear phantom doorbells and phantom telephones ringing!

Is what I heard and saw real or an illusion?

My own view is that it is an illusion.

I'll post some more on neo-realism and transcendal realism (I'll leave that one till last because it's very complicated and also requires a basic belief in Marxism which of course I don't have!)

[Wonder Woman]

Well, Mike, when I say perception is reality, I'm also implying that each of us actually has a different reality with (obvious) overlaps. For most of us, the sky is blue. For the colorblind, colours come together or they don't have as many colour differences, don't see different hues, a greyscale world, or some can't differenciate between only certain colours. Whatever, that is their reality. They come to learn the things they need to, but what they see remains the same. And, that's no less real than what you or I see.

Mike, I don't explain anything away... never discount anything out of hand either. I know full well that not everything can (or, IMO, should) be explained.

Indeed, take two people inside the same relationship, and each (taken away from it and grilled about it) will have different stories, oftentimes, very much so. There can be no explanation for the differences in the telling, except their perception differs. Thus two different realities inside a single relationship.

This also explains how eye witness testimony differs even though (for example) three people saw the exact same things, the exact same criminal............ None of them is lying, all want to be helpful, and each owns a different reality.

[Deleted]

There was a programme on British television about this recently. A staged fight was put on and witnesses gave wildly differing accounts of what they'd seen.

It makes you worry how safe many convictions really are!

[Wonder Woman]

That's very true, Mike. In our case, for example, the prosecution didn't put all the witnesses on the stand ~ only the ones whose stories 'fit'. Really, they didn't need any as he confessed and did a reenactment. But, it made me wonder about those convictions that are based on eyewitness testimony.

[beth]

May 22, 2010 20:25:50 GMT -5 @mikemarshall said:

There was a programme on British television about this recently. A staged fight was put on and witnesses gave wildly differing accounts of what they'd seen.

It makes you worry how safe many convictions really are!

I understand juries are traditionally impressed by eye-witness accounts, but of course they are not necessarily accurate. Many impressions are wildly subjective:


the person was handsome or unattractive - subjective

the person was tall or short, average or stout - subjective

the person acted threatening - subjective

the person was angry - subjective

and on and on

Prosecutors are there to *prosecute successfully* - not to present a fair balance.

And it's also well to remember that what is legal is not always the same as what is right or fair.

[Erasmus]

May 22, 2010 20:25:50 GMT -5 @mikemarshall said:

There was a programme on British television about this recently. A staged fight was put on and witnesses gave wildly differing accounts of what they'd seen.

It makes you worry how safe many convictions really are!

There is always a philosophical version of many worlds theory that they all recounted exactly what happened for them. It works by believing that what each of us experiences is the most probable (for us) of many probabilities going ion simultaneously. At every instant, 'we' may split into many 'I' but each will only be aware of itself and what is most probable to it. At the same time, that probability for each is not a single 100% probability but more like the experience of all probabilities above 95% for them. It may be that the 95% probability that only just gets included in their experience is somebody else's 100% probability and that person's 'reality' includes probabilities outside the experience of the first person, down to their 90%.

That would also solve the problem Calvin had with the idea of an omniscient deity preventing freewill. The omniscient deity would know all possible universes in the expanding multiverse, but the individuals within would be experience choice of which branches to split into of their own free will. Instead of a rat in a maze only able to choose one path ad God knows which, we imagine a wave in a maze choosing all paths, but each sub-wave on each path unaware of any others and making its own free choice for each part to split down other paths.

Of course that doesn't fit well with believers in a unique individual soul. But I'm not one of those. Many religions tell us that matter and individuality are illusion and all things are one, the 'creator' of sensory material is the Great Trickster, the Lord of Illusion, The Great Deceiver, the Father of Lies whom we have to overcome to return to our knowledge of divine perfect unity - remember, Jehovah lied to Eve that she would die from gaining Knowledge of her true Divinity and thew a tantrum when she did - the Enlightener{Lucifer} Serpent of Wisdom told her the Truth that she and he were created in the likeness of the godhead (ie creative intelligence) but in material form had forgotten it and become 'apes'.

BTW Jehovah is a Christian misreading from when Jews added vowel notation to the Unspeakable Name. They added the vowels of Adoni (Aton?) that was to be spoken to the consonants YHWH that was not but never spoke them together. In fact the particular way they are written is illegitimate in Hebrew notation. Greeks wrote YHWH as Iao and it occurs to me to wonder whether if there was any pronunciation at all, it was more like Yahoo than Yahweh.