Unified vs Fragmented Reality

[razboz]

What is reality? Is there one objective reality which we can all access in different ways, or is reality fragmented, made up of whatever reality is real to you and separate from anyone elses? Are there any alternatives?

Which is most empowering? Which is most useful?

[razboz]

Let's just say that reality by default is fragmented

No, let's not. Why is this the default?


we now have a unified consensual reality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_reality)

Who does? Everyone? I think not. Im sure you could walk out your door today and find any number of people who disagree with you, and who beleive fundamentally separate (versions?) of reality to you. You wouldn't even need to go to remote places (relative to you) in order to find people living in a completely different world to you.


we're safe from being eaten/enslaved by supernatural monsters/creatures/beings/gods/goddeses/etc

So instead we're not safe from terrorists/floods/famine/war/capitalists etc.

[razboz]

Or there is no default.

I like this.


Our materialist worldview that has defined the laws and understanding of our world which billions people believe (or unknowingly based on the modern world's influence) and accepted to be true. (emphasis mine)

Basically what you're saying is that because we've decided that the reality which is defined by our laws, and substantiated by methods we've made up to substantiate the reality we've made up we have a correct worldview? All this does is say that the Western academic elite, along with a few others that happen to agree with you have made up rules whereby all of a sudden they're a majority. Mathematics and statistics, as well as a experience, tells me that is not true. Most people beleive there's some kind of man (or ungendered divine force) that sits in the sky and magically watches everything everyone does. I could just start listing the world-views that disagree with yours, but that would be very long.

One extreme of your argument is that people who beleive in 'supernatural' beings are not in the consensus, and that everything we believe in is truer than that. But people around the world are regularly eaten by invisible witches, taken away on the back shark-stingrays or raped by demons. And these all leave real phsychological and physical harm. Additionally you seem to say these people are helpless in the face of supernatural calamity. But prayer, ritual and magic have all been proven to work against these creatures.


differing understandings of the world that is no longer accepted by the consensus.


The entire field of anthropology from 1900 onward would like to disagree. Also billions of people who have differing understandings of the world and who live them every day.

[Hexen]

Sorry if I got a bit carried away from my Mage: The Ascension frenzy I just had a while ago which got this thread into a bad start (which was why I deleted my other 3 posts I had here) but I'll let the thread continue as normally.

[razboz]

Sorry if I got a bit carried away from my Mage: The Ascension frenzy I just had a while ago which got this thread into a bad start (which was why I deleted my other 3 posts I had here) but I'll let the thread continue as normally.

:( It was doing fine till you deleted half of the thread.

[Hexen]

:( It was doing fine till you deleted half of the thread.

Damn....my apologies for that.

Well if you ever got a chance to check out Mage: The Ascension which is a role playing game from White Wolf even though it's a fictional game but it does has some fascinating ideas/arguments/philosophies about reality (such as consensual reality, etc) which I thought it might be relevant to this discussion as just a reference.

[tracher999]

you create your own reality with the things you no an believe in

greetz

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

razboz:


What is reality?

Used philosophically, it derives from a misuse of the word 'real'.

More details supplied on request.

[razboz]

you create your own reality with the things you no an believe in

greetz

If we all create our own reality, there is no 'objective'. There is nothing beyond ourselves and our own knowledge. But what of shared real experiences? Do different shared experiences exist side by side as the experience of a real reality, or are they juxtaposed with real reality? Are they real reality?

I guess my real leftist centered question is: if reality is subjective, does it follow that changing the internal conditions by which we experience that reality should affect said reality? In other words, could changing the ways in which we know things, and our beleif systems effect a real impact on the 'real' world? This would make the internal journey of revolution pretty important in relation to the exterior 'material' journey of revolution, methinks. It would also empower us to act in really quite different ways.

My reasoning is that by radically changing away from modes of though and beleif systems (so-called "knowledge") that are predicated on Western consumer capitalism, maybe we can start finding some radical solutions through radical new ways of thinking. And new ways of acting (rebelling, insurrecting, revolting are all ways of acting), new social and economic relationships must all follow. And this is what i call 'revolution'.

[Meridian]

A view (in the sense of something being seen) can not be true or false, you have a view of something or not. I can look at a mountain through a window, and the view will be equally 'true' as that of someone standing on the other side looking at the same mountain. The same is true of someone looking at a television and seeing the mountain on it, it does not make their view false (and it does not matter whether or not what is presented on the television exists somewhere in the world). Even if a person is having some sort of psychedelic experience and sees a mountain in a vision or dream, that they do see a mountain still holds true.

Also, in the original post the following was asked; "Is there one objective reality which we can all access in different ways, or is reality fragmented, made up of whatever reality is real to you and separate from anyone elses?"

Here we see an instance of how "reality" is sometimes used (to differentiate between what is real and what is not, this is f.ex. sometimes done in the gaming scene to differentiate between the in-game and the out-of-game, "real life", etc.), with a metaphysical twist ("objective reality"). However, if "reality" is understood in a philosophical sense, it should be all-encompassing. But if reality could be "accessed", then there would have to be something not included in it (something/somewhere to access from).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Meridian, if you look at how we use the word "real" in ordinary language, you will see its philosophical use for the fraud it is.

We use "real" as an adjective, not a noun, for example, in "real leather", "real porcelain", "real friend". Hence it is used in contrast with the fake, the counterfeit or the fraudulent.

But, how do philosophers use it? They use it typically as a noun, in, for example, "the real" -- or more grandiloquenty, in "reality".

And because it makes no sense when used this way, no wonder they keep asking empty questions like "What is reality?" or "What is the real?", questions which are impossible to answer (and which we are no nearer answering than Plato was) -- anymore than it is possible to answer questions like "What is a home run worth in soccer?" or "Who performed the marriage ceremony between the King and Queen in chess?"

As Marx noted:


"One of the most difficult tasks confronting philosophers is to descend from the world of thought to the actual world. Language is the immediate actuality of thought. Just as philosophers have given thought an independent existence, so they were bound to make language into an independent realm. This is the secret of philosophical language, in which thoughts in the form of words have their own content. The problem of descending from the world of thoughts to the actual world is turned into the problem of descending from language to life.

"We have shown that thoughts and ideas acquire an independent existence in consequence of the personal circumstances and relations of individuals acquiring independent existence. We have shown that exclusive, systematic occupation with these thoughts on the part of ideologists and philosophers, and hence the systematisation of these thoughts, is a consequence of division of labour, and that, in particular, German philosophy is a consequence of German petty-bourgeois conditions. The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life." [Marx and Engels (1970) The German Ideology, p.118. Bold emphases added.]

So, there is no such thing as 'fragmented' -- or, indeed, 'unfragmented' -- 'reality', any more than there are slithy toves:


'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

[razboz]

Rosa, i think your distinction between 'everyday language' and 'philosophical language' usage of real and reality is spurious as both are performed by people in different ways. Scientists, for example, are trying to frame "objective reality", as opposed to "constructed reality". This is one of many ways people perform "reality". Another is when we put people into mental health treatment, because they are not engaging with "reality" in the way that others are. I think this presupposes reality to exist with different values for different people.

The problem neither Meridian nor Rosa have adressed, is that when we perform our reality, we immediately come up against other people's realities. These realities not only don't coincide but seem to be exclusive to each other. So if i perceive a mountain as a large geological object understood by science to be the result of tectonic movements, and someone else perceives it as a physical manifestation of class struggle, are both relatively real?

I'll admit im well out of my depth here, but there's no way these questions cannot be relevant. Systems of knowledge are all we have to understand the things contained within reality, and if these systems throw up contradictory realities where does that leave us? Is my reality the only one i should take into account, and put all else down to dellusion? What i feel Rosa and Meridian have done is inform me that the conditions for doubting the unity of reality are flawed because there is no distinction between the real and the unreal. But im not saying there is a binary between the two, but a spectrum of qualitatively different realities.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

The problem neither Meridian nor Rosa have adressed, is that when we perform our reality, we immediately come up against other people's realities. These realities not only don't coincide but seem to be exclusive to each other. So if i perceive a mountain as a large geological object understood by science to be the result of tectonic movements, and someone else perceives it as a physical manifestation of class struggle, are both relatively real?

No, those are just labels. Whatever you call it, the mountain is still there.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Razboz:


Rosa, i think your distinction between 'everyday language' and 'philosophical language' usage of real and reality is spurious as both are performed by people in different ways. Scientists, for example, are trying to frame "objective reality", as opposed to "constructed reality". This is one of many ways people perform "reality". Another is when we put people into mental health treatment, because they are not engaging with "reality" in the way that others are. I think this presupposes reality to exist with different values for different people.

Which scientists are these then?

And, although you assert that the distinction to which I allude is spurious, you neglect to show why it is, or even that it is.

As I point out, when we, and you, use the word 'real' in everyday life (unless you are in the grip of some theory or other), we use it as an adjective.

Moreover, you could not go about your everyday business using philosophical language.


The problem neither Meridian nor Rosa have adressed, is that when we perform our reality, we immediately come up against other people's realities. These realities not only don't coincide but seem to be exclusive to each other. So if i perceive a mountain as a large geological object understood by science to be the result of tectonic movements, and someone else perceives it as a physical manifestation of class struggle, are both relatively real?

I'll admit im well out of my depth here, but there's no way these questions cannot be relevant. Systems of knowledge are all we have to understand the things contained within reality, and if these systems throw up contradictory realities where does that leave us? Is my reality the only one i should take into account, and put all else down to dellusion? What i feel Rosa and Meridian have done is inform me that the conditions for doubting the unity of reality are flawed because there is no distinction between the real and the unreal. But im not saying there is a binary between the two, but a spectrum of qualitatively different realities.

Once more, you are using words in odd ways (and are thus saying nothing comprehensible), as if someone were to think they had said something profound if they began to wonder what George Washington (on a dollar bill) was thinking.

Of course, you can use language in any way you like, but you must not conclude that you have made any sense thereby -- any more than this makes sense:


'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

So, yes, you are asking empty questions.

[razboz]

No, those are just labels. Whatever you call it, the mountain is still there.

No, "there" is also a label.

A more concrete example is Uluru (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uluru) in Northern Territories of Australia. To (middle-class white) Australians it is a symbol of the empty vastness of their country and their domination over this empty land. To the traditional owners of the land it is the place where such and such a ritual happened, or where the marsupial-mole woman made her home or where the wallabie women sheltered for Women's Business. To a geologist it's very old, very big rock.

These are all facts about the rock, known to different people. So going above the vegetation line on the rock is deadly for Anangu not performing cermony, is awesome for white Australians (and particularly insensitive tourists), and useful to scientists studying the surface of the rock. This is reality. The traditional Anangu 'owners' of the rock want people to not climb the rock and not photograph certain areas because it is very dangerous. Yet to others it is outrageous that access to such an important Australian symbol should be denied. These are different performances of reality that are in conflict with each other.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Razboz:


No, "there" is also a label

No, its a word.

Labels go on clothes and bottles.


These are all facts about the rock, known to different people. So going above the vegetation line on the rock is deadly for Anangu not performing cermony, is awesome for white Australians (and particularly insensitive tourists), and useful to scientists studying the surface of the rock. This is reality. The traditional Anangu 'owners' of the rock want people to not climb the rock and not photograph certain areas because it is very dangerous. Yet to others it is outrageous that access to such an important Australian symbol should be denied. These are different performances of reality that are in conflict with each other.

Again, you are using words in odd ways. Why?

[razboz]

Again, you are using words in odd ways. Why?

As a surrealist experiment?

I can't continue posting answers to you if you won't take the time to actually answer my points (any) rather than just keep calling them incomprehensible and meaningless. To me that says you've not understood the post, not the post is wrong. Also your linguistic more-proletarian-than-thou attitude is seriously getting at me.

Words mean things to people, and they mean different things to different people. Sometimes we try and connect these words with "physical objects". One of these is by applying labels. Not literal labels like on a bottle or some clothing, but metaphorical labels. This is an image, and im hoping to evoke the idea that a label is "attached" to a thing, abstract or not, giving it meaning. Just like a real label (ooooooops) you can write things on it that you want, and sometimes the labels are already printed. So just like a label on clothes tells you what it is, how large, how much it costs etc. so a metaphorical label provides you information.

Different people write different things on the labels, and then call that 'reality'.


Rosa

you neglect to show why it is, or even that it is.

Me:

your distinction between 'everyday language' and 'philosophical language' usage of real and reality is spurious as both are performed by people in different ways. By which i mean that we all perform language in different ways, and you must demonstrate which is most valid and why before you call one or the other "incomperhensible"



Moreover, you could not go about your everyday business using philosophical language.


This is not a very good argument for doing something or not. I do things because a) i want to, and b) because they are right, not because they make my daily living easier. being an office drone would be easier than being a dropout, but dammit being a drop out is better for many reasons.



Of course, you can use language in any way you like, but you must not conclude that you have made any sense therebySame to you.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Razboz:


As a surrealist experiment?

But, if so, you can't be using "experiment", for example, in an ordinary way, which means your answer lacks a sense.


I can't continue posting answers to you if you won't take the time to actually answer my points (any) rather than just keep calling them incomprehensible and meaningless. To me that says you've not understood the post, not the post is wrong. Also your linguistic more-proletarian-than-thou attitude is seriously getting at me.

In fact, your points are all empty, since you are using language in idiosyncratic, if not perverse ways. Hence, it is no more possible to respond to your points than it would be possible to respond to this question:

"How fast, or slow, do slithy toves gimble and gyre?"


Words mean things to people, and they mean different things to different people. Sometimes we try and connect these words with "physical objects". One of these is by applying labels. Not literal labels like on a bottle or some clothing, but metaphorical labels. This is an image, and im hoping to evoke the idea that a label is "attached" to a thing, abstract or not, giving it meaning. Just like a real label (ooooooops) you can write things on it that you want, and sometimes the labels are already printed. So just like a label on clothes tells you what it is, how large, how much it costs etc. so a metaphorical label provides you information.

You are confusing several different senses of 'meaning'; here are a few:

(1) Personal Significance: as in "His Teddy Bear means a lot to him."

(2) Evaluative import: as in "May Day means different things to different classes."

(3) Point or purpose: as in "Life has no meaning."

(4) Linguistic meaning: as in "'Vixen' means 'female fox'", "'Chien' means 'dog'", or "Recidivist" means someone who has resumed their criminal career.

(5) Aim or intention: as in "They mean to win this strike."

(6) Implication: as in "Winning this dispute means that management won't try another wage cut again in a hurry."

(7) Indicate, point to, or presage: as in "Those clouds mean rain", or "Those spots mean you have measles."

(8) Reference: as in "I mean him over there", or "'The current president of the USA' means somebody different at least once every eight years."

(9) Artistic or literary import: as in "The meaning of this novel is to examine political integrity."

(10) An indication of conversational focus: as in "I mean, why do we have to accept a measly 1% rise in the first place?"

(11) An expression of sincerity or determination: as in "I mean it, I really do want to go on the march!", or "The demonstrators really mean to stop this war."

(12) The content of a message, or the import of a sign: as in "It means the strike starts on Monday", or "It means you have to queue here."

(13) Interpretation: as in "You will need to read the author's novels if you want to give new meaning to her latest play", or "That gesture means those pickets think you are a scab."

(14) Import or significance: as in "Part of the meaning of this play is to change our view of drama", or "The real meaning of the agreement is that the bosses have at last learnt their lesson."

(15) Speakers' meaning: as in "When you trod on her foot and she said 'Well done!' she in fact meant the exact opposite."

(16) Communicative meaning: as in "You get my meaning", or "My last letter should tell you what I meant", or "We have just broken code, hence the last message meant this..."

(17) Explanation: as in "When the comrade said the strike isn't over what she meant was that we can still win!"

I think you mean 'meaning' in sense 1), which is fine, but then that sense of 'meaning' plays no role in communication, and since you are trying to communicate with the rest of us, you need to mean it in sense 4), 6), 8) or 17).

If not then when you yourself use the word 'word' you can't mean the same by it as the rest of us. And if that is so, your point disintegrates once more.


Different people write different things on the labels, and then call that 'reality'.

They can do what they like, but they cannot tell the rest of us this makes any sense -- since their words seem to lack any common (communicative) meaning.

The futility of your approach was well illustrated by Lewis Carroll (in Alice Through The Looking Glass):


"'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'

"'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

"'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master -- that's all.'

"Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. 'They've a temper, some of them -- particularly verbs: they're the proudest -- adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs -- however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'

"'Would you tell me, please,' said Alice, 'what that means?'

"'Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. 'I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'

"'That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

"'When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'I always pay it extra.'

"'Oh!' said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other remark.

"'Ah, you should see 'em come round me of a Saturday night,' Humpty Dumpty went on, wagging his head gravely from side to side, 'for to get their wages, you know.'

"(Alice didn't venture to ask what he paid them with; so you see I can't tell you.)

"'You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir' said Alice. 'Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called "Jabberwocky"?'

"'Let's hear it,' said Humpty Dumpty. 'I can explain all the poems that ever were invented just yet.'

"This sounded very hopeful, so Alice repeated the first verse:


"'Twas brillig, and the slity toves,
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.'

"'That's enough to begin with,' Humpty Dumpty interrupted: 'there are plenty of hard words there. "Brillig" means four o'clock in the afternoon -- the time when you begin broiling things for dinner.'

"'That'll do very well,' said Alice: 'and "slithy"?'

"'Well, "slithy" means "lithe and slimy." "Lithe" is the same as "active." You see it's like a portmanteau -- there are two meanings packed up into one word.'

"'I see it now,' Alice remarked thoughtfully: 'and what are "toves"?'

'Well, "toves" are something like badgers -- they're something like lizards -- and they're something like corkscrews.'

"'They must be very curious-looking creatures.'

"'They are that,' said Humpty Dumpty: 'also they make their nests under sundials -- also they live on cheese.'

"'And what's to "gyre" and to "gimble"?'

"'To "gyre" is to go round and round like a gyroscope. To "gimble" is to make holes like a gimlet.'

"'And "the wabe" is the grass-plot round a sundial, I suppose?' said Alice, surprised at her own ingenuity.

"'Of course it is. It's called "wabe," you know, because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it-----'

"'And a long way beyond it on each side,' Alice added.

"'Exactly so. Well then, "mimsy" is "flimsy and miserable" (there's another portmanteau for you). And a "borogove" is a thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all around -- something like a live mop.'

"'And then "mome raths"?' said Alice. 'I'm afraid I'm giving you a great deal of trouble.'

"'Well, a "rath" is a sort of green pig: but "mome" I'm not certain about. I think it's short for "from home" -- meaning that they'd lost their way, you know.'

"'And what does "outgrabe" mean?'

"'Well, "outgrabing" is something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle; however you'll hear it done, maybe -- down in the wood yonder -- and, when you've once heard it, you'll be quite content. Who's been repeating all that hard stuff to you?'

"'I read it in a book,' said Alice."

You:


By which i mean that we all perform language in different ways, and you must demonstrate which is most valid and why before you call one or the other "incomprehensible"

Well, you are the one who wants to use words in odd ways, so it's up to you to justify what you are doing, not me.


This is not a very good argument for doing something or not.

It is if it shows the difference between ordinary language and empty philosophical jargon.

Moreover, if you want to explain yourself, you will have to use language as the rest of us do. But, as soon as you try to do that, you will be forced to drop this jargon -- otherwise you will be using empty language, once more.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

No, "there" is also a label.

As a word, it indicates the presence of something, but it makes no distinction as to what it is, and is context-dependant. In this case, I am emphasising that the something has an existence independant of whatever we associate with it.


A more concrete example is Uluru (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uluru) in Northern Territories of Australia. To (middle-class white) Australians it is a symbol of the empty vastness of their country and their domination over this empty land. To the traditional owners of the land it is the place where such and such a ritual happened, or where the marsupial-mole woman made her home or where the wallabie women sheltered for Women's Business. To a geologist it's very old, very big rock.

These are all facts about the rock, known to different people.

Umm, no. As far as we know, there are no such thing as wallaby women outside of tribal myth.


So going above the vegetation line on the rock is deadly for Anangu not performing cermony, is awesome for white Australians (and particularly insensitive tourists), and useful to scientists studying the surface of the rock. This is reality.

No it is not. Anangu won't die if they go above the vegetation line, at least if you control for strongly-held cultural beliefs. "Awesome" is a subject judgement that has nothing to do with the reality of the rock itself - it exists whatever people think of it. Scientists may indeed find it useful to go above the vegetation line, but so what?


The traditional Anangu 'owners' of the rock want people to not climb the rock and not photograph certain areas because it is very dangerous. Yet to others it is outrageous that access to such an important Australian symbol should be denied. These are different performances of reality that are in conflict with each other.

No, they are different viewpoints as to how external reality should be interacted with.