There is no objective reality?!

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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There is no objective reality?!

I have edited some of my recent threads to encompass this new idea…

The mind is in the superposition…

The colours we see are the same light as others see but viewed from our perspective, where a thousand people with cameras could look at the same thing yet see a different image. They can zoom in/out and track an objects movement, a denumerable amount of possible perspective views being available to them.

This perspective based ‘physical’ reality is what the minds eye sees. That vision being observed and experienced [or not [i.e. like a camcorder]] exists in a superposition. the light in the world – the primary position prior to superposition.

Essentially, if you agree that our vision [what we are seeing] is in superposition [not the same as in the world], then it must surely follow that the consciousness experiencing it is equally in superposition.

More fundamentally, reality is both positions; imagine a transparent human head and as an instrument a bit like a camcorder, that it is relaying informations to the mind. Now as a perceptual object remove that transparent head to reveal only informations communicating, and the actual image we are seeing.

This analogy is my attempt at revealing the layered nature of reality, remembering that the image we actually see ~ the colours [formerly colour qualia] are ‘energy’ acting according to informations. Energy changes form according to behaviours, and here I believe the macroscopic perspective based vision [what we lit see], is in the superposition.

We can image the whole thing easily if we think of the brain and eyes as like a camcorder, and that the image we see [being composed by the brain much like a computer/camcorder can draw 3D images] is what’s on the view-screen of said camcorder. The only difference is that there is no view screen in the objective world, instead reality is composed of an almost infinite amount of layers, worlds and individual observational perspectives. Mostly to each individual, there is what I call inner and outer world-layers, the inner world is what we actually see [is the view screen] and the outer world is the objective one.

I say ‘objective’, but each world is equally ‘physically real’. Its not just going on in our minds either; if you place a thousand cameras along a shore line looking at the sun at sunset, they would each see a different sunset. If you composed a single image from all the different images, then you would see a large segment of golden coloured sea where the sun shines upon it from all the perspective [instead of a thin strip of sunlight that a given individual/camera usually observes].

In short physical light changes relative to perspectives, and in relativity all things change when observed. The real physical and objective world is never the same to any given observer or observing device.

So what is the objective world?

Well, we may imagine a 3D drawn world with objects in it, much like a world drawn by a computer. In that world there would only be the universal perspective and no sunsets. However, I don’t think the universe has a universal observer, to begin with it would require an edge to the universe ~ which doesn’t actually have an edge. The universe is as if like drawn upon a sphere [has no edges] then it is bent as if you have deflated that sphere and crumpled it all up such that space is curved.

Here I am taking that idea one step further and stating that the only way to fully resolve our reality, is to add perspectives to that curve. We are the evidence for this [because we see reality differently in real terms not just imaginary ones].

It may be so that only light works in this way? And that an objective reality may be found in terms of atoms. Thing is, atom is just a label.

Energy >is< these things…

energy is something [an emptiness?] which acts in a given behaviour, and when it does, it changes into something we call an energy version e.g. electricity, light, colour, sound, information, knowledge and consciousness.

Feel free to consider any energy form you so wish to imagine, but we have to say that everything we experience is something that energy changes into.

At some level of change, energy is transformed from electrical signals and electromagnetic forces [forces – no labels initially required]. We can see that when in the form of a photon, energy literally becomes light and colour, and when it changes its behaviour into consciousness ~ it is then consciousness.

This may or may not, only occur at the macroscopic level, but what is the difference? At all levels and stages of change for energy, we see it becoming a given something simply by changing its behaviour. Those ‘somethings’ do not [here] exist as something, they are only energy transformed into that thing.

Here I am not asking why or how, a behaviour or pattern [electricity, thoughts etc] of energy can become light/colour, I am just accepting that it does. Indeed ‘energy’ should here become an archaic term, because we don’t think of it as a ‘thinking’ thing, we think of energy as a physical entity [not including consciousness and thoughts?].

Should we discard the term due to its connotations, or change the way we think about it?
Or
should we keep the term as representing so called physics? Isn’t that a failure to provide a term that represents everything we know to exist? To wit we Must then have ‘something else’ to describe reality and its aspects?

I cannot find anywhere to make a division!

The universe: an organic computer?

Looking at any frequency on a screen, I am lost wondering just how that can literally be information. I still cannot philosophically transcend the gap between shape/object and mental information, and for that matter anything I would consider to literally be information i.e. an object cannot be directly transformed into information, except in a representative fashion [hence our subjective nature].

However, a computer can form macroscopic objects on our screens, and it does that with its language ~ binary code. The switching between 0’s and 1’ create patterns which collectively build into the information required to compose an image.

Here I am considering the idea that the universe is doing the very same thing but in tertiary fashion i.e. 3 integers instead of 2. everything in the universe moves between the three polar positions [positive/neutral/negative], and so equally creates patterns and alignments which literally draw what the consciousness and the world is.

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I am starting to wonder if anyone around here actually wants to study philosophy? Surely the most fundamental philosophy is; what is reality? :mrgreen:

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youtube.com/watch?v=4aaD1nEcs54

does youtube work on your computer?
This video is a little bit relevent.

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Yes you-tube works on my pc [I’ve switched it back to default], but this isn’t a question of ‘truth’, its a question about what is ~ what is the reality we see? We ~ with modern technology can ask objective questions about that as I have done here. A machine doesn’t question what is truth, it just does things mechanistically, then we humans may compare that to our reality and we are left with questions like; why is my reality different to a camcorder or computers reality.

We have such comparisons which the ancients did not.

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What is is you, is now, and at its root, it is all similar, or maybe even the same, and will remain real forever, as it always was and as it always will be.
To me this is the cross road between objective reality and what ever else.
We’re not excluded from reality in any real way. The issue which disrupts learning is sleep, death and unconsciousness.

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I think that you are merely lost in the language of a conflated ontology, sent on a “wild goose chase”.

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Dan

Indeed, and here I am essentially saying that there is only subjective reality ~ with or without humans.

James

It appears that you want everything to not be so fluid, such that your affectance philosophy is universal and fundamental. I think that at some level the universe does act physical, we can see that when we split an atom. However at the same time there is relativity, probability, QM, multi-verse and infinity to deal with, and that’s where it all falls down.

These are not things that I have made up! The universe is a strange place and my observations hold ~ until proven otherwise.

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??? One can’t get any more fluid than Affectance. Affectance is literally infinitely “fluid”, even “hyper-infinitely fluid”.

The universe ONLY acts physically. The universe IS physicality.

All of those other than “infinity” are merely invented mental ontologies. And every one of them are fairy tales and provably so. Someone with a loud voice made up a story about the fun possibility of each of those things, added a little math and semantic trickery, and left you thinking that they are each some form of “Science”. They are NOT Science. They are ontological theories. And each provably untrue, “broken” = “fairy tales” requiring magic (and thus not Science).

Proper Science cannot ever accept the idea that something is not explainable, else Science would have no use. Relativity, especially Quantum Physics, and multi-universe theories each proclaim an inexplicable element necessary to make the rest of each theory make any sense. That is exactly what magic and superstition are about, “inexplicable causation”.

That’s right. THEY made them up. And you just fell for it.

Your “observations” are merely the result of their stories of magic and mystery. You have not personally observed anything they talk about. It is ALL merely “myth from above” for the ignorant masses.

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Sure, a colorblind person and a person with normal eyesight might see a colored knife differently, but the knife will equally physically affect them, in fact, it will also physically affect blind who can’t see the knife at all. The knife will also cut a person even if that person can’t see nor feel it.

Our experience of reality because of our senses is necessarily subjective, but that doesn’t mean that there is no objective reality.

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I recall responding to the original thread containing this, by explaining aspects of Sartrean existentialism, as in Being and Nothingness. I doubt my views on that have changed too much so I’ll try not to bore you by repeating myself, but if you wish to resurface any part of our old discussion, then I’ll elaborate.

That presumably relates to what you were telling James:

While obviously your wording is contradictory, I find it interesting nonetheless. Objective reality exists with or without us, it may be left at that if taken from an entirely impersonal perspective, but the reasons to expand upon it comes from relevant-to-ourselves issues related to the past before we were born and the future, as it relates to our will, after our death.

Outside of our existence, and that related to our existence, it only seems that objective reality is still subjective reality because there can be nothing said of it of any relevance - if one is to be pragmatic. The stars, planets, ect. will still exist outside of human existence, but it would be absurd to waste much of one’s time speculating on them in that context. We may seem scientifically detached when speaking of astronomy and such, but the human element must be in our mind somewhere if we are to be pragmatic.

The concept of the atom is very useful in things such as chemistry, but it won’t help us here.

While James may be correct in much of his denunciation of modern theories in physics, it doesn’t mean that one should revert to an older theory (not to say he would disagree). Atoms are a working theory just as the newer theories are (though obviously with chemistry the theory is by far the most functional), but the idea of atoms or any concrete unchanging entity is flawed. Nothing is static, so energy or activity seem to be a very good way of describing aspects of reality.

That theory may have a potential function, but it rests on the assertion of some form of an irreducible entity. If we can’t reduce an entity, that failure is on us, not the entity.

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james

This theory is coming off the back of those ‘ontologies’ as you refer to them, so if they are wrong then this is probably wrong. If you want to prove them wrong i.e. challenge modern science, then that’s quit a large endeavour, and should at least have its own thread.

reality isn’t and cannot be though, especially if you believe it is infinite. Logically It can have no edges to the smallest things, otherwise those things would not be the smallest! If it has no edges we cannot consider it to be physical [at root]. How can a mental image be ‘physical’?

Atheris

Sure, a colorblind person and a person with normal eyesight might see a colored knife differently, but the knife will equally physically affect them, in fact, it will also physically affect blind who can’t see the knife at all. The knife will also cut a person even if that person can’t see nor feel it.

You misunderstand me sir, I don’t doubt that a knife can kill somebody. The macroscopic world has or largely is its own ‘systems’ ~ contained within themselves at the macroscopic level. Thus one system can affect another as with a knife and a human being.

Here I am saying that reality fundamentally isn’t ‘physical’, and that energy [if we wish to use that term] changes according to behaviours and information. Thus we can seamlessly have a reality with both the physical and the conscious. When energy has its behaviours changed it changes into something ~ like light or sound or consciousness, but also brick and knives. You can see a brick/knife from many subjective points of view as you say, but if it hits you it still hits you, and that changes the instrument [human being] to where it can no longer sustain the behaviours we call consciousness [given that it is still ‘energy’?].

i.e. instruments can brake, and then they don’t do the thing they done before. …but its interesting to note that irrespective of that, energy is this thing that can become consciousness, even ideas and concepts. It equally doesn’t sound so physical as its fundamental roots!

It is probably possible to make any energy imperishable by a given force anyhow.

Stuart

May I refer you to the above posts, as I hope they answer much of your post ~ cos’ I was thinking about all that at the time.

The paradox is for me resolved in that, information ultimately isn’t physical ~ because reality isn’t. The polar aspects to me are not in their representative forms/particles [i.e. behaviours], they are ‘something’ ~ information, but the particles take those metaphysical position ~ as opposed to the particles >being< those positions!

If we may substantiate that reality isn’t physical at least at base, then we have to start taking our minds more seriously i.e. as a thing as real as ‘physical’ things. We essentially bridge the rather obvious gap we can all see in our current descriptions.

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Been there. Done that.

That depends on how you are defining “Reality” vs “the universe”. The physical universe is totally and only the changing part of reality. Anything that changes, if it was not already physical would become physical by the changing. And anything that has no changing within it, is not physical at all.

It is true that the fundamental substance of the universe can be infinitely small, and literally even smaller.

The mind forming the image is physical. The “image” itself doesn’t physically exist. The brain that dreams is physical, the content of the dream is not (else we wouldn’t call it “just a dream”.

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I only see the whole – reality, and that in it is at least all the particles composing its physicality. I also notice that some things e.g. mental ideas and even the images we see/compose, maybe distinct from that mass. If they are not then as per the op, i’d say energy is a mysterious entity – if even that ~ one that can become consciousness and physical forms without consciousness.

]Either way, reality IS NOT physical.

That would then be a ‘changing part of reality’! [the image would be changing but non-physical yes real].

If the perception sees the world or an mental image, it is the same. Except that they are both semi-self-contained systems. The image on the view-screen [where the brain is the camcorder] is the same, no?

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For anything we would call information, we refer to something that is real which contains it, through symbols. At the base of information in computers there’s 1s and 0s and an algorithm, we accept the possibility of reducing those 1s and 0s further as irrelevant, because the algorithm relies on their completeness and it’s necessary for us to use computers as we have generally become accustomed. Yet, nonetheless, the 1s and 0s can be reduced - they’re transistors that are generally considered to be either on or off, but certainly, despite no foreseeable function whatsoever, there can be middle grounds perceived.

So information is physical, and what is real is physical. As I said, perhaps a theory turning all information somewhere below the atomic level into tertiary algorithms could be useful, perhaps even extremely useful in making physical predictions, but the individual states of on/off/neutral, 0/1/2 or however you would put it, remain reducible despite there being either no perceivable way of doing so or no perceivable function in doing so.

What we mean by reality, is similar to what we mean by an object, or an atom or particle. All objects are reducible, but by naming them and speaking their name we temporarily consider them irreducible as a necessity in communication. When we speak of reality, we temporality consider it as an object which cannot be a reduction of something larger, as a container that isn’t contained by anything. That is also necessary for communication, but is absurd if taking literally. What we really mean by reality is simply the limit of what we have, so far, perceived.

When we say that reality isn’t physical, we must ask what we mean by the term “physical”. It seems symbols are the antithesis of what is physical. Or, in that what is physical is real, what is not physical in not real. Symbols are unreal in that they aren’t physical, but the real question regarding them is whether or not they refer to what is physical or real.

So when you see how the term “physical” is basically another way of saying what is real, then you may see how absurd it is to say all that we have perceived, so far, as real, is not physical.

If one is coming from the direction of solipsism then he already takes his mind very seriously (the problem is he takes little else seriously), but if one is coming from the direction of slavish submission to the ideas of others about reality, then yes, he needs to take his mind more seriously. Both dispositions have their dangers.

In the former, one is not considering information taken from his environment sufficiently, and while to him he will always be able to discount the consequences of this up until death (where he still will not have to acknowledge the consequences, being dead), a second party observer can see very easily how he is at the mercy if his environment, and if not protected, will suffer and eventually die early.

In the latter, one fails to rely on his own direct observations, and understanding obtained by them, relying on the observations of others, with no understanding of them. Like the solipsist he is dependent on others for his survival, the difference being that he doesn’t necessarily need their direct protection, he simply needs to be given decent advice. If given bad advice, he may then be told that the consequences are preferable, but a second party can see that he has been basically tricked into ruining himself based on the agenda of others.

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perhaps we should forgo understanding it as a ‘mind’ as such and say, rather, there are only mental processes and mental activities.

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Since that last line is a bit nonsensical to me, perhaps you should explain what you mean by “physical”.

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Stuart

That ‘reality’ in us is the sleepwalker i.e. where the consciousness is not engaged [sometimes the consciousness can be partly engaged, but you know what I mean].

Thing is our reality is not binary. For consciousness to exist in a living form, there must be a degree of plasticity in the brain ~ enough multi-switches [neurons] such that it is not a closed system e.g. unlike a like a computer or an ant.

Though I take your point, at a given level things do work ‘physically’ ~ as long as we accept that that means; ‘organisation/systems’. However if what lies beneath that is not physical, then ‘physics’ is at best a misleading term!

At some level they must be as real as anything else, no? They have meaning and all energy forms [particles etc] are meaning/information attributed to ‘energy’ which gives them behaviours [often many variations at once [due to perspective, perceptions etc] . Symbols describe behaviour and that’s all there is ultimately. Our problem for me is in making a distinction between what is real and what is not, where everything is real, you cannot have a non-real can you? Worse is the almost religious belief in physics, especially in thinking of things as ‘part’-icles. Ultimately there is no cardinality and hence no parts.

I don’t see the duality? One may see the mind in the same terms as the brain, one party correlates to the other, so everything going on is real. An idea is as real as the neurons which substantiate them i’d say? It is the thing which talks to the ‘physical’ brain via ‘conceptual objects’. This is how we learn everything we know ~ one reality is communicating with another.

finishedman

Yes but there are mental realities which are not processes, a conceptual object or idea is not a process, but as one conceptual object morphs into another, the brain recognises what that means in terms of said processes.

James S Saint

Physical = a part or parts of reality, something is attributed [falsely] cardinality.

How can we call reality physical when at base particles don’t know where they are [are in a juxtaposition], and there can be at least one duplicate of any particle [probably all][in quantum entanglement].

ps, it would be a more intelligent debate if you didn’t feel the need to insult others. especially as we are asking questions [which only require an answer] and to things no one knows yet.

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That’s using the conscious/sub-conscious dichotomy, which admittedly I still use occasionally despite myself. The only seemingly reasonable split between the two would if we declared consciousness to only be when we declare ourselves conscious - and yet, even doing that would be on the unconscious end at times if we got in the habit.

Consciousness doesn’t just reflect the moment, its not just a product of time, as if linear time and 3d space was the only way of perceiving, it creates linear time as we know it. So when not being as conscious of itself to another’s perspective, in objective time (meaning as most of those in the world has agreed to set their clocks), one is still involved in the world in a way, that may in the future become a part of one’s self-conscious.

So consciousness is exactly what we perceive our self to be and all the components we perceive or understand to be involved. Some people perceive themselves as only being a part of their body, such as those who claim that uploading their brain onto a machine would mean anything, others perceive themselves so much in others that their identity is skewed into two or more.

The reason one would wish to recognize his body-as-a-whole as what is conscious and nothing more or less, is for survival. When one doesn’t place consciousness as more or less than one’s body, then one will protect one’s body uncompromisingly (not just the brain, they would rather risk almost certain death rather than upload their brain) and one won’t concern oneself nearly as much with the protection of others. So for example, if one really puts another life on the same level or above their own, then they would not only die protecting them, they would also take full responsibility otherwise. And responsibility is a good way of defining the realm of what is one’s consciousness.

Think of it this way, if you recall doing something clear headedly you take responsibility for it naturally, if not then you may defer to so-called unconscious or psychological motives. So if you fully take responsibility for someone, then regarding, for example, a regrettable action of theirs, its in your nature to first look at yourself as to what you could have done to avoid the other doing that action, before speaking of motives. - It’s no different than stopping one’s arm from striking something once it has the momentum to do so without further effort.

So outside of what makes us conscious is the sleepwalker, which we can say exist in our physical head and body and outside as well. One may ask if one who regularly sleepwalks should take responsibility for his actions when sleep walking. The issue often comes convoluted, when it really comes down to the question if one wishes to admit one’s choices during the day affect this supposed unconscious process, and there bye do something about it, or if one wishes to simply complain about it and defer entirely to others for help. It really comes down to one’s environment. If doing stupid actions while sleep walking somehow increased one’s chances of survival and reproduction, then most people would sleep walk regularly. That they don’t shows that our direct ancestors had generally taken responsibility for their actions when sleep walking, or they weren’t generally sleep walkers, only maybe their biological unsuccessful siblings and cousins.

It seems you phrased that as if to say I disagree. I have no objections there.

All things are physical and unlimitedly reducible into smaller physical parts.

Symbols are symbols (spoken words, written words, signs, etc.), and reality is reality. We live in reality and we use symbols to describe it. Take different dichotomies which are often misunderstood; the good/bad can not be accurately discussed without a context, something specific to be good or bad, because there is no substance or thing that is goodness or badness. The conscious/unconscious duality is not a problem, because neither exist outside of the context of what we are conscious (aware of) and what we aren’t. To claim to not be aware of an action of yours because you were sleepwalking or something, is not an excuse to defer responsibility. One may say one wasn’t aware one broke several dishes when the question is posed, but then upon seeing evidence, even if weeks later, one is aware, no more or less aware than if they found out about their action only milliseconds from doing it.

I’ll address the rest after a break.