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Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Perceptions of Reality | ||||||||||||||||||||
DominionSeraph Member (Idle past 4754 days) Posts: 365 From: on High Joined: |
RAZD writes: The problem is that you aren't talking about reality but "your concept of reality" -- your perception of it. That's simply a communications problem. I have to use the language that refers to the next level down to make it understandable, but in using that language I'm no longer referring to the level I want you to assign it to. Here:
As you can see, even though C and D don't have the term "concept" applied; that's what they are. When you reference "reality", you're referencing D -- but the problem is that D is within E. (And I wish I could say, "F", but anything referenced is necessarily within E; and therin lies the problem.) This message has been edited by DominionSeraph, 05-04-2006 09:27 PM
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Catholic Scientist writes:
The problem is that reality could be completely outside of all 3, as reality isn't necessarily limited to: "That which I can imagine."
Well, I think the reality slice should be finite. Why not make it round too? I'd make it an elipse that crosses all the circles. Most of science would be covered by it and there wouldn't be that much outside of science. You're right, I failed t include the possiblilty of 'reality' being something completly different than what we are experiencing. Like the movie The Matrix, for example. So the reality eclipse would have to extend outside of all the other circles to cover that possibility.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
I think of reality as more infinite but bounded, in part to match the universe, in part because I just like it that way. (is that faith?) Well, since we can't really know what is reallity, I guess an infinte slice is appropriate, but I think that reality is finite so a bounded infinite slice, although an impossible contradiction, is probably the most accurate.
The circles could be vast amorphic amoebic shapes - this just represents them {simply} to convey the basic idea of nested reality perceptions. Yeah, for the purpose of discussion, the shape is not important.
Do you think the circles are static or growing? Now that I think about it, they are definately not static. But they could also shrink. For example, if some scientific discovery reduced the presuppositions of science the circle would shrink. Point being, growing isn't the only option besides being static.
Outside science, inside philosophy you would have logic -- the conclusions are 'true' as long as the precepts they are based on are 'true' and the logic construction is valid. Outside philosophy you have a commonality of experience, and while you cannot "vote" on what is real, there can be a consensus on what may be real. Buddhist monks and Catholic nuns reach the same mental state in their {meditations\prayers} -- the interpretation of the state is different.
Well, I think we both have a good understanding of the topic and what each others opinions are, where should the discussion go from here?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
=Catholic ScientistSo I guess you saying he meant philosophically
What isn't?
Huh!? What isn't philosophical? Well, in my freshman physics class, they told me that the acceleration due to gravity on a falling object is 9.8 meters per second squared. So we took some objects and measured their acceleration when we dropped them. It came out to 9.8 meters per second squared. I'd say, that, that wasn't philosophical. It was pretty much 'proved'. Now, I can admit that everything about that situation could be false and none of it could be reality, but I'm not willing to accept that. They really did accelerate at the predicted rate.
That's why it gets dropped all the way down to "faith". I take it on faith that my sensory data is accurate, since I can never know that it's not; Well, if all we have to go on is sensory data, we're gonna need a different word to distinguish between what I call faith and what you call faith. Because I'm calling faith things that cannot be verified by sensory data. And your inclusion of sensory data into the defintion of faith is fucking up my definition.
and I live in the world formed from my sensory data regardless of whether I actually exist in a world that exactly mirrors it. Again, its like The Matrix. I'm willing to accept that as a possibility, but I can easily wave it off. My sensory data is what is real. Its what defines 'reality'. Its possible that its wrong, but IMHO there;s no way that its not.
Catholic Scientist writes: Your saying that I can't know that in reality there's a beer in front of me and I just took a drink of it? You can -- but only because of what the row-of-letters, "reality," symbolizes. The symbol is linked to a concept -- and that you can reference, as your mind encompasses it.
Well, thats what I meant by your standards are too high. You looking at it too deaply. Too me, its obvious that, in reality, there was a beer in front of me that I took a drink of. Regardless of the existance of my mind there would have been a beer, in reality, sitting on my desktop. Can I know that, for sure? Admittedly not, but I'm still gonna include it in 'reality'.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Knowing what is beer is knowing a lot of associations and knowing where to find, prepare , and drink it. Maybe even know how to brew it. Maybe know it's chemistry. Yes, but the simplest mongoloid could be handed a beer and told "that is beer". Then gven another beer the next day and know what beer is, without knowing anything except what lets him know that what he is drinking is the same thing that someone told him was beer the previous day.
But what is beer in itself? A gift from the gods. Yes, of course I know what beer is. If your trying to take this to the philosophical level of 'what is beer? Then my answer is gonna be...whatever. That deep philosphical shit is worthess and meaningless to me. I know what beer is. Can is really know? Who knows. But, yeah, I know what beer is.
I'n[sic] exploring the notion that we can't know what anything is only that it is and how we function with it. Well that's a notion that I find worthless to explore, no offense.
What we call knowing is a kind of doing, or an abstraction of doing, or our concepts about our doing. Perception is a kind of doing, as is cognition. Honestly, I'n(lol) not getting your drift. Whadaya mean?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
I just want to say that 'reality' exists without our mind perceiving it. Before humans existed there was a reality, presumably (and damnit your probably gonna point out this word), so the perceptions of the human mind are not the limits of reality. Unless this is all a big joke This message has been edited by Catholic Scientist, 05-04-2006 11:14 PM
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lfen Member (Idle past 4677 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: |
Well, you've made my point when you wrote:
Yes, but the simplest mongoloid could be handed a beer and told "that is beer". Then gven another beer the next day and know what beer is, without knowing anything except what lets him know that what he is drinking is the same thing that someone told him was beer the previous day. As we get smarter we do more complex versions of this. So it's functioning. Knowing is knowing how to do something even if that something is very advanced math or theoretical physics. I doubt we will ever know what an electron is beyond the math and theory that describes it. There are several applictions of this. Wittgenstein and the logical positivists use philosophy to point out to people when they are using sentences that seem grammatically to be good English but lack content. Thus they philosophically would demonstrate that the word God has no meaning so we can't even talk about it and then youu would go back to your physics and beer drinking.
Moreover, like Hume's distinction between matters of fact and relations of ideas, the principle leaves no room for anything other than verifiable empirical observations of the natural world and the meaningless but useful tautologies of logic and mathematics. Thus, much of Ayer's book was negative, emphasizing the consequences of a strict application of the positivist program to human pretensions at transcendental knowledge. Traditional metaphysics, with its abstract speculation about the supposed nature of reality, cannot be grounded on scientific observation, and is therefore devoid of significance. For the same reason, traditional religious claims are meaningless since it is impossible to state any observable circumstances under which we could be sure”one way or the other”about their truth.Logical Positivism Or sometimes people get into arguments about what things are instead of how to do something. Or language can lead us into a dangerous complacency such as people smoking around empty gasoline barrels. The empty barrels are much more dangerous as the residual funes can be explosive. lfen
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
That's simply a communications problem. It doesn't matter what pictures you use, they only represent your perception of reality, and have no necessary relationship to actual reality. What is in your mind is only your preception of reality. That is all it can be.
As you can see, even though C and D don't have the term "concept" applied; that's what they are. When you reference "reality", you're referencing D -- but the problem is that D is within E. (And I wish I could say, "F", but anything referenced is necessarily within E; and therin lies the problem.) What I see is that you can make meaningless diagrams where you make the definition of reality to mean your perception of it. I'm glad you saw the need to correct your first diagram. What are you going to do to correct this one? Your redefinition of reality as {perception of reality} is a strawman argument that collapses into a tautology - what is in my mind is in my mind. How compelling. There are things you have never seen, never heard of, that do not depend on your "mind" -- nor mine, nor the mind of any other person -- to exist. There are experiences of other people that you do not share, can they be real for them and fantasy for you? How do you rescue your perception problem from being a rather meaningless expression of solipsism? we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Well, I think we both have a good understanding of the topic and what each others opinions are, where should the discussion go from here? How can we use our individual perceptions of reality to determine what {likely reality} involves, reality that lies outside the bounds of evidence and logic of knowledge as we know it? we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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mike the wiz Member Posts: 4752 From: u.k Joined: |
WARNING: This is an incredibly boring post that reads like a textbook for beginners.
RAZD writes: We also know that science has a tendency of finding new evidence that invalidates previous theories and shows new theories and understandings to be more valid, but because we cannot prove a theory in science we cannot know that we know. Hence the (JTB) Justified true belief. The problem might be with the absolutist mentality and the insistance that knowledge is defined as an absolute. But if the knowledge is a solid assumption, then problems decrease. Example; All ravens are blackPete has a raven therefore it is black. I've discovered that in our efforts to state things absolutistly, we infact, by our nature, assert things we don't need to assert. In this instance, the premise 'all ravens are black', is infact an unnecessary claim, because each raven, ever to exist, has not been counted by humans. So it's absolutist. Yet if we remove our own attempt to assert dogmatic or absolute claims, the problems seem to diminish. Example; Each (observed) raven is blackPete has a raven therefore it is black. So you see, the more we stick with what we do actually know, the better and more valid the inference. it's when probability-based assumptions make the leap to " absolute certainties" that we get problems in knowledge. The Gettier problem is infact not a problem, if we don't assume anything is so very certain. This is a falsehood, as an assumption is not a certainty, it's infact just a justified belief. It's not the assumptions themselves that are faulty, it's that we need to make the assumptions MORE justified, INSTEAD of claiming something is certainly the case, based upon them. I can insist my sock is black in colour, because it always has been. My knowledge is not based on the illusion of a "certainty", but is infact only based on strong, good, justified assumptions/belief. Now let's pretend Pete's raven was pink. With the first statement, the false knowledge makes that a possibility, because the un-counted ravens could be pink/ but the second statement is a good knowledge, which means it is not possible that it could be pink, as it qualifies as 'observed'. Afterall, Pete has observed it, so we can pretty much conclude that it can't be pink. So to stay with the full composition is the key here. So the second statement is a valid knowledge, as the facts were actually that every raven observed was black, NOT the ASSUMPTION that one can jump to stating something concrete, as look what trouble it caused. Gettier problem IMHO, the more inferences dependant on fact and the stricter the logic, then basically the lesser the problem. In such a Gettier case; my clock is broken, but I don't know it, and I say it is 9am (JTB) and it is 9 am. Did I know it was 9am from a broken clock? In this case, the truth value is the same BUT I assumed my clock was working, hence the false knowledge because it wasn't. 99% of the time we do "know" our clocks are correct, do we not? So I guess this is a rare problem of coincidence. So in that manner, SOME uncertainty about knowledge is understandable, but for the other 99% of the time, knowledge is pretty much okay and especially if your assumption is [extra-reasonable]. In this regard, the Gettier problem is solved via the extra-reasonable assumption-factor, by means of corroboration. If you have a clock that says 9am, you can look at your watch. If the watch says 9am, it is EXTRA reasonable and more justified to assume the clock is correct. This would solve the problem, as the knowledge would now be real, based on the correct workability of the watch rather than the broken clock which means the knowledge is not dependant upon the clock's workability any longer and there is therefore no problem.. So then you have knowledge+truth value. Case 1.Truth value of conclusion: True. Knowledge: Gettier. Case 2.Truth value: True. Knowledge Gettier + valid knowledge. ( If the watch AND clock were broken, and the truth value was the same, that it was still 9 am, then that would mean that the knowledge of both the clock and watch was incorrect, despite it being 9. The chances of this being the case are amusingly rare ofcourse. ) So I'd say knowledge is about simply making sure assumptions are truly justified, and CHECKED rather than jumping to conclusions and taking assumed assumptions as automatically true. I.e. if you checked your clock was working, you'd be confirming that assumption.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
How can we use our individual perceptions of reality to determine what {likely reality} involves, reality that lies outside the bounds of evidence and logic of knowledge as we know it? That's a good question and I don't know the answer. Probably we will never know. You just gotta decide on what you think is real and what matters if it is real, to you.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
What makes scientific theory so robust a method for determining the way things work?
Other people can repeat the experiments and get the same results. Now we move outside the realm of being able to make repeatable experiments ... Can we pool our knowledge and look for consistent patterns -- patterns consistent with everything that we know to be as valid as possible? Can we say that there are consistent patterns of religous experiences, for example? Yes. Can we say that they are only pertinent to one religion? No. This to me is where the element of denial comes in. we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
what's a clock? watch?
So I'd say knowledge is about simply making sure assumptions are truly justified, and CHECKED rather than jumping to conclusions and taking assumed assumptions as automatically true. I.e. if you checked your clock was working, you'd be confirming that assumption. Looking for as many references etc. as you can find. Knowledge can also know when it doesn't know -- when two or more possibilities exists, it allows consideration of those and more. I get my time from satellites (as long as the batteries in my phone and gps work ... ) This message has been edited by RAZD, 05*08*2006 08:11 PM we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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Bisc Inactive Member |
Greetings everyone. This is my first post here so nice to meet you all, hi Razd.
Imo, the two circles of belief have very little overlap and people are just arguing over nothing. In the circle of religion I believe that God is the supreme being, religion is the manifestation of mankind's own way to worship Him and the book, whether Bible, Quran or other Buddhist scripture are human's own way of his interpretation of God. Nitpicking on a detail in the book doesn't disprove God at all. It just proves that our interpretation of Him is not perfect. It's obviously not perfect by the fact that we have so many different interpretions, and so many different books written about God. Science is based completely on what we can observe. The accuracy of science will improve as our ability to observe improves but there is a limitation. What we can observe is limited by time, size and distance. We can't observe the distant past, we can't observe cycles that span millions of years, we can't observe details on things too far (otherwise not much point flying all the way to mars when we can do all the observations here), we can't observe details on things too small. What's more there is no rule to say everything must be observable. Just because we can't observe it doesn't preclude it's existence. God is one of those things so science can never disprove the existence of God.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Imo, the two circles of belief have very little overlap and people are just arguing over nothing. But a lot of religious assertion can be verified by science. That's where there is overlap. Much religious belief has no conflict with science. The parts of the circles that would not overlap are the religious beliefs that contradict science, the things that science deems impossible. Young earth, global flood, yadda yadda yadda. So, IMO, there is a lot of overlap.
What's more there is no rule to say everything must be observable. There is in science. It isn't conserned with the unobservable. And its doing great assuming that something without evidense does not exist. Its an assumption and its working. As far as whats really real, your right, there is no rule that only the observable exists.
God is one of those things so science can never disprove the existence of God. Science cannot disprove anything, it doesn't even try too.
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