Reality is NOT absolute &#40;apparently&#41;

Vertigo, I have a point-by-point reply to your post below (using "v-" or "e-" for you and me):

e-Rand felt that there were 2 key things to initially identify regarding the validity of another's thought:

1) their axioms (ie. self-evident truth forming the base of knowledge and validating deduction, which ultimately proceeds from axioms) and …

2) their definitions (objective standard = noncontradictory identification and integration = logical definitions are the only valid definitions).

I have attempted (adding alternates to your Oxford definitions below) to empirically define terms in a rational, noncontradictory manner.

v-Some terms as defined by the Concise Oxford Dictionary 1983:

Reality: what is real, what underlies appearances.
e-ALTERNATE: something that is neither derivative nor dependent but exists necessarily

v-Perceive: apprehend with the mind, observe, understand, regard mentally in a specified manner.
e-ALTERNATE: to become aware of through the senses

v-Percept: object of perception, mental product of percieving.
e-ALTERNATE: an impression of an object obtained by use of the senses

v-Perception: act or faculty of percieving, intuitive recognition, action by which the mind refers its sensations to external object as cause.
e-ALTERNATE: automatic integration of sensory stimuli; a result of perceiving; awareness of the elements of environment through physical sensation

And some further point-by-point analysis …

v-To percieve is not simply to receive input from some source, but rather to assimilate such input in determining causality. The result of such a process is the percept, which is the mental production resulting from this process. This might be analogous to a 'concept' in Objectivist terms. Hence the percept is that idea we have about the nature of the event, as a result of our perceiving it.

e-Valid concept formation stems from noncontradictory identification & integration of perception (ie. valid concepts are the result of applying "logic" to "experience", and these 2 key ingredients are methodologically inseparable - logical concepts are the only valid concepts)

v-Now, let me expound my view in these terms. Firstly there is a slight dilemna. I know I will be shouted at for saying this, but I will say it anyway. Theoretically it is possible that the 'mind' part of ourselves is somewhat seperate from the 'physical' side. If this were to be true, it might be possible that our physical side does not exist, but is merely a projection given to us. I am not implying likelihood on this conjecture. Bear with me.

Even in such a scenario, our mind would still percieve information from our physical side in exactly the same way. No difference would be discernable. Hence any discussion of perception need not include such a possibility, as it applies equally to both.

e-The 2nd part above invalidates any inference from the 1st part above (if you were trying to make some philosophical headway with your words above, then you have contradicted yourself here)

v-Thus and henceforth let us assume the physical world exists, because it is the more likely proposition. At a later stage in our development, were we to discover that a different reality abounds, we could refine what we know of reality at that stage. However, until such time it is not useful to consider such a proposition as no benefit derives from that line of thinking. Realise now when I say 'a different reality abounds', I simply mean that what we thought was real was not real.

e-Are you honestly prepared to henceforth assume the physical world exists, vertigo (your double contradiction of presenting a mind-body dichotomy, along with the "theoretical" return to the "assumption" that reality is absolute, gives me reason to believe that you are not achieving intellectual integrity here)?

v-That does away with the existential dilemna, as Jeremy calls it. Hence I see no penalty in realising what I have said about it. Feel free to disagree.

e-Okay, I disagree (on the grounds that the fundamental issue here is - "whether or not we have a valid, though non-omniscient, means of identifying reality" - an issue which you have failed to make any progress on with your words above)

v-In percieving reality, we will intuitively attempt to understand the causality of such events.

e-We have more than mere "intuition" at our service when we make this crucial "attempt"

v-Very often we won't have enough previous knowledge to accurately discern the full extent or nature of the cause of such an event. Hence the potential is there for us to gain more understanding at a later stage, regarding the causality of that event, based on future experiences.

From this, events occuring later could have the result that we gain more understanding of the causality of some past event.

e-Agreed (this is the very real progress of what Rand called the "spiral" nature of knowledge acquisition)

v-When we perceive new data, that percept (or concept perhaps) will be connected to various percepts attained previously, forming a hierarchy of knowledge. It can be seen therefore that the more we assimilate knowledge, the more complete and extensive our knowledge becomes. Also, let us notice that there really is no substitute for experience, as they say, as building a good foundation will allow these new percepts to be of better quality and be better connected.

e-Agreed (now simply regard the implications of this process, Vertigo -- the "understanding" of reality)

v-Hence gratuitous doubt of a percept's validity can be seen to be needlessly hampering to ones assimilation of knowledge.

e-Agreed ( … and doubting percepts, the gateway into the mind, is life-threatening if we logically assume that we absolutely need our mind to survive as the contingent creature that we are in this world)

v-However and importantly, placing too much faith in one's perception might result in structures of percepts which are actually based on false facts. Thus it would seem to me that a balance must be struck between these two extremes. Believing all knowledge to be innately dubious is unnecessary, while so is accepting information at face value.

e-" Believing all knowledge to be innately dubious" is lethal for a contingent creature, and factoring in the "face-value" effect effectively solves the paradox which you present here at the end

Ed

Post 41

Thursday, December 18, 2003 - 9:59pm

I have some points to make.

v-Perceive: apprehend with the mind, observe, understand, regard mentally in a specified manner.
e-ALTERNATE: to become aware of through the senses

Your definition ignores the fact that part of perception is analysing the information recieved to determine causality. You have neglected that point. I admit I too was unclear on the precise definition, which is why I got it from the dictionary. As the dictionary details, to percieve is also to determine causality. Following this point we must clarify what information can be used when we percieve.

Your definition specifically says 'through the senses'. This needs clarification. Essentially, perception is recieving some notification of events, and then determining the causality of that event. Your definition implies that you assume the only way humans can sense is through the usual senses. However, things such as pain are not a sense in the usual meaning, however it is likely if a human recieves a pain message they will determine causality. For example, if you hammer a nail in, and hit your thumb by accident, you will quickly determine the cause of that pain message.

Hence I see no reason to limit the definition of perception to 'through the senses', at least in the usual implied meaning of senses.

I would say any notification of an event we recieve from any source can be used in perception.

Pursuant to this, it therefore becomes possible theoretically for our sensory inputs and such to be given to us. In this regard we could still percieve information from our 'physical side'. Realise that in this hypothesis what we learn of our physical side is actually an illusion, but we learn it all the same. We could be in a simulator, and there would be no discernable difference to us. All our senses, sight, touch, etc, complement each other, in that we see our own bodies, we feel our own bodies, etc. The combination of these leads us to the conclusion that our body exists. Henceforth we believe in the validity of our physical world. If that sensual information was given to us via another means, we still would come to the same conclusion.

"e-The 2nd part above invalidates any inference from the 1st part above (if you were trying to make some philosophical headway with your words above, then you have contradicted yourself here)"

Since there is no discernable difference, such thinking is unnecessary. Hence believing in the validity of the physical is normal and expected. I am going to assume this is the nature of any inference made being invalidated. Knowledge of such a possibility doesn't and shouldn't in any way alter our behaviour, hence such knowledge is potentially of no value. Is this the point you were making?

That such a scenario doesn't in any way alter our position, means we can ignore it and henceforth assume the physical word is real.

"e-Are you honestly prepared to henceforth assume the physical world exists, vertigo?"

I am. This choice follows logically from the discussion above.

However, once having assumed the physical world exists, I don't believe it is correct to alter the definition of perception to your definition of it. You have changed the definition to 'though the senses', but it is possible for people to recieve information from other means, even some paranormal means. Therefore I would reject your definition.

I do hope it is clear now why it is I assume the world exists. All we have there is an assumption, since, as I said, there is no way to disprove that we are in a simulator. Hence I assume our world is real, and this seems the logical conclusion of the issue.

On the other hand, we can simply ignore the simulator scenario, on the grounds that it is highly unlikely and unproven, but this is unscientific in my view. That view may change. At some point in the future if I decide to regard ignoring the simulator scenario as valid scientifically, I will agree to the Objectivist's definition of it. However, I won't limit perception's definition in the same way.

"e-Okay, I disagree (on the grounds that the fundamental issue here is - "whether or not we have a valid, though non-omniscient, means of identifying reality" - an issue which you have failed to make any progress on with your words above)"

When we are asleep, we dream. Our dream is not real, not like the physical world. While we are dreaming we aren't aware of our physical bodies. However, certain signals from our physical bodies can wake us from our dream. Therefore it can be thought that we ignore our physical body's signals somewhat while we dream.

Similar to this, it is theoretically possible that we are in a simulator in one monstrous dream, and we can't discern our actual reality. By the argument above, such a possibility makes no difference, until such time as we recieve some notification from this actual reality. Until such time, this world will be what we think is real. We will behave as though it is real. We will 'henceforth assume it is real' (to use my words above).

In relation to your fundamental issue as expressed in the quote, I have no evidence that we do or that we don't. There is absolutely no way for me to convince you either that the world exists, or that it doesn't. I don't see that headway can be made in this regard.

However, and I do believe in this, we mustn't redefine concepts judiciously when the basis of such redefinition has not been proven. This may be the very thing that SamErica has intimated as being stuck in the mind-body dichotomy.

That's enough of that. This is my view as I have wanted to explain it. This view is not solid, and I suspect it will undergo some revision. I can't say categorically I will lose the idea of assuming the physical world exists though, but it could happen.

Potentially I might agree with whatever it is Ayn Rand has to say about this.

I really must take a break. I am of course still interested in any comment, but this is the end of explaining for now.

Post 42

Friday, December 19, 2003 - 3:14am

I feel that comunication between myself and the members of this board hasn't been particularly good. Part of the problem is that we aren't speaking in the same terms, and it seems that sometimes invalid inferences are being made from what I am saying.

I would like to address this problem. First let's look at the word 'assume':

Assume: to take as true for purposes of argument or action. Notice the mention of 'action' in that definition. To take something as true for purposes of action is to assume it. Therefore when I say 'henceforth I assume the physical world is real' it means for purposes of action I take the physical world to be real.

That is the first point I want to make. If you know something is true, you will not need to assume it. You will proceed based on that knowledge. However, if such knowledge is likely to be valid, but not provable, to act upon such knowledge necessarily means assuming it to be valid.

You can see from this definition that you would need to assume if even the remotest doubt abounds about an item of knowledge. Once it is proven valid, there is no need to assume it. Before such a proof is attained, we necessarily will either assume it to be valid, or assume it to be invalid. Often our choice of which of these to assume is influenced by the potential consequences of our assumption being wrong.

In such cases where we believe some knowledge likely to be valid, but the consequences of being incorrect are very grave, we might opt to 'play it safe'. I do believe this behaviour is an integral part of reason, and does play a part in our choosing behaviour.

Therefore I would say that all knowledge gets rated by ourselves as having some degree of likelihood, and when making a decision we weigh both our trust in the knowledge and our percieved consequences of being wrong. To deny one of these two is to overly simplify human reasoning.

As each piece of knowledge is assigned a degree of trust, it is forseeable that a large amount of that knowledge won't be completely trusted. Therefore it can be seen that assuming some knowledge to be true or false is not something rare, but rather a fundamental part of our human reasoning. Hence we must recognise the role assuming plays, and not think of it as something unnecessary or implicitly undesirable.

With this correct interpretation of assuming, it should be plain to see that my statement that I will 'henceforth assume the physical world to be real' is not a rare artifact, an anomaly of sorts, but rather a natural and expected consequence of 'the physical world is real' being unproven.

That idea might be strange to you, that facts need to be proved. This very idea is a contentious issue, and certainly is the crux of what people like SamErica have told me is foolish. Certainly in a scientific approach things need to be proven, and generally the only way to prove certain things is to exhaust all the possibilities, and see which one remains.

Unfortunately questions of philosophy are generally unprovable, so this approach might not be a valid one. I am hoping that Ayn Rand will convince me of the validity of a better approach. However, it is in this scientific context that I have made my posts about the simulator scenario and such. Please view it in the context I have given.

The next problem I have is fundamental differences of opinion between my own ideas and those of Objectivism, at least what I have found on importanceofphilosophy.com. I am afraid these differences might make it impossible for me to participate on this site.

It seems highly likely to me that if I even mention something like knowledge being innately seperate from reality I will be called a downright fool, a troll, or whatever else. As yet I can't say that such an opinion of knowledge as this is wrong, therefore I believe that to assume it wrong in this case without more understanding of it would be wrong.

This is the crux of my pursuit of knowledge, to take nothing for granted. I think this fundamental difference in approach might drive a wedge between myself and Objectivists. Expecting an Objectivist site such as this one to entertain probes into the merits of subjectivist thinking is most likely foolish. However I will be asking such questions as I don't believe any one yet knows all the answers, so to limit myself in such a drastic manner as has been abdicated without due reason would be wholly wrong.

My plan is to read more about Objectivism and other philosophies, and then to decide with the benefit of expanded knowledge what I agree with.

Having said this, and potentially having made the reader a bit disappointed, I will say that I don't often follow the same inferences made, and therefore still hold hope that even in a generally bad theory good pieces may reside. Therefore I won't discard volumes of theory out-of-hand, without investigating it first.

Henry, I can see you can feel strongly about your opinion of Hume's philosophy, etc. I can't comment on the validity of that at this time. I hold hope that some parts of what Kant and Hume expounded has some value, even if other parts are useless. Whether this is seen as a flaw or delusion, I can't control, and wouldn't want to. I must make my own way, for to do any other would be foolish.

Thank you to all who have attempted honestly or otherwise to influence me, I appreciate it. See you on the flip-side.

Post 43

Friday, December 19, 2003 - 11:12am

Vertigo,

What, if anything, do you accept as self-evident? (hint: "self-evident" doesn't have to be "self-obvious", but its contradiction must be unthinkable, like the idea of a "round square")

I must warn you that proudly answering the Existentialist mantra: "Nothing!" will automatically invalidate ever utterance you have ever made.

As I said above, self-evident axioms are necessary for deduction (ie. proof) of any kind, they validate deduction by solving the problem of Infinite Regress (the infinite regress of reasons).

Ed

Post 44

Friday, December 19, 2003 - 2:08pm

Read through this whole post, even if the start sounds bad. You will only be able to appreciate what I have actually said with it by reading it though. Skimming over will give a vastly false impression.

I noticed some inferences which seem to be incorrect, and therefore would like to clarify some issues. (I am not sure now after writing this if the inferences were incorrect, or myinterpretation of the terms used were incorrect.

My first indication was Ed's definition of 'to percieve':

v-Perceive: apprehend with the mind, observe, understand, regard mentally in a specified manner.
e-ALTERNATE: to become aware of through the senses.

I noticed that Ed's definition is different in two ways. Firstly, it neglects to say that part of percieving is mental processing. You might disagree with my point here, but the meaning is evident in a sentence such as 'how did you perceive that evidence?'.

This minor omission I can understand somewhat, although not condone. There is really no word for 'receive information from outside' (there actually is, sense, but this has connotations), and in some cases, 'perceive' is used this way. However, the second modification of the definition is much more grevious.

A phrase was added: 'through the senses'. This constraining of perception is potentially troublesome. It takes some things for granted. It takes the validity of our senses for granted and it takes for granted that outside information can't be received by any other means. We can't disprove that other ways of receiving outside information exist, therefore to constrain perception to the senses is to not realise the possibility that we might recieve information from somewhere other than the senses.

This outright denial of this possibility is what I noticed, however I hadn't realised the significance of it yet.

The truth is that we can't assume that no other means exists whereby outside information can be received. Dreams could be such a means, for example. Without evidence, implicitly ignoring a possibility like this is negligent.

With this (Ed's) definition of perception, and hence taking for granted the validity of the senses, my simulator scenario is no longer applicable. The simulator scenario relies on the senses actually being invalid (i.e. non-existant, an illusion created to fool), but this is incompatible with Ed's definition of perception. Remember that conciousness exists, and becomes aware through perception. The simulator scenario is effectively 'ignored away', never to be considered or included.

It should be easy to see that one can't be objective while ignoring some of the scope. A large portion of the scope of possibility is ignored when things are taken for granted. I have shown this effect above.

With the proper definition, nothing is taken for granted, and hence the full scope of possibility still applies. Armed with this definition, it can be seen that some of the inferences made are in fact not correct.

Quote: "Consciousness is the faculty which perceives that which exists; it identifies existents." (from importanceofphilosophy.com)

Specifically in this context it is important to realise that this 'conciousness' is not the usual idea of conciousness, in that when we are concious we exercise our own volition. This conciousness is merely the faculty which perceives. Hence any entity which perceives is concious, and has conciousness. Our conciousness may not always be actively percieving, though (this is wrong as I discovered).

In the context of Ed's definition we perceive through the senses. We know that when a person is asleep they can be awoken by noise or some similar event. Therefore we must recognise that we percieve even while asleep. This 'conciousness' as defined here is always active. Any entity or being which perceives has conciousness and is concious. Any entity or being which doesn't perceive has no conciousness and is not concious.

However, in the context of the proper definition of perception, it is not limited to the senses. Since we percieve at all times, it is possible that dreams, for example, are a means of recieving information of events. We cannot allow ourselves therefore to dismiss the possibility just because we feel like it.

Quote: "The primacy of existence states the irrefutable truth that existence is primary and consciousness is secondary. Consciousness is the faculty which perceives and identifies existents (things that exist)."

Quote: "Because consciousness identifies existents, there can be no consciousness without something existing to perceive. Nothing can have an identity (to be identified) without existing."

These quotes describe the nature of reality and the nature of conciousness, as conciousness was defined previously. Reality is what exists, what is real. Conciousness is that faculty that perceives real things. With the proper definition of 'to perceive' we realise that any organism like a plant is, by definition, concious. A plant reacts according to the characteristics of its surroundings. It can sense when the spring comes, so to start blossoming, etc. This is the scope of these premises. It is important to realise the scope of such premises, because to not realise the scope is to 'ignore away' vast realms of possibility.

Perhaps some readers haven't realised the full scope of these premises here, as detailed in the site importanceofphilosophy. It is unfortunate that perception's definition was perverted so.

Quote: "The statement 'Reality is Absolute' is the explicit recognition of the primacy of existence. This means that reality is not subject to wishes, whims, prayers, or miracles. If you want to change the world, you must act according to reality."

At this point it is of paramount importance to keep in mind that this quote absolutely in no way defines what is real. Of particular importance is the statement 'you must act according to reality'. Denying reality is a fruitless purpose. But, and this is so vitally important I cannot stress it enough, we must KNOW what reality in fact is, so to conform to it. To know what reality is, and especially to encompass the vastness of whatever reality is, we must seek knowledge, while importantly guarding against 'ignoring away' scope. Ignoring away part of the scope of what potentially is real can and will result in a distorted view of reality, one which is potentially not valid and may lead to incorrect inferences about reality. To be objective we must use reality as a standard of comparison, but to do this we ABSOLUTELY CANNOT ignore any part of reality; to do so is akin to shooting ourselves in the foot.

Post 45

Friday, December 19, 2003 - 2:10pm

-- Continued:

Quote: "An arbitrary statement is a statement without reason or justification. It is unsupported by any facts or reasons."

Quote: "Often the arbitrary statement is absurd. An example of an arbitrary statement is claiming the possibility that all blue objects will turn green after a particular date. These absurd statements are usually softened by asking whether it is at least possible. In this way, the speaker tries to gain some legitimacy be referring to reality in judging whether the statement is known to contradict reality. This appearance of legitimacy is fake. The statement has no support from reality and therefore it doesn't need to be contradicted in order to be dismissed. The proper response to any arbitrary statement is to treat it for what it is: a statement made without any factual support or reason."

The fundamental premise of this issue as decribed in the quotes is that we must compare statements made to reality, to ascertain if they have any support. To do this, we must have some idea of what is real. In correctly judging support for such a statement, we need to have the MOST ACCURATE POSSIBLE idea of reality, or we risk making incorrect judgements. We gain this knowledge of reality through perception. We percieve events, and build an idea of reality. We can then use this idea of reality to judge arbitrary statements.

Unfortunately this concept has an innate contradiction which must be realised. Any time a new statement is formed, we judge it to what we know of reality. If there is no support for it, the quote above abdicates dismissing it out of hand. The problem comes in when we are at the beginning and haven't built up knowledge of what is real. All we know to be real at that point is that existence exists, and conciousness exists. All that implies is that we can sense 'something'. At this point we have two choices. We can choose to believe that that which we perceive is not real, or that it is. By the definition of perception, if it wasn't real we wouldn't perceive it, hence it is real.

At this point we start to assimilate knowedge through perception. Hence we learn about our body and our world, but also our mind. By the proper definition of 'perception', the information used is not limited to the senses in the usual meaning. Hence we perceive all sorts of things, not only from the world around us, but also from inside us, like dreams, thoughts, emotions, etc. All of these things are real, in that we can percieve them. This is the true inference from these premises.

Our conciousness through perception receives information about external things (i.e. real things, not implying external to our body or mind), and attempts to understand the causality of that information. The logical conclusion our conciousness reaches, due to us being able to see our physical body, being able to hear ourselves, etc, is that we have a body with these senses. Following this, our conciousness, with this new information about sight, sound, touch, etc, can start to determine causality of things in the world around us. However, and this is the point I want to make, our perception is not limited to these senses, but is wholly wider.

Similarly we experience emotion, thoughts, dreams, etc, and try to reach a logical conclusion. Unfortunately, it isn't so easy to reach a logical conclusion about things like what directs our dreams, or the nature of our unconcious mind.

The problem is we can't intergrate such knowledge into the schema of our physical body and world, as it doesn't have much in common. This is not wholly true. Emotions can generally be the bridge between the body schema and the mind schema. Something happens, like we burn our finger. The next time we are in that situation we might feel fear, which is our mind's way of warning us to the danger. That fear is directly attached to the knowledge of the consequence of the recalled action. From this we can learn about fear, and what it means. Through knowing fear, and learning to recognise what causes it, we can overcome it. This represents a well-structured 'bunch' of knowledge.

But let me get back to the point.

Quote: "People sometimes insist that you disprove one of their arbitrary statements; logically, this is flawed. The burden of proof is on those that make a claim. One need not and should not attempt to disprove arbitrary statements. As it is impossible to disprove a negative, attempting to do so leads to accepting any ideas, no matter how arbitrary they are. Since the ideas are groundless, there is no means by which they can be integrated with the rest of one's knowledge. Later, if knowledge is discovered that contradicts the arbitrary idea, the knowledge will be more likely dismissed. The proper response to an arbitrary statement is to ignore it.

When we dream, we have no way of integrating the knowledge expounded by it. This quote abdicates dismissing it. This seems unnecessarily harsh. Perhaps the meaning if the dream will make sense at some later stage, due to some new knowledge that can integrate with it. Some even abdicate writing down what the dream was about, so as to reflect upon it later. Often we forget what we dream. This can be seen as that we couldn't integrate the knowledge. However, some dreams can be remembered. Typically those ones had some pertinent meaning that we understood. We don't often remember the ones that don't make sense.

So this dismissing could be seen to be almost automatic. Certainly myself I have experienced driving the car and thinking wholly about something else, and even though I could drive fine, and respond to stimuli, etc, I couldn't remember a damn thing about the trip at the end of it. Was I perceiving?

I have noticed something else before. This has happened a few times. A thought pops into my head, seemingly from nowhere. Not knowing why I suddenly thought of it, I look around. I notice something connected to that thought I didn't even look at.

The most extreme case of this was a time I had watched a movie with Samuel L. Jackson the night before. I was walking through the kitchen, thinking about this movie, when my eye caught the word 'Jackie' on a cd-cover lying about 2 meters away. The spelling was exactly the same as that of 'Jackie Brown', the Samuel L. Jackson movie. That wasn't the movie I had watched, by the way. The only connection to the word on the cd-cover was the two concepts 'Samuel L. Jackson' and 'movie'. From two meters and in the peripheral vision, I saw and recognised a word only 2 millimeters tall. I could barely read the writing from that distance.

This definitely shows that perception happens all the time, on all input data, not only sensory.

From this episode I realised that integratable knowledge will rapidly be integrated, and non-integratable knowledge will be disposed of in a couple of minutes, unless you purposefully try to remember it. I think I am beginning to see the light. Any information which has been integrated is available, and any that hasn't been will be forgot. Depending on the relevancy of such information, it might be worthwhile to store it for future integration, however, meaningless possibilities without much purpose need not be stored. As soon as new information is got, it will be integrated at that time.

I will assume that all links will not be filled in at the time, only at a later stage, perhaps while sleeping. I have often heard of people who can't remember something, then remember it in the middle of the night. Perhaps links between concepts are restored during sleep.

I think may have had misconceptions about Objectivists in general, as it does seem that I tend to agree the more I think about it. Objectivists may be more like me than I thought. I won't take that for granted, though...

Post 46

Friday, December 19, 2003 - 2:14pm

Ed, about self-evident axioms...

Existence exists. I do agree with that. The faculty to perceive what is real is conciousness, and it exists. The definition of 'to perceive' is an the dictionary gave, and as was exhaustively pointed out above. The scope of conciousness is as I pointed above, inherent in plants and such. At this time, that is my answer.

Post 47

Saturday, December 20, 2003 - 12:39pm

Somebody told me Jeremy has a dragon in his pocket. Is that true?

Dave

Post 48

Sunday, December 21, 2003 - 1:53am

Probably not.

Sunday, December 28, 2003 - 4:36pm

I and Reginald Firehammer were having a closely related discussion on a different thread, unfortunately I only just found this thread here.
Look near the end of the thread to see our discussion: http://solohq.com/Forum/messages/32/702.shtm

Regi, thanks for the lengthy reply to my last post, I think things are becoming both clearer and more confusing, damn it.:) In an aside, I also think my disagreements aren't really that important - as I explain at the end of the post.
I think there are two related problems here: The possible for perceptive illusion on a grand scale and dealing with unknowns.

First let me clear up a little confusion

"Of course we cannot infer everything about reality from the law of identity alone, else we could quit science and simply think about things."

That's not what I meant, I'm sorry if it was unclear. I was simply reiterating my position that we can discover many things about reality from the evidence we are presented, but not everything.
We can discover rules, like A is A, by inferring but we cannot discover some things.

I think there is necessarily an enigmatic part to reality because of our limited capacity to view reality. All knowledge must come through our senses, thus to make any comment on the source of our perceptions would require a view of our perceptions without using our perception. We would have to directly observe reality in order to fuller determine what our perceptions consist of.

This does not mean that 'because we have eyes we are blind, etc'. Neither does it mean that reality cannot be considered an absolute. What it does mean is that there is the possibility for a perceptive illusion to exist but never be discovered.

Take the life long dream example. First, I am not talking about a dream in the usual sense; it is not some random distorted flashes from your spinal cord. It is a fully created world by some part of your brain separate from your consciousness. It sends the messages to your brain, but still allows consciousness to operate. The fact that your world is a dream would not be known unless you can view some evidence from outside the dream - a view of your perceptions.

As Vertigo put it, "The truth is that we can't assume that no other means exists whereby outside information can be received. Dreams could be such a means, for example. Without evidence, implicitly ignoring a possibility like this is negligent."

I think the terms illusion, hallucination and dream are then terms we give to perception that doesn't fit consistently with what we usually experience. If we lived in a dream world but 'woke' for a few minutes every few years we would properly call it a reoccurring dream. So although we may know what these are it still isn't a rejection of the possibility of these perceptive illusion theories.

I don't think the stolen concept fallacy really applies outside of very restricted situations. Consciousness may be seen only as a feature of humans, but there is no reason that this is the only possible entity that can contain rationality. And what's more there are many possible situations where perception can be altered but the human brain is still used. Maybe i'm missing the point here? Is it that consciousness cannot operate in these 'worlds'?

None of these 'perceptive illusion' ideas are inconsistent with objective reality. There is still reality, it is it's substance that is being discussed. I agree that reality as such is axiomatic - to be aware of something means something must exist. But this tells us nothing about what this something is, and nothing about the unknown. In regard to what is, Regi explains further from the Autonomist,
"It includes fictional things as fictions, hallucinations as hallucinations, historical things as historical things, and material things as material things. Reality does not include fictions (such as Santa Claus) as material or historical facts. It does include the fact that Santa Claus is a common fiction used for the enjoyment of Children at the Christmas season."

And I agree. But I'm still seriously confused about how to deal with unknowns. I have, and so have Objectivists, always used the burden of proof argument against those making the case for God, but I'm now wondering where this leaves these 'theories'. I'm going to take a commonsense shot at it and then learn from the replies.

An idea does not create a fact, but also a lack of evidence need not mean that something is false. Proposing that something exists like god or the matrix does not make it real, OF COURSE. But to say it doesn't exist by sighting the burden of proof argument is also not valid. This makes for interesting use of language, and some good questions about semantics. Let's look at a hypothetical situation.

As Vertigo points out Mt Everest was the highest mountain even before it was discovered. Someone living about 1000 years ago who is not aware of Nepal, or even Asia would be certain some other mountain was the highest. Now, in this circumstance perhaps a religious idiot threw some bones on the ground and claimed that yonder across the sea lies a massive mountain rising up almost 9000 m sea level. It would be right to answer, 'burden of proof' but we couldn't discount his prophecy as being untrue as it doesn't contradict any evidence you know. (this has important relevance for the atheist/agnostic position)

I not only claim that it cannot be known if we live in a perceptive illusion, but also that in some possible circumstances it could NEVER be known. Thus I disagree with Regi statement, "If it cannot be known at all, it does not exist."

My evidence for this claim is quite simple. Even though reason can take us far beyond what we directly perceive it cannot make a claim about the source of the initial information. Take, for example, a ray of light coming into a room. You cannot determine the source of this light from this ray; what is producing this light. If you view the whole of perception like this you can easily conclude that it's here and it exists but where it came from is an unknown. This is true even if you examine everything that can be examined.

Finally, it really isn't that important. Although truth has some value in itself this really has no relationship to living. Thus I agree with Regi, "If something had no relationship at all with real existence, no interaction of any kind, even if it were possible, how could such a thing matter?" But it has raised some questions about epistemology that are important.

Thanks for all the discussion so far. I'm really tired so I'd better go wake up from my dream for a while...

David

Post 50

Sunday, December 28, 2003 - 6:24pm

David,

Finally, it really isn't that important. Although truth has some value in itself this really has no relationship to living. Thus I agree with Regi, "If something had no relationship at all with real existence, no interaction of any kind, even if it were possible, how could such a thing matter?"

I think it is important to be certain that one's knowledge is based on sound epistemological principles, which is what you are really questioning. But I think the basis for you questions is not very sound. for example:

The possible for perceptive illusion on a grand scale ...

There is no such thing as a "perceptual" illusion. What we perceive we perceive. We might, at the conceptual level misinterpret what we perceive, or fail to understand it, but perception cannot be illusory; it is what we are directly conscious of.

The following is from another source:

"Another question about the validity of perception are so-called perceptual illusion and many obvious supposed distortions of perception.

"The most common and well known of such illusions are optical illusions. But an optical illusion does not deceive perception. An optical illusion (as well as all other perceptual illusions) are perfectly valid perceptions which are misinterpreted conceptually. The conditions that produce illusions (such as a the bent appearance of a stick in water, or the ambiguous image of certain drawings, etc.) are represented perfectly by the so-called illusory percept. But the percept is of the actual state of the entity or image being perceived, but, because the state, context, or relationship is unusual, the precept is not the expected or usual one (which it should not be) and it is frequently misinterpreted. There are no perceptual illusions, only unusual percepts which deceive the reason. This is not the fault of the percept, but the result of either ignorance or incorrect reason.

"We know that pressing on the side of one eye will cause us to "see double," and that colored glasses change how things appear (at least temporarily), and certain drugs cause distortions in ones perception of almost everything. But those very distortions are the way the conditions that cause the distortions are correctly perceived. If one's perception suddenly becomes distorted, it is sure evidence that something is going on to cause it. It is a direct perception of the something that is wrong.

"In fact, the percepts are always correct and always valid. Perception is limited in what can be perceived, and most human beings have some individual perceptual limitation, (hearing loss or deafness, sight loss or blindness, or other "sensory" limitations) but what is perceived is always perceived correctly. There may great limitations to one's perceptual field, and many things can cause what are called distortions, but every mistake about the nature of what is perceived is never caused by perception, but by our reasoning about what is perceived."

I was simply reiterating my position that we can discover many things about reality from the evidence we are presented, but not everything. We can discover rules, like A is A, by inferring but we cannot discover some things.

If you cannot discover them, how do you know that they exist, undiscovered? If they cannot be discovered, you cannot know they need to be.

All knowledge must come through our senses, thus to make any comment on the source of our perceptions would require a view of our perceptions without using our perception.

What is the logic behind that Kantian view? It is through perception that we discovery the sensory system. If perception is invalid, than no statement about the sensory system can be valid, contra hype.

Take the life long dream example. First, I am not talking about a dream in the usual sense; it is not some random distorted flashes from your spinal cord. It is a fully created world by some part of your brain separate from your consciousness.

What "brain?" If this is only a dream, there is no brain, only something your dreaming, and the brain does not exist. Something that does not exist does not cause dreams.

But I'm still seriously confused about how to deal with unknowns.

To be sure there are more things that we do not know than there are that we do. Absolutely nothing can be based on what we do not know. To begin attempting to understand anything on the basis of ignorance is a fundamental logical error. There is even a logical fallacy named for this mistake, ad ignorantiam fallacy.

Regi

Post 51

Monday, December 29, 2003 - 1:20pm