I have been reading into this how we live our lives in concepts and not in the reality of what is actually taking place.
So basically, instead of seeing something for what it is, we create concepts or belief systems in order for us to understand instead of accepting what we see.
Thx in advance for any responses.
Yes this mostly true–we live our lives according to how we perceive thigs; regardless as to whether or not our perception(s) actually with Reality.
I hope this helps—I’m not sure If I fully understand what you are trying to say, so please bear with me.
Hi all,
I think “reality” is not unique and depends on perspective, because there is no such thing as the outer world - its only the way we see it and percieve it. In other words, our understanding of something is only as good as the instruments we use to measure them.
We could lapse into Solipsism at this point, so I’ll be specific: If you were to relate life to concepts then I’d settle on us living on the results of concepts being applied to our perceptive conclusions and data and perhaps not the concpets as such…
So it maybe doesnt seem so far fetched to be living amidst concepts like you put it…
What do you say?
How do I see something for what it is? Let’s say that I see a stone. Now I don’t see it as a bundle of atoms, because my eyes cannot see atoms - they are too small (leave aside the fact that eyes don’t actually see anything at all) - but the stone is a bundle of atoms. That’s what it is. But is that what you mean by “seeing something for what it is”?
Or is “stone” a concept that certain things fall under? Most of us (I think) first see something and later our language kicks in and we think (if we think at all about it) “Ah, stone!” in our language. But we don’t need language to think about things, even though we might need language to have concepts.
Are our eyes/brain not an example for this? when you’re in front of a classroom you can see a lot of chairs and tables. the ones who are most closely to you seem bigger than the ones in the back, though when we get there, they are as big as the ones in the front?
is this right as an example for what you said? even if it’s more on a subconsious (biological?) level… perspective is a concept that helps us…
Is it?
Atoms are concepts themselves. An atom is a model of matter that seems to explain and is useful for conceptualisation of matter at the dimensions. Even if we “see” a molecule or atom with an electron microscope, it is indirect evidence, as it is the result of the interaction between “electrons” and matter.
And so an atom may not be “true”. It just happened to be useful so far.
An illustration of this situation can be seen in the sub atomic world, where the zoo of sub atomic particles, such as quarks and so on, are constantly evolving and there are no certainty about them yet.
In fact the very notion of discretisation, ie matter, or any entity, being a composite made up of other “smaller” things which in turn are made of yet smaller things, etc itself is not necessarily a valid concept. We smash a rock and it break into smaller pieces of rock, and we extend that ad infinitum to the atomic and sub atomic levels, but really we can never know if that paradigm holds all the way down to the infinitesimally miniscule dimensions.
I think the concept of whether we see reality as a bundle of concepts is irrelevent. It’s true that what we see of reality depends on the visable spectrum of light that human eyes can detect. That makes up what we see, and what we see is the material allowed to us to form these concepts. But, without these concept of what a stone is, or a horse, or the modern view of an atom, we would have know way of acertaining what was real (as in what can be experienced by anyone) from what is an experience within ourselves.
Think of what reality would be for us if our eyes detected micro waves or gamma radiation.
Many years ago when I consumed a high dose hallucinogen I “experienced” the answer to this question. In short, I concluded consciousness was simply the collective result of these abstractions, nothing else, for these are the basis of knowledge and awareness. You can’t be self-aware without a concept of self 
The concept of self is then the ultimate concept.
To grasp this idea you may be able to strip away a few of the concepts you’ve developed in later life and see how they’d apply back to everything we know. There’s probably been a time recently when you didn’t know the difference between different types of some electrical appliance you were contemplating buying. Before forming such a concept of, say, microwaves, you couldn’t distinguish their feature differences just by experiencing them through your senses. You had to read the feature lists After that you had a greater awareness of their differences.
Now, extend this awareness of differences to the age of people, the sexes of people, the faces of people, to different species of life, to differences between life and matter, to the difference between types of matter, and ultimately to the difference between you and this other matter.
If there were really absolutes humans would never have differences of opinion. It’s because these very concepts are constructed solely in our heads that makes us different. Our similarity comes from imprinted genetic concepts we can never escape, the most precious to all life being that of self. If you accept this, a fascinating question is how completely different these could be for biological beings in other parts of the universe which may have a totally different framework. Are there really fundamental concepts we’d share with everything in this universe on a relatable level? Math perhaps being the only one?
I am going to step a little further into this question of mine…instead of focusing the idea of concepts on outside objects such as rocks or trees, neurons, etc, etc…what of the concepts that we build our moral beliefs on such as things like religion, politics, etc…and going even further, love, fear, anger, etc, etc…can we live without these concepts or are they so deeply embedded in us that if we were to live without them we would experience great suffering.
I do think that it could be possible to live with out concepts but one would have to live on an island with like minded people 
Concepts are a natural result of the use of language. You cannot communicate without concepts, but concepts would not exist without language.
My dog sees the trees he pees on, but what he experiences is a perception of the tree, not a concept of tree or peeing or “Territorial Marking: How To?”. Animals (all other than the human animal) live in time and space, not in concepts.
I do not believe we live our life in concepts, either, though creating, using and communicating concepts are all a large part of being human. I believe we live in time and space just as animals do, but process perceptions into concepts.
When I see my dog peeing on the tree, what do I see?
I see the tree, I see Peeing-Dog, I see a stream of urine, I see glistening sunlight…okay, maybe that’s too much. But you get the idea. I’m collecting perceptions, not concepts. What I do with those percepts is the space of consciousness. That is, the awareness and processing of perceptions is one task of consciousness. This task produces concepts. Thus, concepts are a result of consciousness and not a direct experience of sensory living (which is, I believe, the front line of all life).
In an effort to get Peeing-Dog to pee only on red fire hydrants, I tried explaining ‘red’ to him, but this was useless. It seems that not only does he not possess language (and can therefore not understand the concept of “red”), but he can’t even see the color red. What a pain in the ass that hour was…Now I understand that concepts are a higher form of knowledge than percepts.
Of course, not 100% of my life is conscious, so how do I say I live in concepts if I’m not even spending all my time in conscious space?
We live in time and space, liberally creating, communicating and using concepts (well, at least those of us capable of such consciousness). To say we live in concepts is fine poetry, but it mistakenly removes so much from the business of living as to be an inaccurate summation of life. Our superiority over other animals is this ability to create concepts from percepts…THIS is what makes us human.
Of course, you still have the problem of animal communication…bees giving directions to a good flower, elephants signaling danger to the herd, whales singing…this is a larger issue, but to my mind, none of these qualify as conceptual communication…not all communication is language-based, is it? Certainly a larger issue.
Concepts are abstractions from reality, therefore it follows that they cannot be the definitive source of experience. Sensory perceptions are always the front line of reality.
Hope this gives you some idea why I disagree…[/code]
Yes ofcourse, a lot of people walk around in illusions, such as belief in god, free will, ghosts, witchcraft, hearing dead people, seeing past lives etc. Man creates illusions to defend oneself from the emptyness of life, they deny materialism.