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What us reality?

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steve_bank

Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
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secular-skeptic
There are simple tests for determining reality.

1. Don't pay taxes, bills, rent or mortgages.
2. Don't eat food or drink water.
3. Jump off a tall building.
4. Bend over and run into a brick wall with your head down.

Se what happens and contemplate what reality is.
 
"There is no reality, only perception." Sorry, I could resist using that quote, but there certainly is some truth in it, as we all seem to see truth in a lot of things, base on our own perceptions.
 
steve_bank said:
There are simple tests for determining reality.

1. Don't pay taxes, bills, rent or mortgages.
2. Don't eat food or drink water.
3. Jump off a tall building.
4. Bend over and run into a brick wall with your head down.

Se what happens and contemplate what reality is.
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Oh? So sure you are, that you know what would happen if you did those things? Tried them, you did?
 
Politesse said:
DBT said:
Perhaps the level of certainty precludes the desire or need for testing....?
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Faith, in less words?
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Hardly. These things have been tested to the nth degree as we negotiate our way in the world. We know fire will burn us, we know that a heavy blow can injure us, that a knife will cut. We avoid these things because our information has been proven reliable, without fail.
 
Politesse said:
steve_bank said:
There are simple tests for determining reality.

1. Don't pay taxes, bills, rent or mortgages.
2. Don't eat food or drink water.
3. Jump off a tall building.
4. Bend over and run into a brick wall with your head down.

Se what happens and contemplate what reality is.
Click to expand...
Oh? So sure you are, that you know what would happen if you did those things? Tried them, you did?
Click to expand...
Are you channeling Yoda?
 
We make models of reality and test with instruments.

Are we 'measuring' reality or is the process of measurement giving us results in numbers that are a false impression?

My example is that pre scince to most it was obvious the Earth was the center of the unverse about which everything else rotated. Interpretation of observation.

Is it possible that our interpretaions of modern science are analogous?
 
List what you see going on around you. Compare that to what others list. Add more "others", lots more. Discuss the pile of lists. .

Thats as real as its gets for us.
 
steve_bank said:
We make models of reality and test with instruments.

Are we 'measuring' reality or is the process of measurement giving us results in numbers that are a false impression?

My example is that pre scince to most it was obvious the Earth was the center of the unverse about which everything else rotated. Interpretation of observation.

Is it possible that our interpretaions of modern science are analogous?
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Absolutely. Scientifically speaking the ancients and their geocentrism were spot on. They fucked up when new evidence came along and some dogmatically ignored it. As for "reality," it's a word like similar words and enhances communication. My fave word in that sense is "existence" because philosophically it's been pounded into dust over the ages and has no more meaning today than it ever did yet folks wrangle over what it is and use it without much thought. Many words reference objects and behaviors that we can stick a scientific fork into. Not so with words like existence and reality.

So maybe to answer your OP question there's a Freudian slip there when you used the word "us." Stringing those three words together, What _ Us _ Reality is pretty much its own answer.
 
southernhybrid said:
"There is no reality, only perception." Sorry, I could resist using that quote, but there certainly is some truth in it, as we all seem to see truth in a lot of things, base on our own perceptions.
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both halves of that sentence are overstatements.
 
jab said:
southernhybrid said:
"There is no reality, only perception." Sorry, I could resist using that quote, but there certainly is some truth in it, as we all seem to see truth in a lot of things, base on our own perceptions.
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both halves of that sentence are overstatements.
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That was meant to be humorous. It's based on an old quote:

“There Is No Truth. There Is Only Perception.” – Gustave Flaubert​


My only point is that when it comes to things like politics and social things, people often have very different perceptions of what's going on or what was said. That's all.
 
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steve_bank said:
We make models of reality and test with instruments.

Are we 'measuring' reality or is the process of measurement giving us results in numbers that are a false impression?

My example is that pre scince to most it was obvious the Earth was the center of the unverse about which everything else rotated. Interpretation of observation.

Is it possible that our interpretaions of modern science are analogous?
Click to expand...
Oh yes.

The interpretation involves choices about what to pay attention to and what to ignore. Also the interpretation is done with language which is loaded with metaphors and implicit judgments. So subjectivity creeps in no matter what you do.

Reaching a consensus interpretation with others can get ideological because people bring their allegiances to belief-systems into it. For example, some philosophers (Daniel Dennett for one) say consciousness is an illusion. But it's impossible for it to be an illusion because illusions can only happen within consciousness. So how do they interpret the facts to reach such a nutty conclusion? Many people yearn for a complete picture so they find a way to dismiss the significance of what they cannot measure. Consciousness ... the single most "in your face" and "obvious" fact that there is... can't be directly observed by scientific means, so that's the reason they want to dismiss it as an illusion.

Science can only measure the brain activity... which is just brain activity, it's not consciousness itself. So how to resolve their reductionist problem and get a complete picture? Solution: dismiss even evident realities if they don't conform with a scientific model, to pretend science has a completer picture of reality than it has.
 
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It is the referrent of "is". Thus when we say,

There is no reality, [there is] only perception
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we are speaking a self-contradictory thought.
“There Is No Truth. There Is Only Perception.” – Gustave Flaubert
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A statement that declares itself nontrue. So we can disregard it.
 
Electrochemical brain activity may be experienced subjectively as consciousness, and may be objectively detected on EEG or imaged on fMR as a physical process.
 
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