|
|
|
Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 11/09/2009 : 08:22:54 [Permalink]
|
Boron10:
My wife interpreted this to mean, "I have smoked enough dope at one time...." |
I will not confirm or deny her interpretation. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
 |
|
|
Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 11/09/2009 : 11:08:24 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by bngbuck
Kil.....
| Gosh Bill. Say what you like but I'm with Marf on this one. I doubt there is enough dope in the world for me to smoke that would get me interested in this kind of discussion. Hell, I don't even think crystal meth would do the job for me. |
Well, to each his own, Kil. But when you consider that before science as we know it was born, the effort of humanity to comprehend the mysteries of the universe was encapsulated in and expressed by the thinking of the philosophers. And as incorrect as their contemplations as to the genuine nature of the natural world were -- compared to what modern scientific inquiry has disclosed in the last few hundred years -- the groundwork that the ancient philosophers and those who followed them laid for analytical and critical thinking was essential for the scientific methodology that evolved once our knowledge base and technology allowed it.
Aristotelian syllogistic logic laid the foundation and antipode for Boole and Begriffsschrift's development of the inductive and symbolic logic systems that have made computer science possible.
I don't think one can denigrate the work of the classical philosophers preceding the Principia as far as their contributions to both the hard and soft sciences of today. I guess that doesn't mean that you have to be interested in them, tho', does it?
But, as I said, to each his own. No interest in epistemology is to me as parochial as no interest in Beethoven, Isaac Newton, or Shakespeare! Whatever happened to the ideal of the Renaissance Man?
|
Bill, I think most here probably are interested in epistemology at least a little. The problem is that it can all be boiled down to either trusting your senses or not. If you don't trust them, then why bother with anything at all? If you do trust them, then you apply scientific skepticism to what they tell you. I think that is why the topic doesn't get a lot of traction in skeptics forums.
|
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
|
|
|
|
bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 11/09/2009 : 14:15:30 [Permalink]
|
Dave.......
| Once you start to doubt your senses (and optical illusions show that our senses aren't perfect, not that they aren't generally reliable), there's no reason to not doubt any objective reality. |
Dave, far more perceptive error than optical illusions show that our senses do indeed frequently deceive us, pending further examination of the subject in question. Hallucination, deception, preconception, a host of possible altered states of perception are possible.
In fact, a case could be made for the position that all direct perception is illusory, not because of Cartesian or Berkleyan doubt about the essence of reality, or the nonsense of solipcism; but rather that our perceptions of matter and energy in no way convey the molecular and atomic particle reality that the science of particle physics portrays. What we see with our unaided eye becomes a completely different construction under the microscope, and ultimately becomes unseeable because of the limitations of the wavelength of light. Much of "reality" is outside of the limitations of our senses.
So we must end up describing reality without direct reference to our perceptive senses but rather by constructing a theory of the nature of matter (for example) from observation of the way it behaves and interacts with other matter, energy, space and time.
As you correctly point out, this is done by observing and recording event sequences that repeat predictably, leading to theory construction. And, of course, our senses are all utilized in this observation process that then permits the cognitive machinery of the brain to apply reasoning and mathematical tools to the observations and create an understandable picture of the reality of matter, a theory, the true description of reality, not perception.
"Objective reality", as you use it above, thus is only defined by indirect perception. Doubt or acceptance of it's verity depends completely on the correctness and precision of the observation of its behavior and the deductive and inductive reasoning used to construct the theory of it's nature.
When a macro event is observed, and the observation of it's occurance can be repeated, and hallucination or illusion can be eliminated as possible explanations of it's "observation" (as opposed to "imagined"), the basis is laid for construction of a theory of it's nature. Once finished, if this theory then satisfactorily fits each and every occurance of the event as further and repeatedly observed, the "reality" of the event can be establised.
To me, the proper role of a skeptic is to suspend judgement as to what is and isn't reality until the above conditions have been met. Mere observation of an event does not define it to be an actual subset of the universe of reality, in other words, real. So, to me, if there is any reason for uncertainty, one's senses definitely should not be trusted until the perception can be tested.
I do not catagorize myself as a skeptic in the sense of SFN's mission statement:| The mission of the Skeptic Friends Network is to promote skepticism, critical thinking, science and logic as the best methods for evaluating all claims of fact, |
because of the lack of further definition of the word skepticism as used in the mission statement.
I take no exception to the value of critical thinking, science and the application of the scientific method, and the use of logic in the investigation of truth claims, these methodologies and disciplines are mandatory; but the broad brush stroke of "promote skepticism" needs tighter definition of skepticism:
Webster:
1 : an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object
2 a : the doctrine that true knowledge or knowledge in a particular area is uncertain b : the method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism characteristic of skeptics |
This isn't bad, but it fails to differentiate between pyrrhonism, or philosophical skepticism and empirical, or scientific skepticism.
It appears that you and most of the charter members of SFN are more solidly into the empirical camp, and I can understand that position as it is gut-pleasing practical and avoids most of the angels dancing on the heads of pins aspects of philosophical skepticism.
However, to give you ample targetage for response, I see some value in the comments of Susan Blackmore, i.e.| "There are some members of the skeptics’ groups who clearly believe they know the right answer prior to inquiry. They appear not to be interested in weighing alternatives, investigating strange claims, or trying out psychic experiences or altered states for themselves (heaven forbid!), but only in promoting their own particular belief structure and cohesion..." |
As you no doubt know, she was a parapsychologist, a title that is anathama to most good skeptics sensibilities. Since Marcello Truzzi, the term "pseudoskepticism" has been lobbied back and forth between the camps of those who see hypocrisy in the viewpoints of the empiricists, and the pragmatic folk who call themselves scientific skeptics. Truzzi and Carl Sagan both were wrongly attributed to originating the famous "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" aphorism -- ("The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.")Laplace; preceded by David Hume's "A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence"
Truzzi wrote:| In science, the burden of proof falls upon the claimant; and the more extraordinary a claim, the heavier is the burden of proof demanded. The true skeptic takes an agnostic position, one that says the claim is not proved rather than disproved. He asserts that the claimant has not borne the burden of proof and that science must continue to build its cognitive map of reality without incorporating the extraordinary claim as a new "fact." Since the true skeptic does not assert a claim, he has no burden to prove anything. He just goes on using the established theories of "conventional science" as usual. But if a critic asserts that there is evidence for disproof, that he has a negative hypothesis --saying, for instance, that a seeming psi result was actually due to an artifact--he is making a claim and therefore also has to bear a burden of proof. |
Parapsychology aside, (and that battlefield has to be revisited soon), I tend to agree with both the statements of Blackmore and Truzzi in general. Thus, I cannot completely accept the mantle of "Skeptic" here until it is made clear whether SFN's tent is copius enough for both the philosophical skeptic and the empirical skeptic to lay down together beneath it's fold.
If you can bludgeon your way through the pile of gauntlets that I have piled in front of you, lay on, McDave, the trebuchets are wound and ready!
|
|
|
|
astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 11/09/2009 : 14:22:02 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by marfknox
Conversations like this make me want to go outside and rake the leaves on the lawn. Or bake a pie.
|
I'm with you....and I've never baked a pie in my whole life.
But then, how do I know that I've really baked a pie....in reality? And how can I be sure that how pie's taste to me don't taste just like cakes tastes to you? |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
|
|
|
bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 11/09/2009 : 17:55:24 [Permalink]
|
Dude.....
| Bill, I think most here probably are interested in epistemology at least a little. The problem is that it can all be boiled down to either trusting your senses or not. If you don't trust them, then why bother with anything at all? If you do trust them, then you apply scientific skepticism to what they tell you. I think that is why the topic doesn't get a lot of traction in skeptics forums. |
Dude, the problem is not whether or not to trust what your senses are telling you, it's in understanding what that sensory information really means in all of it's possible incarnations.
We obviously can't see subatomic particles even with the highest technology at our command, but does that mean that they don't exist? Of course not!
So what is a teaspoon or an elephant if it is not what our senses tell us? (The old parable of the blind men feeling an elephant is relevant here).
The answer(s) are, it is many things, depending upon in what context or level of description you want to define it. "Reality" would apply equally well to all of them. It a large mammal with a trunk. It is also a certain complex concatenation of molecules. Also, a much more complex grouping of atoms and sub-atomic particles. In a very real sense it is an energy transformation system. To a child, it may be the actual embodiment of a Walt Disney fantasy. And so forth.
Each conceptualization is correct as "reality" within it's own reference system. But there is no reason to doubt our senses simply because there multiple realities for the same object. The secondary reality, or what our cognition does with the perception provided by our senses is what constitutes actual reality, and it is multiple.
To me, it is a fascinating area of exploration and understanding; and trumps raking leaves or baking pies hands down! But that's just me, I guess!
|
|
|
|
Zebra
Skeptic Friend
USA
354 Posts |
Posted - 11/09/2009 : 20:19:13 [Permalink]
|
I'll reply, with the caveat that I have exactly zero formal philosophical education. (Maybe that shows - !)
Originally posted by bngbuck
Dave, far more perceptive error than optical illusions show that our senses do indeed frequently deceive us, pending further examination of the subject in question. Hallucination, deception, preconception, a host of possible altered states of perception are possible. |
Are these our senses deceiving us, or our brains? Aren't these largely interpretations of sensory input which may or may not even exist?
| In fact, a case could be made for the position that all direct perception is illusory, not because of Cartesian or Berkleyan doubt about the essence of reality, or the nonsense of solipcism; but rather that our perceptions of matter and energy in no way convey the molecular and atomic particle reality that the science of particle physics portrays. What we see with our unaided eye becomes a completely different construction under the microscope, and ultimately becomes unseeable because of the limitations of the wavelength of light. Much of "reality" is outside of the limitations of our senses. |
As I suggested in reply to the OP on page 1: "Define reality." And, I'll add, where is the border between "philosophy" and "semantics"?
So we must end up describing reality without direct reference to our perceptive senses but rather by constructing a theory of the nature of matter (for example) from observation of the way it behaves and interacts with other matter, energy, space and time.
As you correctly point out, this is done by observing and recording event sequences that repeat predictably, leading to theory construction. And, of course, our senses are all utilized in this observation process that then permits the cognitive machinery of the brain to apply reasoning and mathematical tools to the observations and create an understandable picture of the reality of matter, a theory, the true description of reality, not perception. |
This sounds circular to me. We must describe reality without direct reference to our senses, but by repeatedly observing via our senses then creating a theory about it.
No matter how many times you see the sun come up in the morning, it still looks like the sun "comes up" in the morning. Does that make sunrise a theory of reality that we should believe?
| "Objective reality", as you use it above, thus is only defined by indirect perception. Doubt or acceptance of it's verity depends completely on the correctness and precision of the observation of its behavior and the deductive and inductive reasoning used to construct the theory of it's nature. |
The only information we have about quarks is indirect. Hypotheses about their behavior have been demonstrated to be correct repeatedly in experiments. Does this put them in the realm of "objective reality" but leave a chair, an elephant, and a teaspoon out because we observe those directly?
| When a macro event is observed, and the observation of it's occurance can be repeated, and hallucination or illusion can be eliminated as possible explanations of it's "observation" (as opposed to "imagined"), the basis is laid for construction of a theory of it's nature. Once finished, if this theory then satisfactorily fits each and every occurance of the event as further and repeatedly observed, the "reality" of the event can be establised. |
I take the more prosaic view that if it looks like a chair & you can sit in it, it's a chair. But maybe that's just me.
| To me, the proper role of a skeptic is to suspend judgement as to what is and isn't reality until the above conditions have been met. Mere observation of an event does not define it to be an actual subset of the universe of reality, in other words, real. So, to me, if there is any reason for uncertainty, one's senses definitely should not be trusted until the perception can be tested. |
Again...tested & judged using senses? Looking awfully circular here...in my perception, informed by my senses.
|
I think, you know, freedom means freedom for everyone* -Dick Cheney
*some restrictions may apply |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 11/09/2009 : 20:40:27 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by bngbuck
If you can bludgeon your way through the pile of gauntlets that I have piled in front of you, lay on, McDave, the trebuchets are wound and ready! |
The only thing we need to realize, as people did hundreds of years before Aristotle, is that if we cannot agree on certain postulates (or axioms), we cannot even have a reasoned discussion about what "reality" means. Even basic deductive logic fails if we have no common framework in which to use it.
It's those shared axioms which are our objective reality at its most basic level. We build upon them towards a functionally accurate mapping of what we all perceive. Without the framework, everything is built on sand and crumbles at the slightest breeze.
You also wrote:So what is a teaspoon or an elephant if it is not what our senses tell us? (The old parable of the blind men feeling an elephant is relevant here).
The answer(s) are, it is many things, depending upon in what context or level of description you want to define it. "Reality" would apply equally well to all of them. It a large mammal with a trunk. It is also a certain complex concatenation of molecules. Also, a much more complex grouping of atoms and sub-atomic particles. In a very real sense it is an energy transformation system. To a child, it may be the actual embodiment of a Walt Disney fantasy. And so forth.
Each conceptualization is correct as "reality" within it's own reference system. But there is no reason to doubt our senses simply because there multiple realities for the same object. The secondary reality, or what our cognition does with the perception provided by our senses is what constitutes actual reality, and it is multiple. |
Baloney. An elephant is all of those things, simultaneously, in everyone's reality. Whatever the most-important aspect of an elephant is within a particular context, that doesn't mean it doesn't also have all of its other aspects. Elephants don't stop being collections of sub-atomic particles just because a kid says, "hey, it's Dumbo!"
There are no wholly separable "reference systems." An elephant is a Disney character because it's got certain characteristics, including being a large mammal with a trunk. It's a large mammal with a trunk because it has a certain biology. It has that certain biology because of its complex arrangement of molecules. Those molecules fit together that way because of their subatomic components. These things are inextricably intertwined, and make up one single reality.| To me, it is a fascinating area of exploration and understanding; and trumps raking leaves or baking pies hands down! But that's just me, I guess! |
If you want to spend your time pretending that there exist numerous independent "realities" for everyday objects, that's your prerogative, of course. Don't think you're being deep or philosophical while doing so, though. I mean, I play games involving space ships and impossible physics, but I don't delude myself into thinking that I'm a starship engineer. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/10/2009 : 08:42:26 [Permalink]
|
bng said:
Dude, the problem is not whether or not to trust what your senses are telling you, it's in understanding what that sensory information really means in all of it's possible incarnations.
We obviously can't see subatomic particles even with the highest technology at our command, but does that mean that they don't exist? Of course not!
|
We know that sub atomic particles exist because we have built machines to extend our senses.
For the rest, I share the same school of thought as Dave_W on this issue. Your elephant has many characteristics all of which add up to the single reality that is an elephant.
You also seem to be saying that how a person percieves things is reality. I have to strongly object to that. Reality exists independent from my ability to percieve it.
|
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
|
|
|
|
bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 11/10/2009 : 18:25:21 [Permalink]
|
Zebra and Dave......
This is more by way of a bump than anything else, but I had squeezed out enough time to sensibly answer Zebra's questions to me. I had parked the post prior to finishing my response to Dave's unhappiness over my time-wasting chasing of will-o-the wisps, when my damn computer froze like a rock. Being utterly incompetent in things geeky, I called my favorite professional putterer and after about a half hour of fucking around he managed to erase all the text I had saved plus the current posting. Did finally get the damn thing working,'tho.
I should be able to repost my thoughts tomorrow. Sorry to be late! |
|
|
|
Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
Posted - 11/13/2009 : 23:12:29 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by bngbuck
If you can bludgeon your way through the pile of gauntlets that I have piled in front of you, lay on, McDave, the trebuchets are wound and ready! |
The only thing we need to realize, as people did hundreds of years before Aristotle, is that if we cannot agree on certain postulates (or axioms), we cannot even have a reasoned discussion about what "reality" means. Even basic deductive logic fails if we have no common framework in which to use it.
It's those shared axioms which are our objective reality at its most basic level. We build upon them towards a functionally accurate mapping of what we all perceive. Without the framework, everything is built on sand and crumbles at the slightest breeze. |
Are you not arguing from your conclusion? How does the fact that our arguments crumble without this conception of reality give validity to this conception?
How is this different from a Christian saying "the morality we have built over the last 2000 years fall apart without God, therefore God exists"? |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 11/14/2009 : 01:28:18 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Machi4velli
Are you not arguing from your conclusion? How does the fact that our arguments crumble without this conception of reality give validity to this conception? |
Validity? It provides the minimum utility that's required to even discuss whether the concept has any validity. Either we have a common framework in which to argue, or else the concept of "arguing from your conclusion" is meaningless. In other words, if your position is that we can't know whether any reality exists, then you've refuted your own argument: any answer to your questions becomes free of any relation to any reality that might exist, so why did you bother to pose them? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
Posted - 11/14/2009 : 17:19:03 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Machi4velli
Are you not arguing from your conclusion? How does the fact that our arguments crumble without this conception of reality give validity to this conception? |
Validity? It provides the minimum utility that's required to even discuss whether the concept has any validity. Either we have a common framework in which to argue, or else the concept of "arguing from your conclusion" is meaningless. In other words, if your position is that we can't know whether any reality exists, then you've refuted your own argument: any answer to your questions becomes free of any relation to any reality that might exist, so why did you bother to pose them?
|
Point taken, but must this framework have anything to do with perception? All we seem to need is logic, which I think we could formulate independent of perception. Even then, how do we relate this to any sort of physical reality? |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
| Edited by - Machi4velli on 11/14/2009 17:22:08 |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 11/14/2009 : 22:05:06 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Machi4velli
Point taken, but must this framework have anything to do with perception? All we seem to need is logic, which I think we could formulate independent of perception. Even then, how do we relate this to any sort of physical reality? |
It's not related, except that the same sort of reasoning allows us to escape solipsism.
If our faculties to reason aren't generally reliable, then any "logic" we might formulate is worthless, and our perceptions don't matter.
If our ability to perceive an external, objective reality isn't generally reliable, then no matter how solid our internally formulated logic and reasoning skills, we can't use any observation of the world outside our heads as a premise to any argument, nor can we build testable hypotheses from faulty perceptions.
In other words, if either our reasoning or our perceptions (or both) are unreliable, then nothing we do or think will matter. We might make some sort of impact on some sort of reality, but we'd never know it.
If we are to entertain the idea that reality is probably not as we perceive it, then I have to seriously consider the possibly that I am a creature that looks like a pyramidal stack of purple marshmallows (who is simply having a fever dream of pale, tall, hairy beings with four long appendages), as well as all the bazillion other possibilities that become reasonable if I have to ignore what I see, feel, hear, etc.
This is hard to express, but if my reasoning or perceptions are unreliable, then nothing I say, do or even think matters. Whatever my goals are cannot have one iota of an impact, on any sort of "reality," simply because even if I think I'm doing one thing, I might actually be doing something diametrically opposed to my will. There's no point in even something as simple as using a toilet if I feel a need to eliminate, because the feeling might be false, and/or the toilet might be an illusion.
If all I am is a brain in a vat, then even the simplest of conclusions that I think I've got down pat may not have any relation at all with whatever real logic might be or whatever real world might exist. Everything would be pointless.
Of course I can't say with certainty that everything is not pointless, but it sure seems like effects have causes, for example. When I itch, I scratch, and thus I itch less. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 11/14/2009 : 22:20:50 [Permalink]
|
Zebra.....
| I'll reply, with the caveat that I have exactly zero formal philosophical education. (Maybe that shows - !) |
Caveat accepted, Zebra, but I must confess that I have very little in the way of formal medical education. Neither your nor my academic lacking really has much bearing on a discussion of epistemology. I am as interested in your opinions as I would be in those of Bertrand Russell.
| Are these our senses deceiving us, or our brains? Aren't these largely interpretations of sensory input which may or may not even exist? |
Of course. I apologize for my imprecision of expression. Neural transmission from sensory organs without a nervous system and a brain to interpret are indeed meaningless!| As I suggested in reply to the OP on page 1: "Define reality." And, I'll add, where is the border between "philosophy" and "semantics"? |
The best I can do is to offer several of the serious attempts I have seen:
1. "Reality, in everyday usage, means "the state of things as they actually exist."Literally, the term denotes what is real; in its widest sense, this includes everything that is, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible. Reality in this sense includes being and sometimes is considered to include nothingness, as well."
This, as you might guess, is the beginning of the wiki definition, and obviously has some drawbacks, namely it is pleonastic ("Reality denotes what is real"). However, it does go on to give a bit of definition of what the author means by "real"
2. That which is studied by the discipline of phenomenology, specifically as defined by the philosophy of Edmund Husserl, Franz Brentano, and Carl Stumpf. Husserl focuses on conciousness having an intuitive grasp of knowledge and an awareness of something other than itself, challenging the "perception is the only reality" implications of the empiricists such as Locke, Hume, and John Stewart Mill that followed the rationalism of Descartes.
Wiki nicely condenses the phenomenological view of reality thus:| The phenomenological method serves to momentarily erase the world of speculation by returning the subject to his or her primordial experience of the matter, whether the object of inquiry is a feeling, an idea, or a perception. |
I might add a favorite addition to the roster of reality definitions,
3. Wikiality, defined as the concept that "together we can create a reality that we all agree on—the reality we just agreed on."
The premise of wikiality is that reality is what the wiki says it is.Stephen Colbert
That pretty well works for me.
With respect to:| where is the border between "philosophy" and "semantics"? |
Well, if you intend "semantics" to be understood in it's literal sense as a study or investigation of the meaning of language; and "philosophy" to be the classic "pursuit of wisdom: a search for the underlying causes and principles of reality"; I guess your question is, "at what point do we move from talking about the meaning of words, to talking about the meaning of what the words describe?" To me, that is a line in shifting sands I cannot demarcate.| This sounds circular to me. We must describe reality without direct reference to our senses, but by repeatedly observing via our senses then creating a theory about it. |
I fail to see the circularity. We describe reality, at least different aspects of it, by using our senses. If there is not or cannot be repetition of what we observe, it well may be hallucination or sensory illusion. With repetition, the reality may be accurately described, and the description is the theory as to what that particular level or aspect of the "reality" we have observed is.| No matter how many times you see the sun come up in the morning, it still looks like the sun "comes up" in the morning. Does that make sunrise a theory of reality that we should believe? |
Well, there is of course a perfectly acceptable reality theory that explains the apparent "rise" of the sun from the horizon in the morning. There is also an enlargement of that theory incorporating planetary rotation and optical angles of sight that further defines another aspect of the sunrise theory, that the sun appears on the horizon every morning and appears to move throughout the day--this, writ large, would be Copernican heliocentrism. We probably should believe that one.The only information we have about quarks is indirect. Hypotheses about their behavior have been demonstrated to be correct repeatedly in experiments. Does this put them in the realm of "objective reality" but leave a chair, an elephant, and a teaspoon out because we observe those directly?
|
Of course not. In the context you have described, the chair, elephant, and teaspoon are simply perceptions (observations) of another aspect of these object's reality. The reality does not change, only the methodology by which you perceive it, (or intuit it from what you can perceive using instrumentation and observation of it's behavior.| I take the more prosaic view that if it looks like a chair & you can sit in it, it's a chair. But maybe that's just me. |
Not just you, but the vast majority of humankind. Few of us have access to an electron microscope. Nor did Aristotle.Again...tested & judged using senses? Looking awfully circular here...in my perception, informed by my senses.
|
Zebra you would certainly become dizzy watching David Copperfield vanish an elephant in front of your eyes. The circularity of your senses telling you that the damn elephant vanished then the rationality of your cognition stating that the elephant could not have vanished; yes, but I saw it vanish; no, it could not vanish until you think of the hydraulic lift, trapdoor, lighting tricks, and other mechanism that probably transported the elephant off the stage. If David is kind enough to take you backstage after the performance, you can complete your theory. Your senses conveyed an aspect of the reality of the elephant's disappearance to you to your seat in the theater, you experienced another aspect of the "reality"of the event when you went backstage.
I think you are attempting to say that because I repeatedly state that one always cannot trust the raw reality of one's perceptions, that that reality is not the "true" reality. It is one of many views or aspects or dimensions of the complete reality. But much as we can only see a portion of a scene through a peephole, only a portion of the complete reality of anything is revealed by our senses. There are not many discrete realities, one replacing the other; rather there are many distinct entities that comprise the gestalt of a given reality. Admittedly, it is simplistic, but again consider the parable of the blind men examining the elephant. Each perceives a different aspect or part of the same reality. And, if not further informed, each will carry a different impression of the reality that is the elephant. But the actual reality of the elephant does not change!
|
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 11/14/2009 : 23:28:50 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by bngbuck
Neither your nor my academic lacking really has much bearing on a discussion of epistemology. |
You mean "ontology." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Reality
