I think you’re missing Von’s point. He isn’t saying there is no mental aspect to recovery from an illness [correct me if I’m wrong, Von]. He is saying the existence of cancer isn’t rooted in how people want reality to be. Quite the contrary, in fact. Cancer exists whether we want it to or not. Its existence causes horrible suffering whether we want it to or not. And we don’t get rid of cancer by simply preferring a reality devoid it.
Stuart: I want world peace. Why is it not therefore real? You think that wanting something makes it real. Answer the simple fucking question, directly, please. Honestly, how can you ask me a list of questions when you dodge that single simple one?
Yes, a better world is possible, and only a quack would deny that. Yes, you can make the world better or worse by your actions, and only a quack would deny that. Are you denying either of those points?
- I think about how my actions are likely to effect me, and other people.
- I have made sure that I do the actions that were likely to affect me, and other people, for the better.
- To think carefully about how my actions affect me, and other people.
- My time and money and thoughts and actions.
- My time and money and thoughts and actions.
- Yes, gladly:
a. Garbage man: Think about how your actions are likely to affect you, and other people.
b. Investment banker: Think about how your actions are likely to affect you, and other people.
c. Cat burglar: Think about how your actions are likely to affect you, and other people.
d. Fisherman: Think about how your actions are likely to affect you, and other people.
That good enough?
At this point I think it may be productive to explore what people mean when they take the concept “real” seriously.
Consider our much loved desert island philosopher, tragically marooned by himself for so much of his life that he can remember nothing prior to his current predicament.
What is real to him?
Well, he senses stuff as usual, and let’s say he has also worked out which sensations of his are consistent and which are not, such that he has a good idea of what his future is most likely to hold, and even a good idea of what to do such that certain sensations reliably enough seemingly cause others that he might prefer.
Would he have any reason not to treat his dreams the same way?
Or any sensory experience that he might have: hallucination, irrational superstition?
His experience consists of sensations and various deductions and inductions based on which sensations are more common, and which more commonly follow others.
Now let’s say our resilient protagonist is rescued from his island and delivered into the arms of society as we 1st-worlders know it today.
He is told that some of his experiences don’t “actually” happen - that is to say, others do not share them. For arguments sake he accepts this - much of everything else remains the same anyway, just with different content from different surroundings.
His experience is still a product of sensation and logic based only on sensation, he’s just become socialised - I would say that this version of expected and socially acceptable sensations, based on one’s sensory ability, is what people normally term “reality”.
Now let’s make our scenario slightly more far-fetched for argument’s sake: he is abducted by seemingly godlike aliens who perhaps alter his body or provide him with technologies that give him zillions more senses and an enhanced brain capacity to deal with it all, and to be able to use far more advanced logic in order to determine a much more accurate causal model for his sensations.
Was anything he used to experience “reality”?
Perhaps he would come around to his “new reality” that is almost completely different to his former versions of it. Perhaps he simply has a “more real” idea of what reality is now?
What if he were kidnapped by another alien race who then stripped him of all his recently acquired capabilities, claiming that all of them were illusion, and so were the capabilities of his former realities. Now he is exposed to the simplest of simple experiences that is ensured to give him eternal life with freedom from any external force that would end it.
So more sensation and logical ability wasn’t more reality at all? But then, is a more guaranteed survival a better reality instead? Were all his previous realities merely accepted versions of what to expect, given what you’ve got?
Surely this all requires “reality” to be very much subjective, depending on factors such as these, with no definitive “univeral” version at all?
Undoubtedly human values almost guarantee that we stick to our own version of expectation, in our belief that it keeps us alive, and so we generally want reality to be our expectation about what it is acceptable to believe “reality” to be… even though we have infinite freedom not to do so, we’re still “merely” subjectively choosing, and doing so according to what we want to believe. So in the end, was any concept like “what is really real” needed to just accept what we’re given and get used to it?
I think this pretty much covers everything.
“Learned humility?”----Not if “reality is whatever you want it to be”. —It’s called “wishful thinking”. If you can’t separate reality from wishful thinking, you’re a quack. For example, suppose you want god to exist, or some girl to like you… if you think that automatically makes god exist, and the girl like you----then you are a quack. If you cannot distinguish reality from your mental life/wishes/desires, you’re in some kind of evolutionary trouble----and it’s just a matter of time, for you. Fortunately for you, you’re likely more of an internally inconsistent compulsive liar than you are actually a solipsist.
That is exactly what they fucking think, and what many others think. “Reality is what you want it to be”, right?
Get what? You’ve said nothing that doesn’t refute itself, to anyone who cares to read what you’ve actually said.
You’ve got to be kidding me. Let me see if I understand. You’re saying, “The word ‘real’ has no value, but it has enough value to me that I’m going to use it all of the time”. Suuure… Niiiice.
Riiiight… makes perfect sense. (I tend not to need to use meaningless words, but that’s just me…)
No.
In my last post I thought the ‘no’ was implied, but I’ll take responsibilty and call it a mistake on my part for not simply saying ‘no’ before all else.
It’s good enough in the sense of question-asked-question-answered. I would have liked more details, but I’m happy with what I got, though if your so inclined lately I certainly can come up with some follow up questions, I mean, respectfully, we could perhaps make some head way in understanding each others differences, or if not now give me the word when.
I asked you the following: Yes, a better world is possible, and only a quack would deny that. Yes, you can make the world better or worse by your actions, and only a quack would deny that. Are you denying either of those points?
If not, we’re not so different.
If yes, then I’ll try some examples on you. E.g., I help an old lady across the street versus punching her in the face. Which one is likely to make the world a better place? It’s not a hard question, is it?
It sounds like you just want my biography. You want personal details. I’ve been a lot of things… dishwasher, garbage man, unemployed, student, treeplanter, security guard, brand ambassador, writer, performer, and other things. The answer to your question is the same no matter what I am, or what I do. The more power I have, the more responsibility I have, simply because the more my actions are likely to influence others for the better or worse----but it doesn’t change the fact that I have to think about how I act no matter what I do, and that my actions have better or worse consequences.
Surely you can see why your desert island philosopher would do well to know the difference between a real pond and a mirage of a pond. He has every reason to draw a distinction between the two. One will keep him alive, the other won’t.
Reality isn’t just sensations; it is the cause sense datum. The task is verifying that the sense datum corresponds with something out in the world. In the case of a hallucination, for example, it won’t.
statiktech, I understand where you’re coming from, but whatever my nature may be a don’t have use the same word or language to describe it. In a world full of molecular biologists, they may say ‘my cells are getting desicated so I’ll go hydrate them with water’, I’ll come along and like an ignorant fuck say, ‘I’m thristy so I’ll drink something, oh and “desicate” what-now?’ Your speaking to me as an outsider with your own views of reality, so of course it’s hardly surprising to you that I almost always eat when I’m hungry. But, if you made that claim to a random stranger, you don’t know (with complete certainty anyway) that they even have such words as ‘eat’ and ‘hunger’ in their vocabulary, so assuming despite there oddly limited vocabulary they do follow their instincts they do in fact eat when they are hungry, but perhaps all they know is that from time to time they chew and swallow food and that they pour water down their throat on occasion and they don’t like to cover there mouth and nose for too long.
If I were to contrive a counter argument I would say that they simply don’t know what’s real, but it’s still real, but that doesn’t work, if someone told them about what’s supposedly real they could reject it, and why shouldn’t they, they don’t need to have an explanation of why they do the things they do, when they do them just fine anyway.
Now having fore knowledge of futuristic science I can tell you that most times ‘item 4355.3332’ has ‘attribute 394948.343’ it makes ‘action 37484.243’. That ‘item 4355.3332’ does such an action when having such an attribute is important to avoid an unpleasant consequence, ‘unpleasant consequences 6432.5545’ that is (coinsidentally starving being classified as ‘unpleasant consequences 5455.2346’). I wish I could explain that situation better, but trust me it’s really going on everyday, and we should all be thankful that ‘item 4355.3332’ isn’t naive about the nature of reality like me, because while it would only be looking at ‘unpleasant consequences 5455.2346’ if he neglected the nessesities of reality, we would be looking at ‘unpleasant consequences 5433455.233346’ as a result, and trust me that’s not a result we want.
I’m not sure I get your point here. Are you saying that you don’t disagree with my position, just the words I’m using?
Following your example about a hypothetical people without any conception of ‘hunger’. Let’s say they don’t even see how a pain in their stomach, or weakness in their body, relates to eating. Does that mean they never actually get hungry, or does it just mean that they don’t recognize it when they do? Does their inability to see food as sustenance mean they won’t suffer or die without food?
VR, you asked me one question, I answered it by inference, you complained that I didn’t answer it directly and then asked some questions later in that post. I answered the first question directly and in a sense apologized and I answered your last question, but missed the middle one, maybe you should also number your questions, if you want them all to be answered.
Yes, to the first part of each, but on the second insisuations of each respective question we agree. I say that not entirely in jest; I can speak freely on ilp, but offline I would be a quack to go so far against social norms as to deny either point. When it comes to the issue of the old lady crossing the street I wouldn’t even contradict you here, I mean for anyone reading this post; don’t go punching people, it’s wrong (and I’m ot even going to clarify the word ‘wrong’ in this context). The issue is that you imply that the world can become a better place (or a worse place) in some universally agreed upon sense, and I know that implication is the root of you whole philosophical outlook.
But, my colleague in the arts of dishwashing, garbage managment and unemployment,
I thought of some good follow up questions that don’t ask for any straight factual details.
1: Have you ever experienced signifigant stress when considering that every course you may choose would only be a lesser evil.
If yes to q. 1:
1.1: How often.
If plenty of the time to q. 1.1:
1.11: How do you avoid ulcers?
If q. 1.11 was answered, then thank you my friend, that was much needed advice.
If no to q. 1
1.2: Why the hell not?
2: I understand that you factor yourself into the equation of ethics, so what is you criteria for deciding how much you can sacrifice your own happyness for those of others?
It’s entirely compatible with my explanation that he won’t simply think “pond = stop thirst”, he’ll think “this pond stops thirst, but that one doesn’t” - he doesn’t need to posit any “why” (e.g. that one’s real, the other isn’t). He might also gather that if one pond stops his thirst but makes him ill (which could be explainable by him merely hallucinating the visual appearance and thirst quenching sensation - “it wasn’t real”) then he would probably prefer to use the other one that keeps him healthy. Either way, the explanation of “because it’s real/not real” is redundant.
Trust me, you really don’t need to believe in the outside world to survive. The above explanation shows why just fine.
The “test” for the “outside world” is always an “inside world” one - we have no access to the outside world: it is in our imagination. Ironic, no?
We test whether “we were hallucinating” - even without the need for others to correct us - by our subsequent sensations of the consequences of our actions. Trial and error. Some stuff just works and some doesn’t - “reality or no” adds nothing to this.
I agree with your position because I (tentatively anyway) share the same modern scientific world view as you do. What I’m saying is that for those who don’t share our believe or even knowledge of science, your position is menaingless, hence not real.
I just mean they eat and drink and breath with as little thought to what they’re doing as an animal would. And it’s helpful to talk in terms of animals (because then I’m no longer compelled by ‘common decency’ to speak in terms of human life being infintely valuable to everyone despite contradictions such as private hospitals versus tent hospitals). Animals don’t know why they eat, and some animals for what ever reason occasionally stop eating and then they starve, if it was a panda or something we could feign some emotion, but if it was a gutter rat, then good, the rat was born, it ate with out knowing why, stopped eating (who knows why) and then it died and no one cares, it’s questionable that the rat even cared, that was the rat’s reality, despite what reality we might convey onto it.
By not asking why he is complicating his life unnecessarily and he will be doomed to repeat his mistakes. I think the “why” is generally implicit in the distinction.
It’s not redundant, it’s the answer to his question. If he just chooses the one that works over the one that doesn’t, he’ll naturally want to ask why lest he be relegated to uncertainty and unnecessary repetition of his mistakes. He can think it’s because the imaginary pond made him sick, but he’d want to know why so he doesn’t get sick again.
If you don’t actually believe in the outside world, I guarantee that you act as if you do. That leads me to believe that either you do subscribe to the notion of an outside world or you are content to contradict yourself.
I can’t imagine how you can possibly justify that statement. The sense datum is our means of access.
It gives us an answer why some stuff works and some doesn’t!
Nope. I can see it might look like I do, but I don’t - and it’s not because I am content to contradict myself, it’s because I’m NOT content to contradict myself (by saying the “real” that lies beneath the apparent must exist even though I can only “imagine” it does since all I have access to is the apparent).
That’s what I’m trying to explain. You’re entitled to take a “guilty until proven innocent” approach to my claims if you choose, but if I manage to explain in such a way that you can understand and then all will be well.
I wouldn’t be the first philosopher to propose that sensory data is all we can access, and that we may only merely infer that this in turn gives us access to the mysterious reality that lies “beneath”. Maybe you will be happier to accept the point coming from them ad auctoritatem, but I’m just saying the same thing. We simply never take that extra step of “further accessing”, just like matter is redundant when immediately presented with experience - as argued by George Berkeley. We only tell ourselves that we do this extra step.
What I was trying to say was that the “why” isn’t actually answered by saying “because it’s real”.
That’s like answering “because God did it”.
The former is just the inert version of the active latter.
We can bypass the entire step of proposing “the actual existence” of these lazy umbrella terms by simply being content with a pool of outcomes that remain on record (memory/books/word of mouth etc.) and then abstracting the common themes to tie it all together, form abstract categories - THAT is how we learn “why” (which, yes, IS important). We need no “more real” realms of existence to house these categories - all this consideration and knowledge accumulation takes place in the phenomenal world. Our mental workings are just as sensory as our physical observations that feed them, only one is apparently more private than the other. Both are just as “real”, though since there is no difference in reality between them, there is no need for the term or its opposite. It’s just a case of experience sans réalité.
I generally only deal in the apparent world, so I can appreciate the distinction. However, I think it’s a mistake to assume the real and apparent are necessarily two different things. The more we know, the more apparent reality becomes.
That’s an inherently contradictory statement. You are saying that if I think reality is not whatever I want it to be, that I’m really wrong about that. And furthermore, what you’ve said is patently false, and is proven to be patently false everytime you want something that reality doesn’t conform to.
Apparently it’s not useless at all, because you keep finding a need to use it.
Since the social consensus is that there is a real world independent of your own mental life----does that mean that you’re ultimately wrong, by your own definition?
If the consensus among scientists is that phlogiston exists, as it once was… does that mean that phlogiston existed, and doesn’t any more? Or is it that phlogiston really never existed?
If the consensus among people is that black people are less human, as it once was… does that mean that black people were really less human, and just aren’t any more?
If the consensus among people is that the earth is flat, and that you can fall off the end of it… does that mean that the earth has really changed shapes over time?
The word signifies that the world is some way, independently of how it may seem to you, or how you may want it to be. If you cannot recognize that the world may not actually be as it seems to you, you will think a pencil breaks in a glass of water, or that there really is a vending machine in the desert, that the car you can’t see isn’t really there, and that you can’t get cancer unless you feel yourself getting cancer. It’s idiotic in the extreme, and if you weren’t just a liar, you would go quickly extinct.
There was once a guy who went off and killed 4 or 5 nursing students above his dorm room, just because God told him to, which he saw in a dream—and supposed that it was real just because it seemed real to him.
You mentioned Berkeley. Berkeley believed in a reality independent of your own mind. The sycamore tree continues to be, when noone is about in the quad. Almost nobody has ever believed that your sensations are not sensations of something other than yourself. And for one thing, it’s an utterly idiot and dangerous viewpoint. You simply have no experience of the minds of other people. Their words and actions, sure. But unless you can infer from what you experience to what you cannot, then you can’t infer that they feel pain----and if you don’t think others feel pain, then you’re a danger to yourself and others. But believe me, you don’t feel what others feel----and yet they feel. That’s reality.
I am a river.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0AarJYbYo8[/youtube]
Another conflation - this time with real and correct. Correct just means it makes sense, it’s “straightened” (by derivation). The “unreal” can make sense too. My fault for using irony to lead you into that one though, when I said “really is”. That was a joke.
A third conflation (the first was that “use” one you performed earlier, though arguably these 2 came before that one) is with reality and what you sense, or expect to sense. You claim to want to sense something that is not sensed and cannot be expected to be sensed. That is not to say world peace will not materialise tomorrow. I share the prediction, but something’s believed predictability is not a measure of its reality.
This is the conflation I just brought up: of using as in “referring to” and useful as in “makes sense and helps”. Am I using the term when I refer to it? By one definition, yes, but by the other, no. When I use it to call it useless I am doing so to say it makes no sense and doesn’t help. Are you going to allow yourself to see this distinction that I have already explained, or just revel further in your blindness to it because you think it sounds clever?
Further, others finding use in the term is a mistake - it’s useless but mistaken as useful. Even when I use it I’m only referring to the concept, and not referring to what the word is supposed to refer to.
What is it about this distinction that you failed to see the first time?
Um, no.
I was saying that “what is real” is determined by social consensus, not that “whether there is reality” or not is determined by social consensus. That is to say, given reality, “what it is” is influenced by what people confirm with each other what they can sense, and regard as consistent enough to merit being “really there”.
And yes, even though that changes, and will continue to change, such that things like phlogiston can be presented as potential “realities” one day and something else the next, you maintain that reality nonetheless exists underneath everything. The concept of phlogiston existed, it still does, it’s just no longer valued. Reality has nothing to do with it. Nor does “reality” have anything to do with black people being more or less human, or the earth being flat or spherical in exactly the same way.
My point was not to equate reality with social consensus. If anything I aim to remove social consensus from any notion of reality as an example of how you can change some influence to what it means to today’s unenlightened folk, and change what reality is, even though it’s supposed to be some kind of constant underneath everything: “The word signifies that the world is some way” as you say. Repeating the ravings of one of your previous posts has been pointless, as it will continue to be if you do it again.
Of course I don’t think a pencil breaks in a glass of water, I just see what I see. I’m actually being more consistent than you are - no lying needed. That is how I remain not extinct. I am not saying that you instead are lying, just that you and those who think like you are mistaken.
My worldview being deemed dangerous sounds just like the devout Christian claiming that atheists have no morals and therefore should go around murdering people. They just don’t (and won’t) understand what they’re talking about.
It makes no difference to me whether or not others feel pain, it makes a difference to me whether I have to experience the sensation of them looking and sounding the way they do when they claim to feel pain. I find that experience very difficult to deal with, and so I avoid it. And that is enough on its own without the way that causing others or letting others feel pain seems to make them respond less favourably to me (under most circumstances). I am one of the most kind and understanding souls you could ever meet, as many who know me will testify, regardless of the severity with which I present my points on this forum.
Awful song btw.
Nietzsche did (see Twilight of the Idols, “Improvers of Mankind”) - but then lots of people think he was “a quack”.
“Quack”. Lol.
After this, you can have the last word.
You’re not entitled to use words like ‘real’, ‘correct’, ‘illusion’…
You can’t use ‘real’ because you think it’s a meaningless word without any use.
You can’t use ‘illusion’ because it’s just the opposite of ‘real’, and the opposite of a meaningless word is still a meaningless word.
You cant use ‘correct’ with any importance because you think reality is whatever you want it to be, and thus there’s no chance of you ever being incorrect.
You’ve used it throughout the thread, in different ways. You even used it in its own definition. You tried to say, “you were joking”----but since you used it intelligibly, it really undercuts your claim that it is a meaningless word.
According to social consensus, social consensus does not determine what is real, and hence has decided that you’re wrong—by our own definition. Phlogiston does not exist—it’s not real----even if every single living being thinks it is. Likely the same for witches, same for goblins, same for any point you think you have.
I’d rather people didn’t feel so much pain, unless it was going to bring them greater meaning/purpose/pleasure, etc. That’s just me, and someone who declares he doesn’t care about the pain of others is not someone I care to talk to. But don’t worry, just turn your television set off when that commercial comes on, and it’ll be no sweat off your balls.
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No he didn’t. Not in the passage you referred to, and nowhere else in anything he wrote. In fact, one way of thinking of just about everything he wrote was as a revaluation of values—why would you create your own values if not to make the world in some way you think is better?
Thanks.
Von’s response to this is already damning, in my opinion. But I’d like to also point out that it’s our perceptions of reality that are influenced by consensus. Consensus doesn’t literally determine what exists. There was once a consensus that the world was flat, but that didn’t actually make it flat. If people didn’t regard the sense data obtained from the sun as consistent enough to merit being a reality, that doesn’t mean the sun ceases to exist. We aren’t influencing reality by being wrong about what is, or isn’t, real. We are influencing the way we view reality.