The Nature of Reality

[Forgotten Rebel]

Why hello all,
I want to pose a question which I hope will cause some serious debate. What is the Nature of Reality? How do we know what we see is real? Are you really reading this right now? Is reality only in the mind, only in the physical world, or a mixture of both? (in other words do you believe in idealism, materialism, or dualism?) Or perhaps you are a pragmatist who believes that we can never know the answer. Or if you're up on current philosophy, are you a practitioner of Logical Positism, or Anti-realism? Remember, this is philosophy so no matter what your view is you must be prepared to defend it, I WILL GET YOU IF YOU DO NOT! Cheers to all, and good luck!

[Keeblergiant]

Occam's razor says that what I experience is the real thing.

[Forgotten Rebel]

Occam's razor says that what I experience is the real thing.

Why hello Keeblergiant, thank you for being the first person to respond. First off, I think you need to grasp a better understanding of Occam's Razor. Occam's main philosophy was "Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate" or "plurality should not be posited without necessity." Occam's Razor can in effect be used to proove almost any point.

For example, atheists often apply Occam's Razor in arguing against the existence of God on the grounds that God is an unnecessary hypothesis. We can explain everything without assuming the extra metaphysical baggage of a Divine Being. This principle has also been used by atheists to reject the God-the-Creator hypothesis in favor of natural evolution: if a Perfect God had created the Universe, both the Universe and its components would be much simpler.

As per Razor himself he did argue that Natural theology is impossible. Natural theology uses reason alone to understand God, as contrasted with revealed theology which is founded upon scriptural revelations. According to Occam, the idea of God is not established by evident experience or evident reasoning. All we know about God we know from revelation. The foundation of all theology, therefore, is faith.

Many other examples of Occam's Razor can be seen: According to Berkeley (using Occam's Razor), we need only minds and their ideas to explain everything. Subjective Idealists might use the razor to get rid of God. All can be explained with just minds and their ideas. Materialists, on the other hand, might be said to use the razor to eliminate minds altogether. We don't need to posit a plurality of minds as well as a plurality of brains. Some have even found a use for Occam's razor to justify budget cuts, arguing that "what can be done with less is done in vain with more."

Occam's razor is also called the principle of parsimony. These days it is usually interpreted to mean something like "the simpler the explanation, the better" or "don't multiply hypotheses unnecessarily."

Because Occam's razor is sometimes called the principle of simplicity some creationists have argued that Occam's razor can be used to support creationism over evolution. After all, having God create everything is much simpler than evolution, which is a very complex mechanism. But Occam's razor does not say that the more simple a hypothesis, the better. If it did, Occam's would be dull razor for a dim populace indeed.

So in conclusion, to the materialist, dualists multiply pluralities unnecessarily. To the dualist, positing a mind as well as a body, is necessary. To atheists, positing God and a supernatural realm is to posit pluralities unnecessarily. To the theist, positing God is necessary. If so, the principle is not very useful. On the other hand, if Occam's razor means that when confronted with two explanations, an implausible one and a probable one, a rational person should select the probable one, then the principle seems unnecessary because so obvious. But if the principle is truly a minimalist principle, then it seems to imply the more reductionism the better. If so, then the principle of parsimony might better have been called Occam's Chainsaw, for its main use seems to be for clear-cutting ontology, and with it all branches of metaphysics.

[Keeblergiant]

First off, I think you need to grasp a better understanding of Occam's Razor. Occam's main philosophy was "Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate" or "plurality should not be posited without necessity." Occam's Razor can in effect be used to proove almost any point.

I can't imagine how one can construe their philosophy so that Occam's razor favors a world in which we experience something other than what we think we're experiencing over we experience what we think we're experiencing.

[DontBeAfraid]

Why would we need an enormous unmeasurable universe when reality can be expirenced without it in a mind?

[Forgotten Rebel]

I can't imagine how one can construe their philosophy so that Occam's razor favors a world in which we experience something other than what we think we're experiencing over we experience what we think we're experiencing.

Even if you can not contrue it, people have used Occam's razor to 'proove' similar points as the one you listed above. That's why Occam's razor is not even mentioned in many philosophy classes. It has many flaws in that the person who is using it can deduce whatever they want. In that way, Occam's razor is not a philosophical perspective, but a tool that is used to derive philosophical perspectives. I do not agree that it should be discredited completely, and it should be given some recognition.


Why would we need an enormous unmeasurable universe when reality can be expirenced without it in a mind?

So you are a idealist then? Would you agree then that all we experience is in our minds (as you said above)? There are several problems with idealist philosophy, (1) If all that happens is in our mind then why do they (our minds) have a fixed spatial and temporal world out side of us? (2) In a dream we can tell it’s not real, so if reality is like a dream why can’t we tell it’s not real? (3) Most idealism relies on the idea that the universe has order and purpose. We can’t speak of the universe as having a mind. There are other objections to a mind focused view of reality, but I won't bore you to death with each of them.

[DontBeAfraid]

Me? I dont know.... I was just giving an example of occam's razor that swung the other way for KG.

[Keeblergiant]

Why would we need an enormous unmeasurable universe when reality can be expirenced without it in a mind?

So, Occam's razor has been shot down. Nice job, DBA. Hhhmm, let me think of something else...

[Forgotten Rebel]

Well think think think away I'm not going anywhere

[dutchie]

Maybe you guys did see "the matrix" too many times...

I really dig thinking about reality as a concept of the mind. To me, reality is like a highway with an infinite number of lanes. We're all racing on a lane we randomly pick. The lanes stand for the subjective experience of the total reality which is the highway. A simple example: in the experience of a child, time is going very slowly, while in the experience of an adult, time seems to be progressing more and more rapidly as the years pass. There are many examples that fit this metaphor.
While everyone is experiencing his or her own subjective reality, there is really no telling which one is "true". You might go as far to think reality itself is of governing subject to Einstein's theory of relativity, but then everything starts to become a bit foggy...

[Havoc Angel]

The nature of reality basically depends on how you define 'reality'

I like to distinguish now between personal reality and common reality.
Personal reality is everything you experience or can grasp or can imagine to be real. So if you're hallucinating or are dreaming it is real for you, at least at the time you experience it. Later on you can see it as a dream or hallucination or error of perception and change your opinion on its reality but that needs a different concept of reality to compare it with (what i call common reality). If you don't know the difference it stays real. Like with some schizophrenic disorders people suffering from them cannot clearly or not at all distinguish between dream and reality causing them to show a rather erratic behavior to 'outside' observers as they don't share the same reality.

Common reality is what can be experienced by any perceiving being. Like if I see a apple and you see a apple the apple is real supposing that hallucinations are not shared. Science offers a common basis of reality by defining things (using this as the broadest term possible) and how they work and what they are. For those definitions to be scientifically proven they have to true and observable for everyone. A apple falls from a tree to the ground, for me, for you, for everyone. If someone claims he saw a apple falling upward to the sky we would all agree that this cannot have happened under normal circumstances and most likely call that person a nut case (flying apples, heh, yeah, it's alright *padpad*).

Now I'd like to add something what i call here 'true reality'. This is not how we observe things but what things are even when not observed or even discovered to exist by any (human) being. As it is unknown to us we cannot say wether it's real or not, we never observed, experienced or defined it (whatever it is). If we had it wouldn't be unknown and so it'd be part of the common reality or at least of the personal reality if it was observed/experienced only by a single person. Now just because we do not know that it exists we cannot say that it doesn't exist either. So thing can be real even without anyone knowing until it is discovered and becomes part of (our) reality.

Well, running out of thoughts, it's enough so far anyway, heh. What do you think about that? Complicated? Heh, no one ever said reality was easy. :nibble:

[dutchie]

No, it's not very complicated. It's like hanging a red painting in a darkened room, turning the light off, and asking if the painting's still red.

[Forgotten Rebel]

Havok Angel, have I found intelligent life?!?!? Congradulations, you win my award for most original post. (Sorry Dutchie/Keebler, yours are excellent posts, but not as complex/demanding/orginal as Havoks). Your distinguishing between personal/common reality is, to me, the key to understanding reality. I can take a hit of acid and see the walls melt but that does no mean that they are (and I hope those damn evil gnomes don't exist either). But on the other hand, there is a fixed plain of existance out there (i.e., your common reality). This is what many mathemiticians who were philosopher based their concepts of reality on (see Cartesian planes). No matter what you say, there is a reality out there independent from us (common) which I would argue interacts with our personal reality to form a reality based on common reality but incorporating parts from your personal view. (did that make sense?).

As for the Matrix comment made earlier, I have seen the first one, but I was really drunk and do not remember most of it, besides Neo running up a wall shooting two guns at the same time. Therefore, I do not base my arguements on conceptions of reality based on the Matrix (although they might resemble Matrix views, after all the people who wrote it were incorporating much philosophy into it) I'm not even sure that post was refering to me but I wanted to make sure you people know I'm not ripping off the Matrix.

[dutchie]

The matrix reference was tongue in cheek, FR...

Actually - assuming there is something as a common reality is a means of simplifying things. The very thought of a common reality as being a feasible possibility is in fact a form of subjective thinking, so that kicks the reality away from under its feet. That's the reason I left it out.

Is it fair to say that my example brings up some interesting points, though.. Assuming there IS something as common reality (just for the sake of argument) would you say the red painting is still red in a dark room? Or did it turn black?

[Havoc Angel]

Hehe, as colour is something that is dependent on the reflection and absorbtion of light the painting turned in fact to black when the light is turned off. No light equals total absorbtion when it comes to the reflection and that's black :wink:

Of course i know what you mean and that explanation i gave is a bit of hair splitting, heh. Of course if their is a common reality the red pigments retain their physical properties that makes them absorb the orange to violet parts of the visible spectrum of light and does not change to absorb all of the light.

Now to go to put in the personal reality on that example. Is a red picture red when looked at by someone who cannot see red due to colour blindness? For the colour blind person it is not red. For a person with fully functional eyesight it is red. so what is true?

Going further we could even temper with the definitions of common reality. If i define that the word 'green' is describing the colour of a clear sky the sky becomes in fact green. If i use this definition only for myself it is a personal reality. If this definition is accepted by everyone (or at least the greater majority of people) it becomes common reality. And *puff* we are living in a world with a green sky instead of a blue one, heh.

The thing is that we can only experience reality by proxy. Not only our senses work like that but also our way to define reality. We have to give it a name and definition first before we can grasp it and accept it as part of reality. We are unable to grasp and accept something as real directly without using a definition as a tool to put it into (our) reality. Our consciousness is effectively isolated and totally dependant on the input brought to us indirectly from outside sources. That might also be one of the reason why we have so much scientific curiosity. We have the need to define reality in order for it to become actual accepted reality.

Now you can deny science and its definitions but go for belief instead. That belief becomes reality for yourself and for others that share this belief as long as you accept those beliefs as true. Of course you can argue that science is also just another kind of belief and not necessarily true. We all know occasions when science had to be updated because things we newly discovered as real threw away old definitions which were accepted as real before.

But what is really real reality?

Is there a reality outside accepted definitions?

:crazy:

[dutchie]

But what is really real reality?

Is there a reality outside accepted definitions?

:crazy:
What are those?

[Havoc Angel]

Just some questions i have failed to properly answer myself or at least to put the concepts that i have somewhere in my mind to express in words. Then again i'm not sure if those questions can be answered at all. maybe someone else has better luck with them, that's why i put them in.

[dutchie]

Here's an interesting read:

http://www.science.uva.nl/~seop/entries/realism-sem-challenge/#Wha


Realism is the thesis that the objects, properties and relations the world contains exist independently of our thoughts about them or our perceptions of them. Anti-realists either doubt or deny the existence of the entities the realist believes in or else doubt or deny their independence from our conceptions of them.
Some of the metaphysical issues over which realism and anti-realism have locked horns are the following: Are there moral values? Are there abstract objects like numbers or points or spaces or symphonies or jokes? What about selves or souls or minds? Are there colours? What of after-images, pains and other sensations? Is the past real? What of the future? Are fictional characters real? Do muons and quarks and other theoretical entities exist?

These represent only a small sample of current realist/anti-realist debates about the existence of certain sorts of entities or properties. Similar questions could be and have been raised about the mind-independence of the disputed entities or properties.

For example, many think that colours are mind-dependent. That is, whilst they do not dispute the existence of things that are red, green, blue etc., they think that if no sentient creatures had ever evolved nothing would have been coloured. The tomato's redness is, if not in the eye of the perceiver, non-existent without it. Others deem moral values mind-dependent. Once more, they do not doubt the existence of moral values but instead question their independence from the mind, believing them instead to be psychological or social constructs of some sort or other.

An obvious problem with this characterization of realism is that it seems to make anti-realism about minds or experience obligatory! For the existence of minds is surely ‘mind-dependent’ and indeed it is in the sense that if there were no minds there'd be no minds and there'd be no experiences either.

This is not what is intended by the ‘mind-independence’ formulation, however. A realist about mental states or conscious experiences is one who holds that our world is a world containing creatures who are sometimes in states of believing, desiring, remembering, perceiving, etc. and that the world's containing (creatures who enjoy) such states is in no way dependent upon the ability of those creatures themselves to determine, either conceptually or perceptually, that it does. The world is as it is independently of what we think about it.
This is just a small part of the article.

[Havoc Angel]

Very interesting read, thanks a lot ! :2thumbs:

[Forgotten Rebel]

Very interesting read, thanks a lot ! :2thumbs:

Very interesting indeed. Remember sometimes it's easier to be a pragmatist. Because in the end, does this debate lead anywhere, I mean, are there any practical implications for us if reality is in our minds, outside our minds, or a mixture of both? Can we ever really know the truth?

Think of this

If reality is independent of us, we are not independent of us, therefore we can never see a purely material world without using our minds to interpret it.

If reality is dependent of us, and we are obviously dependent on our minds, then reality wouldn't exist because it would be different for all of us.

If reality was both dependent and independent of us, then we can never see true reality because part of it is dependent on us.

So despite the fact that I created this thread, where can this arguement possibly lead?

[dutchie]

I thought the whole point of this thread was just the fun of putting that rusty machinery behind your nose at work... I didn't realize you wanted to have a comprehensive answer to your question.. (J/k)

It leads nowhere because that's the reality we're faced with when asking ourselves these question.

BTW, the article asks how "realistic" numbers are.. Heh heh heh, I could appreciate that one... Pholosophy can have a humorous side...

[Forgotten Rebel]

I thought the whole point of this thread was just the fun of putting that rusty machinery behind your nose at work... I didn't realize you wanted to have a comprehensive answer to your question.. (J/k)
It leads nowhere because that's the reality we're faced with when asking ourselves these question.
BTW, the article asks how "realistic" numbers are.. Heh heh heh, I could appreciate that one... Pholosophy can have a humorous side...

I didn't want a comprehensive answer, I was just wondering what anyones view was on the imposibility of reaching an answer in most philosophical questions, I mean, if there was a definite answer, they wouldn't really be a philosophical question would they?

[Bigsky770]

. . .Occam's razor killed Schroedinger's Cat?

. . .worx for me. . .Joe (Bigsky770) :dunno:

[dutchie]

Nope, the poisonous gas killed the cat... (while you weren't looking!!)

[Forgotten Rebel]

Nope, the poisonous gas killed the cat... (while you weren't looking!!)

But what should we ask ourself? Was the cat real? Did it exist? Did it think? Does it know it's dead? Not how but why did it die? Why do we die?

Hehehe, philosophy is fun.