I am a senior in highschool just looking for some answers.
I already have some thoughts on the topic but I would like to hear from other people.
What is Reality? What is the Abstract?
What are the differences/similarities between the two?
Reality is for normal, emptionally competent people who like truth. Abstract is for nutcases and fruitcakes who never wash up and play loud music in the middle of the night. Don’t pretend you didn’t know.
JJ
Hmmm … either you don’t know what I am talking about or you didn’t understand the question.
Erm. rather ambigious terms.
Ill give it a go (as ever). If the two are going to be opposed id say reality is which we directly perceive while abstract is what we draw from that. Thus mathematical principles are all abstract, while two oranges is real.
Thus we have no perception of what a 25 dimensional object is, but we can still state all of its properties because of this abstraction (whether such 25 dimensional objects have a place in reality is a matter for science not philosophy however).
Cheers!
yet two equal oranges is a lie…
-Imp
You must realize that without wonder, you will never realize the reality of the world, the only way to reach a true reality is first to think abstractly, there is no definite difference for one is catalyst to the other. You may be assured though, that nothing you have ever done effected the happiness of your life in anyway just as long as you are searching for the true reality.
the oranges are equal in their orangeness, ie. as an example of orangehood (starting to sound Platonic now. ergh).
JJ, read Funes the Memorious by Borges. All thinking is abstraction, and you cant really take it too far. Even if you play loud music in the middle of the night.
Cheers!
Well … so far from my own ponderings I have concluded that Reality is the world around me or my perception and the Abstract would be the thought behind it. Example would be language. We feel something abstractly or think it abstractly and then we "real"ize it by giving essence to it or by calling an orange an orange.
Plato would say that the Abstract would go beyond space and time or that space and time would not apply to that same thought that the word “orange” was derived from, that the thought or feeling is in another “realm”.
Aristotle would object Plato in this sense and back himself up with his 4 causes method by finding the structure of the orange itself instead of its material.
So to Plato the Abstract is another realm while Aristotle would say that the Abstract is a non-material structure. This non-material structure having a non-material structure in itself and so on.
So … I am asking what the differences and similarities are between this other realm (Plato) or un-material structure (Aristotle) and, what everyone agrees exists, Reality. I also want to hear other people’s opinion on what the definition of Reality and the Abstract is.
the thought of an orange is kind of a scaled down example of what our brain does with reality. the photons that hit an orange bounce off with a specific wavelength, that is they manipulate the universe in a real, measurable way.
when we measure that on a computer, we get 3 megahertz or something, which is 1 inch per wavelength away from red, also known as 2 megahertz. when we measure it in our brain, we get that undescribably orange orangeness that cant be quantified or even described without the word orange.
reality can be measured with numbers and instruments and is consistent with patterns and laws. the abstract is what happens inside the mind, which ultimately cant be described in the same terms as the things outisde in reality are.
id also describe hypothetical situations and re-enactments in the mind as abstract, which are different from the indescribably orange orangeness.
If your saying that the Abstract is simply the invisible forces of the universe (mind my vocabulary; physics, etc.) then that would make sense to me. But, like you said … re-enactments, hypothetical situations, ideals like Love are Abstract. You can’t measure those things. So what kind of Abstract are they?
id actually say that the universe and physics are the reality, and anything exclusively in the mind, such orange as our eyes know it as opposed to some amount of hertz, the things in the mind are abstract. things that are physically going to happen and can be measured, thats reality. things that are a product of your mind, subjectivity, decisions, those are abstract.
what goes up comes down, thats reality. i like big butts, thats abstract. i dont know this is too …(some word)… for me now.
I see … well that would explain it. Thank you.
The fumbling to discern the distinction between ‘abstract’ and ‘real’ is painful to see and is a well-deserved come-uppance. The distinction between these terms should be immediate and straightforward, for these terms were used by yourselves to sow confusion. Now that you have forotten the trick that was played, it now catches you out…
JJ