What is real and what is not?

[Suburbanite]

Originally posted by Starboy, That's a good point. Also no matter what anyone may say about there being no objective reality people certainly do act as if there were an objective reality by doing such things as making wills, building structures intended to stand long after they are dead, create governments for future generations and so on. There is a tacit recognition that our minds are not reality but that we as creatures with minds are embedded in reality and that reality will continue to exist long after our minds have ceased to function. Starboy

I think this has a lot to do with our constant desire and simultaneous fear of eternal return, the idea of everything constantly existing, making all events unending would make them such a tremendous burden but also more real than they could ever be in their historical context.

[Suburbanite]

Originally posted by voyager, Reality is not subjective. If you and I (ant the rest of humanity) are at a table looking at a bottle of wine, we can both agree that what we see is a bottle. If we were to open it and pour it's contence in to a glass we could conclude that what we see is wine. Next step is we both taste the liquid and agree it is wine then our reality, (along withe the rest of humanity)is the same. If reality is subjective than nothing would get done, we would just spend our time arguing what we see.

A concept to ponder: If all things were subjective, and man, to avoid the problem of subjectivity you just mentioned, came upon language as a means to classify all around them agreeably. Perhaps a bottle to me looks nothing like what it looks to you, but we know both things as a bottle because we identify them as such. Another example. What if to me Blue looks Green, and to you blue looks Blue. But I am told what I see as Green is called Blue, and what you see as Blue is called Blue, so we can be talking about the same things at the same time though without realizing that it might not be the same thing.

[Suburbanite]

Originally posted by Vee, your not the first to say it cogito ergo sum I think therefore I am

A terribly foolish concept. If I were a book burner my profession, I think Descartes would be on my list.

[Suburbanite]

Originally posted by westcoastdog, Science deals with reality. Every time you get on a jet, you are demonstrating confidence that scientists and engineers have got it right. As for all the rest--morality, beauty, taste, ethics--it's all relative. We may agree that the bottle contains wine, but we may disagree as to its quality.

Morals and Beauty, Taste and Ethics all exist in every culture of the world but are simply applied differently. Much like an airplane on the moon, different Gravity. I like to toy with the concept of social gravity.
And what of Love? An emotion expressed by all cultures with the same meaning and feelings implied.

[Starboy]

Originally posted by Suburbanite I think this has a lot to do with our constant desire and simultaneous fear of eternal return, the idea of everything constantly existing, making all events unending would make them such a tremendous burden but also more real than they could ever be in their historical context.

That may be so but in the end people do act is if there is more to reality or existence than what can be surveyed in time and space by their particular minds. At an implicit level they know that their subjective experience is not all there is. Perhaps some respond to this realization and concoct a god but I prefer to see it as a realization that there is a reality that our minds are part of rather than the other way around. I am by no means an idealist.

Also I agree with you about Descartes but I would apply the same treatment to just about every other philosopher both now and in the past. Philosophers presume that logic is somehow the prototype of reality rather than understanding that it is simply one of the minds adaptations to reality. Also philosophers are no different than the religious. They love to make all sorts of reality claims but have no way to prefer one over the other and not only don't care if their claims are not tested or can be tested in reality but would tell you that they should not be because they are beyond reality, metaphysical. What a crock!

Starboy

[Suburbanite]

Originally posted by Starboy,+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='0' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Starboy,)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-Suburbanite I think this has a lot to do with our constant desire and simultaneous fear of eternal return, the idea of everything constantly existing, making all events unending would make them such a tremendous burden but also more real than they could ever be in their historical context.

That may be so but in the end people do act is if there is more to reality or existence than what can be surveyed in time and space by their particular minds. At an implicit level they know that their subjective experience is not all there is. Perhaps some respond to this realization and concoct a god but I prefer to see it as a realization that there is a reality that our minds are part of rather than the other way around. I am by no means an idealist.

Also I agree with you about Descartes but I would apply the same treatment to just about every other philosopher both now and in the past. Philosophers presume that logic is somehow the prototype of reality rather than understanding that it is simply one of the minds adaptations to reality. Also philosophers are no different than the religious. They love to make all sorts of reality claims but have no way to prefer one over the other and not only don't care if their claims are not tested or can be tested in reality but would tell you that they should not be because they are beyond reality, metaphysical. What a crock!

Starboy[/b][/quote]

You'd be suprised how many philosophers, modern and past, who don't value logic in such a way. In fact, the most popular living philosopher to date, Richard Rorty, would agree with you about logic as he sees it as a property of language which is a human tool not an answer to life.

[Starboy]

And you would be surprised at just how much of that old bullshit is still being taught in our universities unchallenged. The primary problem of philosophy is the same problem that religions suffer from. From a philosophical point of view there is no good way to prefer one philosophical position over another. It ends up becoming a matter of personal preference. If philosophy would wish to claim any kind of credibility it should be as an art form.

Starboy

[Suburbanite]

I often don't find people interested in philosophy to give themselves up to one set of rules, but use as many as they can to help formulate opinions when and where they apply. And I realllllly don't think Philosophy is like religion in any sense, not since Descartes and Hegel anyways.

[Starboy]

I have had too many discussion with professional philosophers to think very highly of the tradition of philosophy. Just the field of philosophy of science and metaphysics alone is enough to think that they should not be allowed in an accredited university. There is so much that is just stupid from their propensity to use argument classification such as straw man as if they were magical incantations to the idiocy to think that Ockham's Razor is a scientific principle.

Starboy

[Suburbanite]

Well, I agree with that argument about Ockham's Razor. But the part about argument classifications makes sense. If language is a tool in which we espouse logic from, than logical guide lines, based on what you say, do make sense. It would be as if getting upset at a mathematician for saying 1=1, when to say otherwise would not be mathematically correct at all, though the symbols would represent that of math. 1=1124148719287 looks like math, but follows no principles of it. A logical argument must follow principles of logic in the same way.

[Starboy]

I have no problem with argument classification, but for some reason no one seems to remember or have ever been taught that is it not enough to invoke the magic words, you have to demonstraite that the argument applies. Once you have done that there should be no need to invoke the magic words. But all too often the magic words are thown out as if no justification is necessary. It becomes a sophisicated form of name calling. You have no idea how often this is done.

Starboy

[Suburbanite]

An Empiricist eh? You make a good point.

I think that the philosophers are like the guy who comes up with the theory, and the writers (Kundera, Kosinski, Vonnegut) are the appliers of the theory in novel form.

[Starboy]

I've not read Kundera but how are Jerzy and Kurt philosophers in the university sense?

Starboy

[Suburbanite]

university? They aren't.

[Starboy]

Ahhhh, so you mean it in the sense where it is not a distinction of any kind.

Starboy

[Suburbanite]

right, in the over-all of philosophical history, the authors play a crucial role.

[Red_Dragon18]

let me rephrase the question: what is real, how do you define real?

if you mean real as something you can touch, feel, hear, smell, taste,

then all real is, is electical signals being sent to the brain.

[Suburbanite]

all aren't all things only made up of energy anyways?

why does "electical" signals mean something trivial?

[Red_Dragon18]

did anyone ever whatch the matrix? what if what the movie stated is true? :(

[Red_Dragon18]

did anyone whatch the matrix?