NationStates Jolt Archive

There have been a number of threads on this board in which people express ideas that equate existence and reality, as if they were the same thing. They are not (that's why we have two different words). Just to clarify the difference, I'd like to espouse on the idea of the tree in the forest.

1. Existence exists. This idea is easy: a thing that exists has existence; otherwise, it is nothing. "No thing existing" is nothing.

2. Consciousness requires existence. This means that in order for us to know that things exist they must first be there "in existence" for us to know them. If they do not exist, they are nothing and we would never know them. (This idea, as a result of the language we use, sets up another idea, that of "existence" as a "place" that things "exist in", when in fact it is a "state of being".)

3. Reality requires consciousness. Things are real when we know them to be real via empirical evidence. Things both imagined and real have existence.

The situation of the tree in the forest making a sound is imaginative: we are asked to imagine a hypothetical tree in a hypothetical forest, hypothetically falling and asked, 'Does it create a sound wave with no consciousness present?' Reality is the default in our language: it is understood that we are talking about a "real" sound wave. So we have moved from a hypothetical postulation to an insistence on reality, but the only way to say "for real" that there was a sound wave is to observe it.

Existence can be imagined or real. When is that tree real, that forest real, that sound real? It is real when it is observed by a consciousness. A man can go out into a real forest, find a real tree, set up a machine in the forest to measure a sound wave when he is not around, arrange for the tree to fall, and leave. The sound wave exists, but it is hypothetical until he returns to the forest and checks his machine to see what was measured with his own eyes.
EDIT: or ears. ;)

Does a tree falling in the forest, with no one around, make a sound? The only correct answer to this question is, 'Hypothetically yes.' The sound in the forest has existence with no one present, but it is not real until it is measured and verified by a consciousness.

Yes, so, what is it that you want to discuss?

Yes, so, what is it that you want to discuss?
Not discussing; just espousing. If there's anything you'd like to discuss about it, though, go right ahead.

The problem with what you say is...is....

Damn you and your perfect argument which says exactly what I already knew.

Does a tree falling in the forest, with no one around, make a sound? The only correct answer to this question is, 'Hypothetically yes.' The sound in the forest has existence with no one present, but it is not real until it is measured and verified by a consciousness.

Ah, but this raises the interesting question: DOES the tree fall if there is no one around to witness it. If it does, there is no objection to it making noise either. If it does NOT, then it is fair to assume that it does not make a noise while not falling. Or if the answer is that the tree is only hypothetically falling, then that begs the question of whether the tree is actually a hypothetical tree. But there is no objection to the statement that a hypothetical tree performing a hypothetical fall makes a hypothetical sound. This again raises the essential question: What does "hypothetical" mean.

But then again, that is just my opinion.

Ah, but this raises the interesting question: DOES the tree fall if there is no one around to witness it. If it does, there is no objection to it making noise either. If it does NOT, then it is fair to assume that it does not make a noise while not falling. Or if the answer is that the tree is only hypothetically falling, then that begs the question of whether the tree is actually a hypothetical tree. But there is no objection to the statement that a hypothetical tree performing a hypothetical fall makes a hypothetical sound. This again raises the essential question: What does "hypothetical" mean.

But then again, that is just my opinion.
Hehe. "Hypothetical" means based on an hypothesis, combining facts and reasonable speculation.

Hypotheses are imagined and then remain in a "hypothetical" state until such a time as a test is developed to demonstrate their reality; then they are tested and become proper theory.

1. Existence exists. This idea is easy: a thing that exists has existence; otherwise, it is nothing. "No thing existing" is nothing.


Does this apply to purely abstract concepts? I square circle nothing, or is it a contradiction? If it is a contradiction, it is not nothing, hence by your argument it exists. All the argument does is deny any meaning to the term exist or the term existence.
The definition you give is completely tautological and leaves exist and existence as empty concepts, non defined properties.

2. Consciousness requires existence. This means that in order for us to know that things exist they must first be there "in existence" for us to know them. If they do not exist, they are nothing and we would never know them. (This idea, as a result of the language we use, sets up another idea, that of "existence" as a "place" that things "exist in", when in fact it is a "state of being".)

State of affairs, to be Wittgensteinian about it.
So having an empty concept of existence is sufficient for consciousness. That something has a non defined properety is essential for us to know about this thing.

3. Reality requires consciousness. Things are real when we know them to be real via empirical evidence. Things both imagined and real have existence.

Imagination provides empirical evidence? Here be dragons my dear! I am currently imagining myself to be a small blue creature from the planet Drupft, No, didn't work, I am still a boring old human.

We can look at the tree, the forest, the sound and the imaginary listener after we have the above sorted out.

The definition you give is completely tautological and leaves exist and existence as empty concepts, non defined properties.

What is wrong with a tautological argument?

What you said does make sence, though I think that you should stop defineing words with the word...Exsitance meaning to exsist and such. Its one of my pet peeves, though way too many dictonaries do it these days. Its just poor form, and leads to a less deep understanding.

Another question would be, if there is no one around, does anything really exsist, or is it just there because we think it is there, and that our world is only present where we pay attention to? Astral projections and meditations, are things that people say take them to different places with their minds. Maybe they are just tapping into the projection of reality, not going anywhere new, just changing the film in the projector.

What is wrong with a tautological argument?

Exactly what I said in teh quote you made. It leaves the terms so defined empty of meaning.

What is a cat, a feline. What is a feline, a cat.
Meaningless.

This idea is easy: a thing that exists has existence; otherwise, it is nothing. "No thing existing" is nothing.
Does this apply to purely abstract concepts? I square circle nothing, or is it a contradiction? If it is a contradiction, it is not nothing, hence by your argument it exists. All the argument does is deny any meaning to the term exist or the term existence.
The definition you give is completely tautological and leaves exist and existence as empty concepts, non defined properties.
Actually, the definition is metaphysical. :)
The axiom that "existence exists" is irreducable, and while it makes for a literary redundancy, it is logical. Things existing is what gives us existence.
I presented further definition to distinguish between existence and nothing, with the hope that the idea of nothing would more specifically explain the idea of existence. By definition, nothingness denies something having existence. The argument itself does not deny things exist: it defines existence.
And yes, it applies to the content of mind/imagination. Abstract concepts like contradictions are things that exist.
To "circle square nothing" does not mean anything --this is not to say that it is nothing. As a randomly generated bunch of words, it is a perfectly fine idea. If we address the ideas of "circling", "squaring" and "nothingness" individually, and then in combination, we have a complex idea that makes no sense, but sensibility is not a requirement (or property) of existence.

This means that in order for us to know that things exist they must first be there "in existence" for us to know them. If they do not exist, they are nothing and we would never know them.
So having an empty concept of existence is sufficient for consciousness. That something has a non defined properety is essential for us to know about this thing.
I don't know what "empty state of consciousness" is, but it sounds suspiciously like unconsciousness, or even non-existence.
Consciousness requires to be able to identify things external to it (not-it) in order to be aware it is conscious. In order to be aware of things, there have to be things in existence to be aware of. "No awareness" is unconsciousness.

Things are real when we know them to be real via empirical evidence. Things both imagined and real have existence.
Imagination provides empirical evidence? Here be dragons my dear! I am currently imagining myself to be a small blue creature from the planet Drupft, No, didn't work, I am still a boring old human.

We can look at the tree, the forest, the sound and the imaginary listener after we have the above sorted out.
:) Imagination is not reality; imagined and real are two states for existence.

Verifiable empircal evidence is a method of moving things from imagination to reality (actualizing). (I should have put the 'verifiable' in earlier; you're right.)

Exactly what I said in teh quote you made. It leaves the terms so defined empty of meaning.

What is a cat, a feline. What is a feline, a cat.
Meaningless.

Of course it has meaning. The very function of terms is to convey meaning.

What you said does make sence, though I think that you should stop defineing words with the word...Exsitance meaning to exsist and such. Its one of my pet peeves, though way too many dictonaries do it these days. Its just poor form, and leads to a less deep understanding.
"Existence exists" wasn't really intended as a whole definition, but the starting point of one. It is the fundamental axiom of the philosophy of metaphysics, the study of existence. I should have been more clear.

Another question would be, if there is no one around, does anything really exsist, or is it just there because we think it is there, and that our world is only present where we pay attention to? Astral projections and meditations, are things that people say take them to different places with their minds. Maybe they are just tapping into the projection of reality, not going anywhere new, just changing the film in the projector.
Things exist without people around. Consciousness is not a requirement of existence. However, I love the idea you're getting at that moves existence closer to the idea of reality. It's been the topic of fanciful speculation for me, too.
I believe the mind cannot really "leave" the body, that it is (necessarily) just a figure of speech. This isn't to say that images cannot be summoned in the mind, and those images have some validity.

If reality is "projected", wherefrom?

Actually, the definition is metaphysical.
The axiom that "existence exists" is irreducable, and while it makes for a literary redundancy, it is logical.

Logical and deductive, hence tautological. It also gives us no insight or understanding.

Things existing is what gives us existence.
I presented further definition to distinguish between existence and nothing, with the hope that the idea of nothing would more specifically explain the idea of existence. By definition, nothingness denies something having existence. The argument itself does not deny things exist: it defines existence.
It defines existence negatively as being the opposite of nothingness. Nothingness, however is still an undefined term, unless you define it in terms of existence. All very convoluted metaphysical arguments, but in the end they reduce to a closed meaningless circle.

And yes, it applies to the content of mind/imagination. Abstract concepts like contradictions are things that exist.
To "circle square nothing" does not mean anything --this is not to say that it is nothing. As a randomly generated bunch of words, it is a perfectly fine idea. If we address the ideas of "circling", "squaring" and "nothingness" individually, and then in combination, we have a complex idea that makes no sense, but sensibility is not a requirement (or property) of existence.

Some typos appear to have confused what I was arguing. My fault, I apologise. What I was asking was this. Is a square circle something or nothing? It is impossible to conceive of, except linguistically. It does not exist. Nevertheless a square circle is a contradiction. Now a contradiction is an abstract concept. If abstract concepts exist, then in some sense a square circle exists. So it both exists and does not exist. (and no, QM specialists, I am not referring to a square circle superposition state OK)

I don't know what "empty state of consciousness" is, but it sounds suspiciously like unconsciousness, or even non-existence.
Consciousness requires to be able to identify things external to it (not-it) in order to be aware it is conscious. In order to be aware of things, there have to be things in existence to be aware of. "No awareness" is unconsciousness.


I'm confused. I did not refer to an empty state of consciousness, did I? *scrolls down and looks*
No, I refered to an empty concept. The concept of existence, for me, at this point of the argument is still empty. I have a label, a noun, but no idea as to what it designates or to what it refers. You stated that consciousness depends upon existence. As I have an empty concept for the term existence, what I get is "consciousness depends upon <empty term>" An undefined dependency.
The dependency you give in your example is not one that refers to existence, but one that refers to what you will later define as reality. If imaginary objects exist, then by your definition, these are sufficient for awareness. (see Berkley)


:) Imagination is not reality; imagined and real are two states for existence.

Verifiable empircal evidence is the method of moving things from imagination to reality. (I should have put the 'verifiable' in earlier; you're right.)

What would count as verification? Awareness of its existence is not enough, and that is about all we have.

There have been a number of threads on this board in which people express ideas that equate existence and reality, as if they were the same thing. They are not (that's why we have two different words). Just to clarify the difference, I'd like to espouse on the idea of the tree in the forest.

1. Existence exists. This idea is easy: a thing that exists has existence; otherwise, it is nothing. "No thing existing" is nothing.

2. Consciousness requires existence. This means that in order for us to know that things exist they must first be there "in existence" for us to know them. If they do not exist, they are nothing and we would never know them. (This idea, as a result of the language we use, sets up another idea, that of "existence" as a "place" that things "exist in", when in fact it is a "state of being".)

3. Reality requires consciousness. Things are real when we know them to be real via empirical evidence. Things both imagined and real have existence.
Here is the problem with your theory. Reality does not require conciousness. If I am burned alive while unconcious, I may not ever perceive the fact, but fact it would remain. Conciousness is necessary for perception of reality, but not for reality.

The situation of the tree in the forest making a sound is imaginative: we are asked to imagine a hypothetical tree in a hypothetical forest, hypothetically falling and asked, 'Does it create a sound wave with no consciousness present?' Reality is the default in our language: it is understood that we are talking about a "real" sound wave. So we have moved from a hypothetical postulation to an insistence on reality, but the only way to say "for real" that there was a sound wave is to observe it.
I can say both (for real) that it did make a sound and that it did not. Neither such statement will effect whether or not a tree actually did make a sound. I imagine that you mean we cannot prove that there was a sound wave. This isnt actually relevent, things do not need to be proven for them to be real.

Existence can be imagined or real. When is that tree real, that forest real, that sound real?
When it really exists as a tree, forrest or a sound.

It is real when it is observed by a consciousness.
If a real thing is observed, then it is real, if a real thing is not observed, it is still real.

A man can go out into a real forest, find a real tree, set up a machine in the forest to measure a sound wave when he is not around, arrange for the tree to fall, and leave. The sound wave exists, but it is hypothetical until he returns to the forest and checks his machine to see what was measured with his own eyes.
EDIT: or ears. ;)
If the tree falling caused a sound wave to occur, regardless of hypothosising, it occured. If no sound wave was caused, then it didnt occur, regardless of hypothosising. Proving something to be so, does not cause it to be so. Think about it.

Does a tree falling in the forest, with no one around, make a sound? The only correct answer to this question is, 'Hypothetically yes.' The sound in the forest has existence with no one present, but it is not real until it is measured and verified by a consciousness.
Hypothetically yes is true, in the sense that we cannot know if we have reckoned every possible scenario. Hypothetical doesnt mean 'not real' though. Things can be hypothetical and real. Either a real sound wave occured or not, regardless of whether or not a conciousness measures and/or varifies it. Real means that it is. To be real is to exist, and to exist is to be real.

Logical and deductive, hence tautological. It also gives us no insight or understanding.
By itself, no.

It defines existence negatively as being the opposite of nothingness. Nothingness, however is still an undefined term, unless you define it in terms of existence. All very convoluted metaphysical arguments, but in the end they reduce to a closed meaningless circle.
Hmm: "A thing that exists has existence," is not a whole definition --it doesn't define 'to exist' --but neither did I define it negatively; I was careful. It only defines existence as a state of existing. I then went on to define nothingness negatively as the opposite of existence, in contrast to it; and yes, the idea of 'nothing' is only defined here in relation to existence. *sigh*

Let me try again:
- There are two states of being: to exist (something) and not to exist (nothing).
- Existence is a state of existing --being something, as opposed to not being.
- Everything that exists has a nature, characteristics by which it can be identified as something. Nothing has no identifiable characteristics ("nothingness" doesn't count as it's self-defining).
- Consciousness is the faculty of the mind that recognizes existence ("oh look! there it is"). Recognition is the process of becoming aware of things that exist.
- In order for the mind to recognize things, they must already exist; they must be something.

Some typos appear to have confused what I was arguing. My fault, I apologise. What I was asking was this. Is a square circle something or nothing? It is impossible to conceive of, except linguistically. It does not exist. Nevertheless a square circle is a contradiction. Now a contradiction is an abstract concept. If abstract concepts exist, then in some sense a square circle exists. So it both exists and does not exist. (and no, QM specialists, I am not referring to a square circle superposition state OK)
If a thing can be labelled by consciousness, because consciousness is aware of it, then it is something and hence it exists; however, that has to be further refined by specifying what it is that you are really talking about --in this case, an idea of "a square circle". Ideas exist only in the mind, but they do exist. When you specify it as "a concept" and "conceived of", it is immediately understood that it is in the mind, and therefore not real. The imaginary square circle exists.

I'm confused. I did not refer to an empty state of consciousness, did I? *scrolls down and looks*
No, I refered to an empty concept. The concept of existence, for me, at this point of the argument is still empty. I have a label, a noun, but no idea as to what it designates or to what it refers. You stated that consciousness depends upon existence. As I have an empty concept for the term existence, what I get is "consciousness depends upon <empty term>" An undefined dependency.
The dependency you give in your example is not one that refers to existence, but one that refers to what you will later define as reality. If imaginary objects exist, then by your definition, these are sufficient for awareness. (see Berkley)
You're right; I wonder how I read that wrong. I am sorry.

Yes. Imaginary entities (the content of imaginative thought) are sufficient for consciousness to be aware, as they are external to the consciousness; they are "not-me." They are content for the mind.
Imaginary entities, like the hypothetical postulation of the tree and the forest, exist. This does not mean they are real. In order for them to have reality, a consciousness must verify their existence by observation, direct or indirect.

What would count as verification? Awareness of its existence is not enough, and that is about all we have.
We also have logic, which tells us that that which we are aware of must exist (see above).
Verification: trusting senses, accepting objective reality (another concept), and actualizing things so they can be tested repeatedly.

Here is the problem with your theory. Reality does not require conciousness. If I am burned alive while unconcious, I may not ever perceive the fact, but fact it would remain. Conciousness is necessary for perception of reality, but not for reality.
It would be a fact for you and your consciousness that you were buried alive, but it would not remain: that knowledge would die with you. If your remains were never found it would "no fact" for the rest of us: facts are knowledge. If you were murdered, and your murderer never confessed, then the fact would die with him. If, on the other hand, your remains were discovered, even centuries later, by other people and it was recorded that you were buried alive, then it would be a fact that remains. :)

I can say both (for real) that it did make a sound and that it did not. Neither such statement will effect whether or not a tree actually did make a sound. I imagine that you mean we cannot prove that there was a sound wave. This isnt actually relevent, things do not need to be proven for them to be real.
You can say anything, and your saying it is real --you really said it --but that doesn't make what you said (the content of your meaning) real.

When it really exists as a tree, forrest or a sound.

If a real thing is observed, then it is real, if a real thing is not observed, it is still real.

If the tree falling caused a sound wave to occur, regardless of hypothosising, it occured. If no sound wave was caused, then it didnt occur, regardless of hypothosising. Proving something to be so, does not cause it to be so. Think about it.
It is logical, rational and intelligent to assume that there was a sound wave, but assumption doesn't make things real. I could assume there is life on Mars, and with good reason. But it's not real until mankind finds it. Until the 1990's it was assumed there were planets around other suns. Now it is a fact, the assumption (hypothesis) has been actualized; it is real. Mankind observed it through the Hubble telescope.

Hypothetically yes is true, in the sense that we cannot know if we have reckoned every possible scenario. Hypothetical doesnt mean 'not real' though. Things can be hypothetical and real. Either a real sound wave occured or not, regardless of whether or not a conciousness measures and/or varifies it. Real means that it is. To be real is to exist, and to exist is to be real.
Real has a few meanings, not the least of which is "authentic". But even in this sense, it is still consciousness-dependent. Can you provide an example of something that is hypothetical and real?

It would be a fact for you and your consciousness that you were buried alive, but it would not remain: that knowledge would die with you.
I can only gather that you did not read my comments properly, if I am burned to death while unconcious, how can the fact be part of my conciousness? If I am not concious and not perceiving, then the fact is not something that forms part of my conciousness. Although there might be many who had knowledge of the event, unless there is life post death, since I was not concious at any time during the burning, I would not have any knowledge of it, although many others might.

If your remains were never found it would "no fact" for the rest of us: facts are knowledge.
Facts are simply things that are true, and are not false.

If you were murdered, and your murderer never confessed, then the fact would die with him.
Facts are not alive and so cannot die, it may be true that no one living knows a particular fact, but the fact exists none the less. Fact and knowledge are not synomonous.

If, on the other hand, your remains were discovered, even centuries later, by other people and it was recorded that you were buried alive, then it would be a fact that remains. :)
The fact exists regardless whether or not anyone knows it. Either it is a fact that dinosaurs once existed, or it is not a fact, and whether or not it is a fact isnt effected by whether or not people believe it is a fact.

You can say anything, and your saying it is real --you really said it --but that doesn't make what you said (the content of your meaning) real.
I didnt suggest that it did.

It is logical, rational and intelligent to assume that there was a sound wave, but assumption doesn't make things real.
Assumption has nothing to do with whether or not the soundwave occured.
The possibilities are
that it occured and either we believe it occured or we dont believe it occured;
or
that it didnt occur and we believe it occured or we dont believe that it occured.

I could assume there is life on Mars, and with good reason. But it's not real until mankind finds it.
Untrue, you can assume that there is life on Mars, and either it is a fact that you are correct, or it is a fact that you are not correct, whether or not you ever confirm the fact either way.

Until the 1990's it was assumed there were planets around other suns. Now it is a fact, the assumption (hypothesis) has been actualized; it is real. Mankind observed it through the Hubble telescope.
Once it was assumed that the sun orbited the earth. The fact that we believe otherwise now, doesnt mean that the sun stopped orbiting the earth. Either the sun was orbiting the earth, or it was not, regardless of our beliefs, assumptions, and knowledges.

Real has a few meanings, not the least of which is "authentic". But even in this sense, it is still consciousness-dependent.
How so?
Can you provide an example of something that is hypothetical and real?
Any hypothetical thing that is real is real. Hypothetically my partner could walk through the door at a certain time, and if in fact at the certain time hypothosised, my partner does walk through the door, then my partner walking through the door at that time is both hypothetical and 'real'.

Think about what you are positing. You are telling us that things that are not real, can be proven to be real. If there is no real soundwave, how can you prove (not to be mistaken with erroneously believing you have proved) that there is a real soundwave? You can only prove that there is a real soundwave, if there already is a real soundwave. Reality proceeds proof, without reality there isnt anything to prove.

<snip>
<snip> ...facts are knowledge.
Facts are simply things that are true, and are not false.

Facts are not alive and so cannot die, it may be true that no one living knows a particular fact, but the fact exists none the less. Fact and knowledge are not synomonous.
<snip>

In my limited experience, this is almost a defining difference between those in the science pradigm and those in the humanities paradigm.

A while ago, I was in a lecture on the dualism deployed by Dickens in Hard Times. To illustrate this, the lecturer wrote two lists on the board, one entitled 'Real' and the other, 'Artificial', containing matching pairs of contrasting themes in the book. He wrote 'Fact' under the Artificial heading and 'Fantasy' under the 'Real' heading. He then paused, thought, nodded to himself and continued.

I queried this categorisation, and was met with bemusement from just about all the other students (it was an Arts course). As one student put it, "Facts aren't real, they're just descriptions of reality. Dreams are real."

The closest I could get to it, is that they saw facts as some kind of a shell around reality; whereas to someone like myself, from a science background, I see facts as reality out there to be discovered. The description is not the fact itself. A fact is not just a manifestation of reality.

I dunno. It's a language thing, or an assumptions thing, or something. I can't explain it very well.

Hmm: "A thing that exists has existence," is not a whole definition --it doesn't define 'to exist' --but neither did I define it negatively; I was careful. It only defines existence as a state of existing. I then went on to define nothingness negatively as the opposite of existence, in contrast to it; and yes, the idea of 'nothing' is only defined here in relation to existence. *sigh*

The only definitions you gave were the tautology and the negative. From these two it is not possible to put any content into the term existence.

Let me try again:
- There are two states of being: to exist (something) and not to exist (nothing).
- Existence is a state of existing --being something, as opposed to not being.
- Everything that exists has a nature, characteristics by which it can be identified as something. Nothing has no identifiable characteristics ("nothingness" doesn't count as it's self-defining).
- Consciousness is the faculty of the mind that recognizes existence ("oh look! there it is"). Recognition is the process of becoming aware of things that exist.
- In order for the mind to recognize things, they must already exist; they must be something.

Let me try to follow this.
1. A v ¬A (Law of the excluded middle, so far so good)
2. B -> ¬¬A (Existence implies not not something)
3. B -> A (Double negative reduction)
4. B -> C (Existence implies characteristics)
5. RcB (R the function recognise; Rab: a recognises b)
6. RcB -> A
OK
Where does B (Existence) come from?
It is just introduced without any explanation or even as an explicit assumption.


If a thing can be labelled by consciousness, because consciousness is aware of it, then it is something and hence it exists; however, that has to be further refined by specifying what it is that you are really talking about --in this case, an idea of "a square circle". Ideas exist only in the mind, but they do exist. When you specify it as "a concept" and "conceived of", it is immediately understood that it is in the mind, and therefore not real. The imaginary square circle exists.
I challenge you to imagine one. It exists only as a linguistic construct, as a contradiction. It can not be even imagined.

Yes. Imaginary entities (the content of imaginative thought) are sufficient for consciousness to be aware, as they are external to the consciousness; they are "not-me." They are content for the mind.
Imaginary entities, like the hypothetical postulation of the tree and the forest, exist. This does not mean they are real. In order for them to have reality, a consciousness must verify their existence by observation, direct or indirect.

I had never conceived of imagination as being external to the consciousness. This would result in an infinite regress in consciousnesses/awarenesses. I imagine something, and my consciousness, which is not me, as it is separate to the imagination, becomes aware of it. This consciousness can imagine something, after all it is conscious and capable of imagination, which must be separate to another consciousness within it if the faculty of imagination is separate to theat of awareness. ad infinitum.
The only way to avoid this is to integrate the faculties in one, the imagination is just the same faculty as awareness. Now self awareness is just one aspect of this faculty, it is not separate. If it were separate the same type of regress would ensue. (The recursiveness problem of the image theory of perception applies here.)

On to perception, evidence etc. Verify by direct, or indirect observation. Well I have seen the X-men indirectly, in the cinema, on TV, in comic books. Plenty of "evidence" so I know they are real. Your problem here is in the justification of empiricism. Not the easiest of things to do. Logic can not do it, as logic is divorced from the world of phenomena. All logic can do is tell us that a phenomenon is a phenomenon. It can not pronounce over the cause of such.
Trusting senses? Have you never been subject to an optical illusion. If you stand at an angle to a door and watch it as it closes, its shape changes. You do not see that, as your reason filters your perception, but the shape of the dorr image on your retina changes. You can not trust your senses so directly, they are not even accesable to you. They are filtered by your internal conception of the external world.

In my limited experience, this is almost a defining difference between those in the science pradigm and those in the humanities paradigm.

A while ago, I was in a lecture on the dualism deployed by Dickens in Hard Times. To illustrate this, the lecturer wrote two lists on the board, one entitled 'Real' and the other, 'Artificial', containing matching pairs of contrasting themes in the book. He wrote 'Fact' under the Artificial heading and 'Fantasy' under the 'Real' heading. He then paused, thought, nodded to himself and continued.

I queried this categorisation, and was met with bemusement from just about all the other students (it was an Arts course). As one student put it, "Facts aren't real, they're just descriptions of reality. Dreams are real."

The closest I could get to it, is that they saw facts as some kind of a shell around reality; whereas to someone like myself, from a science background, I see facts as reality out there to be discovered. The description is not the fact itself. A fact is not just a manifestation of reality.

I dunno. It's a language thing, or an assumptions thing, or something. I can't explain it very well.


You actually explained it brilliantly.
For the scientists facts are constituent elements of reality. They are objective, independent of our culture, beliefs, ideals etc.

For the humanities academic, facts are contingent. They are about the current state of the world, but this world includes the subjective judgements that we make.

It is hot.
A statement of fact for a scientist if the thermometer reads above a pre defined value
A statement of fact for the humanities guy (I need a better term for this) if someone expresses the sensation of experiencing heat, regardless of the thermometer.

In my limited experience, this is almost a defining difference between those in the science pradigm and those in the humanities paradigm.
I've not had that experiance.

A while ago, I was in a lecture on the dualism deployed by Dickens in Hard Times. To illustrate this, the lecturer wrote two lists on the board, one entitled 'Real' and the other, 'Artificial', containing matching pairs of contrasting themes in the book. He wrote 'Fact' under the Artificial heading and 'Fantasy' under the 'Real' heading. He then paused, thought, nodded to himself and continued.
The first problem I see here is that there seems to be an implication that the group 'artifical things' are not a subset of the group 'real things'.

I queried this categorisation, and was met with bemusement from just about all the other students (it was an Arts course). As one student put it, "Facts aren't real, they're just descriptions of reality. Dreams are real."
Facts and dreams are both real.

The closest I could get to it, is that they saw facts as some kind of a shell around reality; whereas to someone like myself, from a science background, I see facts as reality out there to be discovered. The description is not the fact itself. A fact is not just a manifestation of reality.
So far as I can ascertain the word fact is has a meaning equivalent to 'proposition who's truth value = true'.
Whether or not what we think are facts, actually are, is another matter entirely.

I dunno. It's a language thing, or an assumptions thing, or something. I can't explain it very well.
Well we can form a club of the 'mystified'. ;)

My understanding of language is that facts are 'necessary truths'. As for assumptions, I'm not really certain about quite what is being posited, so I cant really comment usefully on that.

You actually explained it brilliantly.
For the scientists facts are constituent elements of reality. They are objective, independent of our culture, beliefs, ideals etc.

For the humanities academic, facts are contingent. They are about the current state of the world, but this world includes the subjective judgements that we make.

It is hot.
A statement of fact for a scientist if the thermometer reads above a pre defined value
A statement of fact for the humanities guy (I need a better term for this) if someone expresses the sensation of experiencing heat, regardless of the thermometer.
Thanks. I wasn't sure about the humanities tag myself, it's too sweeping. I think of them as artists myself (from the C P Snow divide), but not in the hearing of my wife. She runs a science art agency, committed to bringing the two sides together on the common ground of creativity

I've not had that experiance.


The first problem I see here is that there seems to be an implication that the group 'artifical things' are not a subset of the group 'real things'.


Facts and dreams are both real.


So far as I can ascertain the word fact is has a meaning equivalent to 'proposition who's truth value = true'.
Whether or not what we think are facts, actually are, is another matter entirely.


Well we can form a club of the 'mystified'. ;)

My understanding of language is that facts are 'necessary truths'. As for assumptions, I'm not really certain about quite what is being posited, so I cant really comment usefully on that.

You're articulating my points better than I - I'm a complete amateur in philosophy, and wilfully loose with language.

I agree with you on the sub-set thing in terms of my shortened description of the lecturer's aims. In fairness what he was driving at was heaven/earth, human/mechanical, nature/factory, truth/statistics &c type dualism, so the reality/artifice contrast was not unreasonable in context.

My 'assumptions' were just a short hand term for previous experience. I would posit (love that word!) that those of a scientific bent have an assumption that they can understand or know facts. As Alien Born says, that understanding may be flawed, but it's there to be had. Whereas 'non-scientists' see 'facts' as somehow alien to themselves.

You're articulating my points better than I - I'm a complete amateur in philosophy, and wilfully loose with language.
I think that using my language is probably my strong point, although I appear to have no talent when it comes to learning another language...

I agree with you on the sub-set thing in terms of my shortened description of the lecturer's aims. In fairness what he was driving at was heaven/earth, human/mechanical, nature/factory, truth/statistics &c type dualism, so the reality/artifice contrast was not unreasonable in context.
Unless he had a very convincing reason, for doing so, he'd have lost me. By dualism is he meaning a binary? I dont understand quite what this lecturer was driving at (perhaps it was one of those 'you had to be there' type things...) :confused:

My 'assumptions' were just a short hand term for previous experience. I would posit

(love that word!)
Me too! ;)

that those of a scientific bent have an assumption that they can understand or know facts. As Alien Born says, that understanding may be flawed, but it's there to be had. Whereas 'non-scientists' see 'facts' as somehow alien to themselves.
I'm not 'sciency', I believe that there are philosophical arguments whereby the alledged infinity (or the inability to substantiate that there isnt infinity) of reality, is argued as rendering 'proof' impossible. I think it's something to do with proof meaning a demonstration of what absolutely is, and the fact that the only tests we have for what absolutely is are all finite, and so cannot prove anything given that reality is alledged to be infinite, or cannot be proven to not be infinite. I personally dont see it as being relevent at this time. There may come a time when we can do something useful with such a notion, but at this time I am not aware of any practical application for it.

Unless he had a very convincing reason, for doing so, he'd have lost me. By dualism is he meaning a binary? I dont understand quite what this lecturer was driving at (perhaps it was one of those 'you had to be there' type things...) :confused:

I know not of this binary of which you speak so you may be right. The dualism within 'Hard Times' is that the book can be read as a child's struggle for an authentic life (as a human) in the face of horrors of the Victorian Industrial Revolution. That's where he was coming from.


I'm not 'sciency', I believe that there are philosophical arguments whereby the alledged infinity (or the inability to substantiate that there isnt infinity) of reality, is argued as rendering 'proof' impossible. I think it's something to do with proof meaning a demonstration of what absolutely is, and the fact that the only tests we have for what absolutely is are all finite, and so cannot prove anything given that reality is alledged to be infinite, or cannot be proven to not be infinite. I personally dont see it as being relevent at this time. There may come a time when we can do something useful with such a notion, but at this time I am not aware of any practical application for it.
Yes, that sounds right.

But in some disciplines it's no longer just philosophy. Maths has come up against Godel's theorem (all logic rests on fundamental assumptions, which themselves cannot be proved). Physics is grappling with observer created reality (at the quantum end of the scale). To me, it's as though any mature thought system runs into a paradox, beyond which it cannot go. You'll see the same thing in mature religions - hence dualism is usually taken in its theological meaning.

I can't draw any useful conclusions from this as such, other than that reality rests on a paradox and all we can do is deal with it.

I can only gather that you did not read my comments properly, if I am burned to death while unconcious, how can the fact be part of my conciousness? If I am not concious and not perceiving, then the fact is not something that forms part of my conciousness. Although there might be many who had knowledge of the event, unless there is life post death, since I was not concious at any time during the burning, I would not have any knowledge of it, although many others might.
Oops! I read 'buried', not 'burned'. Still, if you were unconscious when you were burned, and no one else was aware that you were burned, and no one ever discovers your remains, then the fact that you were burned is only hypothetical, not real: it exists as a suggestion only in the minds of the people reading it on this thread here and now, and anyone else you might have posited this hypothetical situation to. You're not dead: it's not real.

Facts are simply things that are true, and are not false.
Right. No dispute, there.

Facts are not alive and so cannot die,
Figure o' speech.

it may be true that no one living knows a particular fact, but the fact exists none the less...
Hypothetically, yes, until someone (a consciousness) learns it, and that makes it real.

Fact and knowledge are not synomonous.
This I agree with. However, fact is a type of knowledge.

The fact exists regardless whether or not anyone knows it. Either it is a fact that dinosaurs once existed, or it is not a fact, and whether or not it is a fact isnt effected by whether or not people believe it is a fact.
Yes!! you are right! The fact exists whether or not anyone knows it, and whether or not people believe in it. It's existence is not dependent on it being real.

Assumption has nothing to do with whether or not the soundwave occured.
The possibilities are
that it occured and either we believe it occured or we dont believe it occured;
or
that it didnt occur and we believe it occured or we dont believe that it occured.
Right. And the way to know for sure if it occured is to observe it. Then we can know it to be real, and we don't have struggle with beliefs.

Untrue, you can assume that there is life on Mars, and either it is a fact that you are correct, or it is a fact that you are not correct, whether or not you ever confirm the fact either way.
Then... how will anyone know it's a fact if no one ever confirms it?

Once it was assumed that the sun orbited the earth. The fact that we believe otherwise now, doesnt mean that the sun stopped orbiting the earth. Either the sun was orbiting the earth, or it was not, regardless of our beliefs, assumptions, and knowledges.
Right. It was observed that this was incorrect, so the facts changed, and the reality of the situation was altered in people's minds.

How so?
Well... what authenticates it? A human consciousness.

Any hypothetical thing that is real is real. Hypothetically my partner could walk through the door at a certain time, and if in fact at the certain time hypothosised, my partner does walk through the door, then my partner walking through the door at that time is both hypothetical and 'real'.

Think about what you are positing. You are telling us that things that are not real, can be proven to be real. If there is no real soundwave, how can you prove (not to be mistaken with erroneously believing you have proved) that there is a real soundwave? You can only prove that there is a real soundwave, if there already is a real soundwave. Reality proceeds proof, without reality there isnt anything to prove.
Not quite following you, here. You can only prove the existence of things that exist. If that's what you mean, we are in agreeance.

But in some disciplines it's no longer just philosophy. Maths has come up against Godel's theorem (all logic rests on fundamental assumptions, which themselves cannot be proved).

Just a sidenote - I think you're misinterpreting Godel's theorem. Mathematicians have always known that all mathematics rests on assumptions that cannot be proven. What Godel's theorem implies is the following:

For ANY set of assumptions, there exists a meaninful statement which you can neither prove nor disprove with that set of assumptions.

Basically - for any set of mathematical axioms, you can propose a theorem the truth of which CANNOT be determined. We can add more assumptions and then prove whatever theorem it is; but no matter what assumptions we add, there will ALWAYS be something we can't prove or disprove.

In my limited experience, this is almost a defining difference between those in the science pradigm and those in the humanities paradigm.

A while ago, I was in a lecture on the dualism deployed by Dickens in Hard Times. To illustrate this, the lecturer wrote two lists on the board, one entitled 'Real' and the other, 'Artificial', containing matching pairs of contrasting themes in the book. He wrote 'Fact' under the Artificial heading and 'Fantasy' under the 'Real' heading. He then paused, thought, nodded to himself and continued.

I queried this categorisation, and was met with bemusement from just about all the other students (it was an Arts course). As one student put it, "Facts aren't real, they're just descriptions of reality. Dreams are real."

The closest I could get to it, is that they saw facts as some kind of a shell around reality; whereas to someone like myself, from a science background, I see facts as reality out there to be discovered. The description is not the fact itself. A fact is not just a manifestation of reality.

I dunno. It's a language thing, or an assumptions thing, or something. I can't explain it very well.

I think I'm going to save that.

Wow.

Just a sidenote - I think you're misinterpreting Godel's theorem. Mathematicians have always known that all mathematics rests on assumptions that cannot be proven. What Godel's theorem implies is the following:

For ANY set of assumptions, there exists a meaninful statement which you can neither prove nor disprove with that set of assumptions.

Basically - for any set of mathematical axioms, you can propose a theorem the truth of which CANNOT be determined. We can add more assumptions and then prove whatever theorem it is; but no matter what assumptions we add, there will ALWAYS be something we can't prove or disprove.
You've articulated my understanding of Godel perfectly. (Did I mention I'm not very disciplined in my use of language? ;) )

Though, IIRC, Godel's proof of these findings came as something of a surprise at the time. Mathematicians were expecting certainty. I'm sure that's what my text book said anyway, though it was *mumblemumblemumble* years ago, so my memory might be failing me.

I think I'm going to save that.

Wow.
Hmm. I hope that's 'Wow' in a good way. Or at least not in a bad, 'this guy is a complete idiot', way.

You've articulated my understanding of Godel perfectly. (Did I mention I'm not very disciplined in my use of language? ;) )

Though, IIRC, Godel's proof of these findings came as something of a surprise at the time. Mathematicians were expecting certainty. I'm sure that's what my text book said anyway, though it was *mumblemumblemumble* years ago, so my memory might be failing me.

Gödel's theorem effectively put an end to David Hilbert's program to complete mathematics. This was the shock it caused in the maths world.

It had actually already been shown in a less general form, I think, if I remember correctly, by Peano.

Gödel's theorem effectively put an end to David Hilbert's program to complete mathematics. This was the shock it caused in the maths world.

<snip>

That's the bit I was thinking of. Thanks.

*Goes back to carefully tending his few remaining brain cells.*

I know not of this binary of which you speak so you may be right. The dualism within 'Hard Times' is that the book can be read as a child's struggle for an authentic life (as a human) in the face of horrors of the Victorian Industrial Revolution. That's where he was coming from.
I'm referring (when I say binaries) to dualities that are pairs of 'opposites' (for want of a better description) i.e. 'old - young', 'happy - unhappy', dark - light', 'stop - go'.

Yes, that sounds right.

But in some disciplines it's no longer just philosophy. Maths has come up against Godel's theorem (all logic rests on fundamental assumptions, which themselves cannot be proved).
Well if I preface my comments with the following disclaimer, "I'm not very 'mathie'"....I still dont see the practical relevence. My limited understanding of maths is that it's functional. Is there some point at which the inability to prove assumptions interferes with the functionality of 'maths'? If you are aware of such a happenstance (functionality of maths being undermined by the inability to prove fundamental assumptions which cannot themselves be proven), can you explain in terms the 'maths-challenged' can get their heads around?

Physics is grappling with observer created reality (at the quantum end of the scale).
Physics is so far out of my element, to be honest I'm not really clear what is being said here. Can you be more specific about the practical application of the theory 'we cant prove anything' in regards to physics. What can we do with this idea that we cant do without it?

To me, it's as though any mature thought system runs into a paradox, beyond which it cannot go. You'll see the same thing in mature religions - hence dualism is usually taken in its theological meaning.
I think this is more about us, than it is about reality, although you'll forgive me if I cant prove that what I think is right is right, or that I think it, or that I think, or that I am I, or that I am....

I can't draw any useful conclusions from this as such, other than that reality rests on a paradox and all we can do is deal with it.
I'm not sure that it is a useful conclusion (although as I have pointed out I'm not sciencie or mathie, so there's at least two very large and diverse fields that could easily hide multiple useful applications of such a conclusion from me).
I'm not convinced that it is a paradox, I tend to think that the problem isnt so much reality being a paradox, but rather our means of comprehending reality. I suspect either reality isnt a paradox and we have not worked that out, or our understanding of 'paradox' is flawed or lacking.

The only definitions you gave were the tautology and the negative. From these two it is not possible to put any content into the term existence.

Let me try to follow this.
1. A v ¬A (Law of the excluded middle, so far so good)
2. B -> ¬¬A (Existence implies not not something)
3. B -> A (Double negative reduction)
4. B -> C (Existence implies characteristics)
5. RcB (R the function recognise; Rab: a recognises b)
6. RcB -> A
OK
Where does B (Existence) come from?
It is just introduced without any explanation or even as an explicit assumption.
It is the state of existing.

I've had about three hours study of metaphysics, so far, and none in any other philosophies. If you could help me refine some workable definitions, I'd be most grateful.

I challenge you to imagine one. It exists only as a linguistic construct, as a contradiction. It can not be even imagined.
That's what they said about infinity, yet I have no problem looking at the horizon and using it as a suitable symbol for my understanding of the concept. I understand you: the contradiction means it must be one or the other, cannot be both. But, in this too, my imagination can summon up a painful square-in-a-circle symbolic thing, and then shrug it off. Still, the idea of it exists in some form.

I had never conceived of imagination as being external to the consciousness. This would result in an infinite regress in consciousnesses/awarenesses. I imagine something, and my consciousness, which is not me, as it is separate to the imagination, becomes aware of it. This consciousness can imagine something, after all it is conscious and capable of imagination, which must be separate to another consciousness within it if the faculty of imagination is separate to theat of awareness. ad infinitum.
The only way to avoid this is to integrate the faculties in one, the imagination is just the same faculty as awareness. Now self awareness is just one aspect of this faculty, it is not separate. If it were separate the same type of regress would ensue. (The recursiveness problem of the image theory of perception applies here.)
The faculties of the mind are integrated, I didn't mean to suggest they weren't. None of them are separate (though, as faucets of consciousness that have distinct functionality, they are individual things). Consciousness is awareness of things external to it, and requires things external to it to be aware of itself, and that includes imaginings. They are "not me", hence "external" to consciousness. If I imagine a pink elephant, in all its pinky elephany splendour, the imagining is mine, but the pink elephant is "not me".

On to perception, evidence etc. Verify by direct, or indirect observation. Well I have seen the X-men indirectly, in the cinema, on TV, in comic books. Plenty of "evidence" so I know they are real. Your problem here is in the justification of empiricism. Not the easiest of things to do. Logic can not do it, as logic is divorced from the world of phenomena. All logic can do is tell us that a phenomenon is a phenomenon. It can not pronounce over the cause of such.
Noted.

Trusting senses? Have you never been subject to an optical illusion. If you stand at an angle to a door and watch it as it closes, its shape changes. You do not see that, as your reason filters your perception, but the shape of the dorr image on your retina changes. You can not trust your senses so directly, they are not even accesable to you. They are filtered by your internal conception of the external world.
If our senses were entirely reliable, trust would not be necessary.

I'm referring (when I say binaries) to dualities that are pairs of 'opposites' (for want of a better description) i.e. 'old - young', 'happy - unhappy', dark - light', 'stop - go'.
I think we have reached agreement on our meaning here.

Well if I preface my comments with the following disclaimer, "I'm not very 'mathie'"....I still dont see the practical relevence. My limited understanding of maths is that it's functional. Is there some point at which the inability to prove assumptions interferes with the functionality of 'maths'? If you are aware of such a happenstance (functionality of maths being undermined by the inability to prove fundamental assumptions which cannot themselves be proven), can you explain in terms the 'maths-challenged' can get their heads around?

Well, like I said, I'm not the philisophical type, but I can think of two applications of this knowledge:

1. It tells you there will be a point at which you can stop digging.
2. It frees your mind to look around for alternative realities. A possible case in point: non-Euclidean geometry. Concieved as an abstract system with no application in normal, 3-D space; but now applied in the study of gravitational fields in astronomy (I think).

Physics is so far out of my element, to be honest I'm not really clear what is being said here. Can you be more specific about the practical application of the theory 'we cant prove anything' in regards to physics. What can we do with this idea that we cant do without it?

Wooh, this is where I could embarrass myself severely with my lack of knowledge. Observer created reality, as I understand it, is to do with the fact that the path and nature of a sub-atomic particle is determined (only) by the act of a human observing it. Physicists had a lot of trouble accepting this, and were only able to move quantum theory on once they did so.

That's probably a horribly garbled explanation - I'm again delving *mumblemumblemumble* years back to a course I did in Relativity, so my apologies in advance of someone providing a much better explanation.

I'm not sure that it is a useful conclusion (although as I have pointed out I'm not sciencie or mathie, so there's at least two very large and diverse fields that could easily hide multiple useful applications of such a conclusion from me).
I'm not convinced that it is a paradox, I tend to think that the problem isnt so much reality being a paradox, but rather our means of comprehending reality. I suspect either reality isnt a paradox and we have not worked that out, or our understanding of 'paradox' is flawed or lacking.
Eh, paradoxical is just how I think of it. It could well be the wrong word. You're also right, it might just be a reflection of our limited comprehension. However, what I find interesting is that the history of maths, physics and theology and similar stuff seems to throw up repeated examples of mature systems coming up against analagous irreconcilable dualities. So I wonder if that conclusion is inherent, rather than just a temporary limitation.

Anyways, it's late over here and I've got to see a therapist about a leg in the morning, so I'll have to go now. It's been fun talking. ;)

It is the state of existing.

I've had about three hours study of metaphysics, so far, and none in any other philosophies. If you could help me refine some workable definitions, I'd be most grateful.

So would the entire philosophy world. It just has never been done successfully.


That's what they said about infinity, yet I have no problem looking at the horizon and using it as a suitable symbol for my understanding of the concept. I understand you: the contradiction means it must be one or the other, cannot be both. But, in this too, my imagination can summon up a painful square-in-a-circle symbolic thing, and then shrug it off. Still, the idea of it exists in some form.

I think you delude yourself if you believe you can imagine a square circle. This means a circle that is a square, or conversely a square that is a circle. The two mathematical forms are mutually exclusive. They simply cannot both describe the same shape. I can imagine infinity, but not a square circle. A square-in-a-circle thingy does not fit the requirement. Existence has to be limited to the realms of the logically possible. Logically impossible things can not exist.


The faculties of the mind are integrated, I didn't mean to suggest they weren't. None of them are separate (though, as facets of consciousness that have distinct functionality, they are individual things). Consciousness is awareness of things external to it, and requires things external to it to be aware of itself, and that includes imaginings. They are "not me", hence "external" to consciousness. If I imagine a pink elephant, in all its pinky elephany splendour, the imagining is mine, but the pink elephant is "not me".

You are contradicting yourself.
1.The faculties of the mind are integrated
2.Consciousness is awareness of things external to it, ... and that includes imaginings

These two statements are flat contradictory. Unless you wish to claim that either consciousness or imagination is not a faculty of the mind.


If our senses were entirely reliable, trust would not be necessary.

So you determine reality on the basis of blind trust. If it comes down to this, then take the easier route and go with the theist explanation. God would not deceive us.

I recognise that I am just being critical, and not proposing any counter position. And a salute your bravery in attempting this.

"Everything is as it is suppose to be"

my philosphy of the day..

Is the cup half full or empty ? "Doesn't matter, same amount of water"


Troy*

"In the end our society will be
defined, not only by what we create,
but what refuse to destroy"

You are contradicting yourself.
1.The faculties of the mind are integrated
2.Consciousness is awareness of things external to it, ... and that includes imaginings

These two statements are flat contradictory. Unless you wish to claim that either consciousness or imagination is not a faculty of the mind.
Okay, I am forced to agree, so I will stop trying to force my ideas to fit those of metaphysics.

I was hopeful, though, that I'd found a vehicle to better explaining myself, or at least a better language.

Oops! I read 'buried', not 'burned'.
Aha, but it's not materially relevent, so either way...

Still, if you were unconscious when you were burned, and no one else was aware that you were burned, and no one ever discovers your remains, then the fact that you were burned is only hypothetical, not real:
No if it is a fact then it isnt merely hypothetical, it might be hypothetical in addition to being a fact, but if it's a fact then it is factual.

it exists as a suggestion only in the minds of the people reading it on this thread here and now,
Well I cant really determine the extent of the existence of the idea, and/or hypothesis of myself being burned or alive. At this time, I am convinced that it is a fact that I have not, at any point in this (i.e. my) lifetime, been burned alive.
and anyone else you might have posited this hypothetical situation to. You're not dead: it's not real.
It's not true (to the best of my knowleged) that I am currently dead.

Right. No dispute, there.
Figure o' speech.
Aha, but what does it mean?

Hypothetically, yes, until someone (a consciousness) learns it, and that makes it real.
No, it may or may not exist hypothetically. It may or may not ever be 'learnt' but it's still a fact. If something is necessarily true, then it is true, necessarily.

This I agree with. However, fact is a type of knowledge.
No, a fact is something that is necessarily true. Knowledge is stuff we 'know'. What we know is not always consistent with the facts.

Yes!! you are right! The fact exists whether or not anyone knows it, and whether or not people believe in it. It's existence is not dependent on it being real.
A fact is a necessary truth about reality. If a fact exists then it does so as a function of reality. Anything that exists is real, to be real it must exist, to exist it must be real.

Right. And the way to know for sure if it occured is to observe it.
It doesnt matter if we know for sure or not.

Then we can know it to be real, and we don't have struggle with beliefs.
That's not relevent. Whether or not people know that a fact is (a fact), isnt relevent to whether or not it is a fact.

Then... how will anyone know it's a fact if no one ever confirms it?
That's not the point. Whether or not we know it is a fact, if it is a fact, then it is a fact. It's tautological and it is necessarily true that facts are not not facts.

Right. It was observed that this was incorrect, so the facts changed, and the reality of the situation was altered in people's minds.
The facts did not change. People's beliefs about facts change, but facts do not.

Well... what authenticates it? A human consciousness.
Authentication isnt necessary.

Not quite following you, here. You can only prove the existence of things that exist. If that's what you mean, we are in agreeance.
How can you prove that a soundwave that isnt real is? You cant. Either the soundwave is real, or it isnt. If the soundwave isnt real, then there cannot be proof that it is real. If there is proof that it is real, it must have been real for there to be such proof. If only things proven are real, then there is nothing real to prove until you have proven it, but since it isnt yet real, you cant prove that it is real.

In fact as we have already discussed, you cant prove anything. So if you are correct, nothing is real. All things that exist are not real! I dont believe that, I believe I have more cause to disbelieve such an assertion, than I have to believe it.

Okay, I am forced to agree, so I will stop trying to force my ideas to fit those of metaphysics.

I was hopeful, though, that I'd found a vehicle to better explaining myself, or at least a better language.
Hey, don't give up! I may not understand a lot of your language, but it opens up new avenues of thought for me just the same. :)

Okay, I am forced to agree, so I will stop trying to force my ideas to fit those of metaphysics.

I was hopeful, though, that I'd found a vehicle to better explaining myself, or at least a better language.

Don't give up. Just three hours of metaphysics is not enough. You have to learn a lot of epistemology as well as ontology to be able to make any real progress. Keep your ideas clear, one day you may find that this type of language will express them for you. If not, then you could always invent your own. That is what Kant did after all.

Hey, don't give up! I may not understand a lot of your language, but it opens up new avenues of thought for me just the same. :)
Heh. The only thing I am giving up (for now) is trying to use metaphysics to justify my claim about reality. I still think I'm right about reality being a different concept than existence.

Heh. The only thing I am giving up (for now) is trying to use metaphysics to justify my claim about reality. I still think I'm right about reality being a different concept than existence.
Well then, on to the next attempt, I still have not gotten my head around quite why you believe they are different. Perhaps a change of terminology will enable me to grasp exactly what it is you are intending to communicate...

Still, if you were unconscious when you were burned, and no one else was aware that you were burned, and no one ever discovers your remains, then the fact that you were burned is only hypothetical, not real
No if it is a fact then it isnt merely hypothetical, it might be hypothetical in addition to being a fact, but if it's a fact then it is factual.
Ah, but it is hypothetical. So we're on the same track. Its factuality is not in question by me; its reality is. After all, I only have your imaginings to go by. ;)

Reading quickly through your response, you now appear to be equating factuality, truth, reality and existence, as if the four concepts are all equivalent.

it exists as a suggestion only in the minds of the people reading it on this thread here and now
Well I cant really determine the extent of the existence of the idea, and/or hypothesis of myself being burned or alive. At this time, I am convinced that it is a fact that I have not, at any point in this (i.e. my) lifetime, been burned alive.

It's not true (to the best of my knowleged) that I am currently dead.
Right. I too am convinced you are not really dead. It is our consciousnesses that are "convinced," so we can go with the assumption that it's real.

Thank you for confirming that.

Figure o' speech.
Aha, but what does it mean?
It means that the consciousness that passed away took that piece of information with it.

No, it may or may not exist hypothetically. It may or may not ever be 'learnt' but it's still a fact. If something is necessarily true, then it is true, necessarily.

fact is a type of knowledge.
No, a fact is something that is necessarily true. Knowledge is stuff we 'know'. What we know is not always consistent with the facts.

A fact is a necessary truth about reality. If a fact exists then it does so as a function of reality. Anything that exists is real, to be real it must exist, to exist it must be real.
Well, the dictionary says (and the definition I have always understood) a fact is a piece of information that is true. That would make it a piece of knowledge once a consciousness is informed by it; however, it is not the fact that does the informing (but that's a language thing again --it is consciousness that recognizes the fact through awareness, that is consequently informed ("formed from within")). Consciousness is the source of the piece of information through recognition of it; the fact is not an objectively real thing.

And the way to know for sure if it occured is to observe it.
It doesnt matter if we know for sure or not.
It does matter ("mattering" being the concern that a consciousness has for the object; concern being a human feeling; being concerned whether or not it is real). If we don't know for sure that it is real, it is hypothetical (only a possibility). That is one other thing that differentiates reality from cold, hard existence: being human-centric, reality matters.

That's not relevent. Whether or not people know that a fact is (a fact), isnt relevent to whether or not it is a fact.

Then... how will anyone know it's a fact if no one ever confirms it?
That's not the point. Whether or not we know it is a fact, if it is a fact, then it is a fact. It's tautological and it is necessarily true that facts are not not facts.
It is the point that I am making, and made in my first post. ;) Your giving of facts some objective reality is a fallacy. A fact, as a piece of information, is not a fact until it informs.

Right. It was observed that this was incorrect, so the facts changed
The facts did not change. People's beliefs about facts change, but facts do not.
Countering this would involve a very long paragraph (half-written, and then deleted) about objective reality, but I think I'll save for another thread. (I know the dictionary defines objective reality as the reality; I am working towards viewing reality from a more archaic angle.)

How can you prove that a soundwave that isnt real is? You cant. Either the soundwave is real, or it isnt. If the soundwave isnt real, then there cannot be proof that it is real. If there is proof that it is real, it must have been real for there to be such proof. If only things proven are real, then there is nothing real to prove until you have proven it, but since it isnt yet real, you cant prove that it is real.

In fact as we have already discussed, you cant prove anything. So if you are correct, nothing is real. All things that exist are not real! I dont believe that, I believe I have more cause to disbelieve such an assertion, than I have to believe it.
One can demonstrate a soundwave is real by hearing it or measuring its existence with a machine. After that ass-whipping by Alien Born, I am not going anywhere near "proof" until I learn some more logics. ;)

The verification that I claim reality is dependent upon is not necessarily a proof. Existence is absolute; reality is our verification of that which is true. I know that modern English equates them, and perhaps the distinction is not terribly significant (except in some arcane quaters), certainly not for science. With any luck, I can someday demonstrate how the dictionary is wrong.

Ah, but it is hypothetical. So we're on the same track. Its factuality is not in question by me; its reality is. After all, I only have your imaginings to go by. ;)
It's reality isnt in question so far as I can see. It is really a real fact, that I have not been burnt to death at any point in this (my) lifetime, and equally it is not a fact that I have at this time been burnt to death during this (my) lifetime. However if I had been burned to death, then that would really be a real fact, whether or not it was also hypothetical.

Reading quickly through your response, you now appear to be equating factuality, truth, reality and existence, as if the four concepts are all equivalent.
Facts are true, anything that really exists must be real, and anything that is real must exist. Untrue things that exist can also be real, a lie is real and untrue, that's a fact ;)

Right. I too am convinced you are not really dead. It is our consciousnesses that are "convinced," so we can go with the assumption that it's real.
If I were convinced I were dead, that would not make it so. I believe it is a fact that I am not currently dead, however I could be wrong. Whether I am right or wrong about being dead, doesnt alter the fact, whatever that may be.

Thank you for confirming that.

It means that the consciousness that passed away took that piece of information with it.
How did it 'take a fact away'? Facts dont exist in any geographical location. Facts dont exist in our minds or in our conciousness. Facts exist in reality, which isnt a place, but a state of being.

Well, the dictionary says (and the definition I have always understood) a fact is a piece of information that is true.
The dictionary has several definitions for the word 'fact' not all consistent with each other. The definition that I am referring to in this context is 'necessary truth', indeed no other definition makes sense given the context of my comments.

That would make it a piece of knowledge once a consciousness is informed by it;
No it wouldnt. The piece of knowledge derived from the fact would be a piece of knowledge and the fact would still be a fact.

however, it is not the fact that does the informing (but that's a language thing again --it is consciousness that recognizes the fact through awareness,
Aha, the fact proceeds any awareness of it that may occur, and exists even if such awareness never occurs.

that is consequently informed ("formed from within")). Consciousness is the source of the piece of information through recognition of it; the fact is not an objectively real thing.
The fact is objectively real, it cannot be a fact unless it is objectively real. If it is not objectively real then it isnt a fact, even if people think that it is.

It does matter ("mattering" being the concern that a consciousness has for the object; concern being a human feeling; being concerned whether or not it is real). If we don't know for sure that it is real, it is hypothetical (only a possibility). That is one other thing that differentiates reality from cold, hard existence: being human-centric, reality matters.
Hypothetical doesnt mean only a possibility. Hypothetical means that it is either true or not true. It is one or the other but not both. If it is true, then it is, and if it is not, then it isnt. But this is true even if we dont hypothosise about it. Reality isnt human centered. I believe that reality existed before human being existed and if we cease to exist, I believe reality will not cease to exist.

It is the point that I am making, and made in my first post. ;) Your giving of facts some objective reality is a fallacy.
No it is a necessary truth. A fact is a necessary truth. Anything that isnt a necessary truth isnt a fact, and anything that is a fact is a necessary truth.

A fact, as a piece of information, is not a fact until it informs.
This is backwards, if a fact doesnt exist what is there to be informed of? To be informed of a fact, the fact necessarily must first exist.

Countering this would involve a very long paragraph (half-written, and then deleted) about objective reality, but I think I'll save for another thread. (I know the dictionary defines objective reality as the reality; I am working towards viewing reality from a more archaic angle.)
The reality is objective reality and objective reality is objective reality. Reality has a meaning. If you wish to talk about something different to that meaning, then you are talking about something different to reality.

One can demonstrate a soundwave is real by hearing it or measuring its existence with a machine.
Not if it isnt real.

After that ass-whipping by Alien Born, I am not going anywhere near "proof" until I learn some more logics. ;)
What do you want to know, I doubt I'm as erudite on issue as Alien Born, but I might be able to assist. Was there something specific you wanted clarified?

The verification that I claim reality is dependent upon is not necessarily a proof.
Apparently nothing can be a proof. It may well be that proof is not a real thing even though the concept proof is a real thing.

Existence is absolute; reality is our verification of that which is true.
Reality is all things real, all things real are so because they exist, and all things that exist cannot exist unless they are real. Reality doesnt conform to our verification. We attempt to verify in order to establish an accurate perception of reality, but that perception is a part of reality.

I know that modern English equates them, and perhaps the distinction is not terribly significant (except in some arcane quaters), certainly not for science. With any luck, I can someday demonstrate how the dictionary is wrong.
I dont think you are going to get there like this because the dictionary isnt wrong. If the dictionary doesnt describe the thing you are intending when you say 'reality' then the thing you are referring to is something else. Can you describe the thing you refer to? I suspect this is a semantic argument. I cant help but wonder if you dont mean reality at all, but rather something else. Can you 'break down' and 'unpack' exactly what this thing is that you are calling reality.

It's reality isnt in question so far as I can see. It is really a real fact, that I have not been burnt to death at any point in this (my) lifetime, and equally it is not a fact that I have at this time been burnt to death during this (my) lifetime. However if I had been burned to death, then that would really be a real fact, whether or not it was also hypothetical.

Facts are true, anything that really exists must be real, and anything that is real must exist. Untrue things that exist can also be real, a lie is real and untrue, that's a fact ;)

If I were convinced I were dead, that would not make it so. I believe it is a fact that I am not currently dead, however I could be wrong. Whether I am right or wrong about being dead, doesnt alter the fact, whatever that may be.
Nothing said here contradicts anything I said. We are, though, convoluting the original idea. :-/

Facts exist, whether or not they are hypothetical. Agreed.
That the fact you assert (that you are not dead) is a fact, and so true: agreed.
That it's really a real fact: I have no problem with that, also, as it is confirmed by both of us.
Facts are true, and anything that exists must be real. Also agreed. However, its reality requires us to know it as a fact. You yourself demonstrate this well with your prior example. Perhaps you could better support your assertation that a consciousness is not necessary for something to be real by presenting a fact of something in existence that is not yet known? by anyone? (Yes, being sarcastic; sorry. :( But it is the point I am making.)
Yes, consciousness does not create existence, and nor does belief. My assertation was that reality is a consciousness verifing existence. I haven't seen anything yet in what you've said that demonstrates otherwise.

How did it 'take a fact away'? Facts dont exist in any geographical location. Facts dont exist in our minds or in our conciousness. Facts exist in reality, which isnt a place, but a state of being.
Because information is stored in the brain, and a fact is a piece of information.

Facts do not have an objective existence, agreed, and existence isn't a place but a state of being.

The dictionary has several definitions for the word 'fact' not all consistent with each other. The definition that I am referring to in this context is 'necessary truth', indeed no other definition makes sense given the context of my comments.
The definition of reality I am looking at is 'verifiable existence.' This requires a consciousness to have something to verify to.

No it wouldnt. The piece of knowledge derived from the fact would be a piece of knowledge and the fact would still be a fact.

Aha, the fact proceeds any awareness of it that may occur, and exists even if such awareness never occurs.
Yes, the fact's existence precedes any awareness of it. This is what I've been saying.

The fact is objectively real, it cannot be a fact unless it is objectively real. If it is not objectively real then it isnt a fact, even if people think that it is.
You are right. I meant to say facts do not have an objective existence, as stated above (a geographical location). My bad. They are certainly objectively real, as they are verified by many consciousnesses.

Hypothetical doesnt mean only a possibility. Hypothetical means that it is either true or not true. It is one or the other but not both. If it is true, then it is, and if it is not, then it isnt. But this is true even if we dont hypothosise about it. Reality isnt human centered. I believe that reality existed before human being existed and if we cease to exist, I believe reality will not cease to exist.
Now you seem to be equating hypothetical with existence. Existence is true or it is not existence, regardless of whether someone hypothesises about it. Agreed. Hypothetical, "either true or not true" means a possibility of either. It will be demonstrated to be one or the other, but not both. When it is demonstrated true, then it is no longer hypothetical.

Existence existed before human consciousness and will continue after we cease to be. Reality, chronologically, is limited to mankind's small period of interaction with existence. It's all in how you look at it. You could think of reality as another label for existence, and that is no doubt what has led to equating them, but it is a different concept when the human consciousness is restored to the equation.

Reality being human centric and not equivalent to existence is the idea I presented in this thread. You do a fine job of presenting the modern, commonly accepted idea of reality equating to existence because of Science's tendency to remove consciousness (and hence any hint of subjectivity) from reality. Jolly good! I'm trying to stretch the rigid boundaries, though, that have been built up around that idea (no doubt to protect it from such heathen as I) and restore mankind to his rightful place. Dramatic, I know; but I will persevere. ;)

*snip the head-banging*

I dont think you are going to get there like this because the dictionary isnt wrong. If the dictionary doesnt describe the thing you are intending when you say 'reality' then the thing you are referring to is something else. Can you describe the thing you refer to? I suspect this is a semantic argument. I cant help but wonder if you dont mean reality at all, but rather something else. Can you 'break down' and 'unpack' exactly what this thing is that you are calling reality.
The dictionary is a reflection of modern English and current cultural ideas of what words mean; the American Heritage Dictionary at dictionary.com the worst of the lot (as it openly professes to be subservient to one culture's common useages).

I think I have adequately described the thing I am referring to. Thanks for the discussion; you've given me some ideas that I find useful.

Nothing said here contradicts anything I said. We are, though, convoluting the original idea. :-/

Facts exist, whether or not they are hypothetical. Agreed.
That the fact you assert (that you are not dead) is a fact, and so true: agreed.
That it's really a real fact: I have no problem with that, also, as it is confirmed by both of us.
Facts are true, and anything that exists must be real. Also agreed. However, its reality requires us to know it as a fact. You yourself demonstrate this well with your prior example. Perhaps you could better support your assertation that a consciousness is not necessary for something to be real by presenting a fact of something in existence that is not yet known? by anyone? (Yes, being sarcastic; sorry. :( But it is the point I am making.)

You can take any validated hypothetical scientific object that you care to name, from a black hole through to an electron. These are things that exist, but in the sense that you want, of being phenomenally present to the awareness, are not known.

Yes, consciousness does not create existence, and nor does belief. My assertation was that reality is a consciousness verifing existence. I haven't seen anything yet in what you've said that demonstrates otherwise.

This assertion would have been fine before quantum mechanics raised its ugly head. It does appear that consciousness may well be responsible for the existance of non superposed matter.



Facts do have an objective existence, agreed, which isn't a place but a state of being.

The definition of reality I am looking at is 'verifiable existence.' This requires a consciousness to have something to verify to.

Yes, the fact's existence precedes any awareness of it. This is what I've been saying.

I am confused as to how a fact can be objective and be at the same time a state of being. If they are objective then this objective reality, that underlies the fact, has to be located in space. Facts such as "my car is grey" are located at the locus of "my car". Facts such as the sum of 2 and 2 is four, are not real in any sense of the word. They are abstract, and as such not describable as being objective. There is no object involved. They may be absolute, but that is another matter.
The fact's existence precedes the awareness of it, is indeed what you have been saying, but it's reality does not. Now here is where it gets confusing. A fact exists, on your system but is not real.


You are right. I meant to say facts do not have an objective existence, as stated above (a geographical location). My bad. They are certainly objectively real, as they are verified by many consciousnesses.

They only become so after they are verified (a still undefined idea) by consciousnesses. Until that point they exist in an unreal state?



Existence existed before human consciousness and will continue after we cease to be. Reality, chronologically, is limited to mankind's small period of interaction with existence. It's all in how you look at it. You could think of reality as another label for existence, and that is no doubt what has led to equating them, but it is a different concept when the human consciousness is restored to the equation.

Reality then, is defined as being that that we humans are aware off. Everything in the entire universe exists, but only the portion we perceive is real.

Reality being human centric and not equivalent to existence is the idea I presented in this thread. You do a fine job of presenting the modern, commonly accepted idea of reality equating to existence because of Science's tendency to remove consciousness (and hence any hint of subjectivity) from reality. Jolly good! I'm trying to stretch the rigid boundaries, though, that have been built up around that idea (no doubt to protect it from such heathen as I) and restore mankind to his rightful place. Dramatic, I know; but I will persevere.

So a snake that no one has ever seen, exists, and bites a dog. The snake bite, however only becomes real, when some human perceives it. It is not enough for the dog or the snake to perceive it. It will however have very real effects on the dog, regardless.


The dictionary is a reflection of modern English and current cultural ideas of what words mean; the American Heritage Dictionary at dictionary.com the worst of the lot (as it openly professes to be subservient to one culture's common useages).

I agree that dictionary definitions are strongly culturally biased, and would further add that they are not rigid over time. The meanings of words change. The basic concept of reality, as being that which is external to our mind and can affect us, is not cultural. Or if it is it is pan-cultural to all human societies. It is this concept that you are fighting against, not just the current definition.

You can take any validated hypothetical scientific object that you care to name, from a black hole through to an electron. These are things that exist, but in the sense that you want, of being phenomenally present to the awareness, are not known.
Right. And the existence of any one particular black hole, unless observed by a consciousness, is not real.

This assertion would have been fine before quantum mechanics raised its ugly head. It does appear that consciousness may well be responsible for the existance of non superposed matter.
Cool beans.

I am confused as to how a fact can be objective and be at the same time a state of being. If they are objective then this objective reality, that underlies the fact, has to be located in space. Facts such as "my car is grey" are located at the locus of "my car". Facts such as the sum of 2 and 2 is four, are not real in any sense of the word. They are abstract, and as such not describable as being objective. There is no object involved. They may be absolute, but that is another matter.
The fact's existence precedes the awareness of it, is indeed what you have been saying, but it's reality does not. Now here is where it gets confusing. A fact exists, on your system but is not real.
Sorry, I missed a word in there. Facts do not have objective existence. I'll edit it to amend that.

They only become so after they are verified (a still undefined idea) by consciousnesses. Until that point they exist in an unreal state?
A fact is a piece of information: it is only a useful fact when it is known to be a fact. It "became"* a real fact when its existence was learned to be true. Before that, it may have existed only hypothetically or not at all, depending on if its existence was hypothesised. I'd call that an unreal state - the information may or may not be true; therefore, its factuality may or may not be.
*figure o' speech

Reality then, is defined as being that that we humans are aware off. Everything in the entire universe exists, but only the portion we perceive is real.
Reality is that part of existence that we, as a whole, are aware of through our perception, our society, our historical and current records, our sciences and our rational speculations. (This would include input from other eqivocally sentient beings, should we ever encounter such.)

So a snake that no one has ever seen, exists, and bites a dog. The snake bite, however only becomes real, when some human perceives it. It is not enough for the dog or the snake to perceive it. It will however have very real effects on the dog, regardless.
What, you mean that imaginary snake, and the imaginary dog, the one sitting right over there? It does not "become real" because of consciousness; it is labelled "real" as an act of a consciousness, as an acknowledgement of its (true) existence.

I agree that dictionary definitions are strongly culturally biased, and would further add that they are not rigid over time. The meanings of words change. The basic concept of reality, as being that which is external to our mind and can affect us, is not cultural. Or if it is it is pan-cultural to all human societies. It is this concept that you are fighting against, not just the current definition.
Science requires objectivity. Cultures with science programmes would necessarily share in this objectivity mentality.

And yes, I'm quite aware of the battle ahead. :)

Science requires objectivity. Cultures with science programmes would necessarily share in this objectivity mentality.

And yes, I'm quite aware of the battle ahead. :)

Just a quick reply. If science requires objectivity, then science is doomed. The one thing that no human can ever be, is objective. We are, by our very nature, subjective beings.

Mentality, in itself can not be objective, unless that is you can find an object, not a system of objects, that has awareness. As soon as you systematize, the system affects the perception, all objectivity goes.

Just a quick reply. If science requires objectivity, then science is doomed. The one thing that no human can ever be, is objective. We are, by our very nature, subjective beings.

Mentality, in itself can not be objective, unless that is you can find an object, not a system of objects, that has awareness. As soon as you systematize, the system affects the perception, all objectivity goes.
Haha. :) Objectivity is abstracted, right.

Hardly doomed, though; they've been doing it for at least 2 millennia. I'm no scientist, but I'm sure it's understood that a "best effort" is sufficient when being objective. At least they accomplish it better than journalists do.

Hardly doomed, though; they've been doing it for at least 2 millennia. I'm no scientist, but I'm sure it's understood that a "best effort" is sufficient when being objective. At least they accomplish it better than journalists do.

No they don't. Scientists, in general are no better than the most biased of jouranlists. That is the problem. A particularly interesting study of this problem was made by a scientist, turned philosopher of science, by the name of Paul Feyerabend (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend)
Read about his work with this.

No they don't. Scientists, in general are no better than the most biased of jouranlists. That is the problem. A particularly interesting study of this problem was made by a scientist, turned philosopher of science, by the name of Paul Feyerabend (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend)
Read about his work with this.
Oh dear.

Oh dear.

Life has its little disapointments.
However science has at least been practically useful, even if it does not meet its own ideals. Don't write it off as a loss.
When I discovered all this, I became sevewrely disenchanted with science. Then, a few years later, I really realised what it meant to say that science can only be as perfect as the beings that do it. It means that it has to be good enough for us.

Life has its little disapointments.
However science has at least been practically useful, even if it does not meet its own ideals. Don't write it off as a loss.
When I discovered all this, I became sevewrely disenchanted with science. Then, a few years later, I really realised what it meant to say that science can only be as perfect as the beings that do it. It means that it has to be good enough for us.
Rest assured, I do not write science off as any kind of a loss.

Nothing said here contradicts anything I said. We are, though, convoluting the original idea. :-/

Facts exist, whether or not they are hypothetical. Agreed.
That the fact you assert (that you are not dead) is a fact, and so true: agreed.
That it's really a real fact: I have no problem with that, also, as it is confirmed by both of us.
Facts are true, and anything that exists must be real. Also agreed. However, its reality requires us to know it as a fact.
No it doesnt. Facts are all real. Any fact if it really if a fact, is a real fact, this is true whether or not anyone knows it is a fact.

You yourself demonstrate this well with your prior example. Perhaps you could better support your assertation that a consciousness is not necessary for something to be real by presenting a fact of something in existence that is not yet known? by anyone? (Yes, being sarcastic; sorry. :( But it is the point I am making.)
I dont need to. The fact human beings become aware of facts previously unknown, combined with the fact that a fact cannot be know unless it already exists, and the fact that all facts are real, is proof enough.
All facts are real
Facts must exist before conciousness can be aware of the facts
Human beings become aware of facts
Human beings become aware of things (facts) that were real before they were aware of them.
If you cannot prove the above is does not have a valid argument form, or that any of the premises are incorrect, then the conclusion is guarenteed to be logically true.

Yes, consciousness does not create existence, and nor does belief.
Consiousness does create some parts of existence, and belief is one of those parts.
My assertation was that reality is a consciousness verifing existence.
Yes but your assertion is simply false. That is not what is meant by the term reality. If we falsely verified that someone was true when it was not, in reality it would not be true, regardless of our beliefs.

I haven't seen anything yet in what you've said that demonstrates otherwise.
I have not seen anything yet in which you have demonstrated as you assert. As it happens the onus of proof is with the positive assertion.

Because information is stored in the brain, and a fact is a piece of information.
Only information known to a particular individual is stored in that individuals brain. Information simply means things that can be known. Information must exist in order for us to put it in our brains. Information can also be stored in books, on computers, on cave art drawings, in a fossil, everywhere there is information.

Facts do not have an objective existence, agreed, and existence isn't a place but a state of being.
No facts do have an objective existence. That is why if something is not true, it is not a fact regardless whether or not we may believe it is a fact.

The definition of reality I am looking at is 'verifiable existence.'
That is not the definitition of reality.

This requires a consciousness to have something to verify to.
Reality consists of far more things than ever have been verified. If you can provide some reason why the definition you are positing is actually the only true definition, then you need to do so. Otherwise you are not discussing reality, but some other thing that you are labelling reality.

Yes, the fact's existence precedes any awareness of it. This is what I've been saying.
Then why do you say facts are not objective? Lack of objectivity stems from conciousness'es, but facts exist independently of counciousness, therefore facts must be objective.

You are right. I meant to say facts do not have an objective existence, as stated above (a geographical location). My bad. They are certainly objectively real, as they are verified by many consciousnesses.
But facts do have an objective existence. They must have since you concede that they exist before we are aware of them. Subjectivity (non-objectivity) requires conciousness, so anything that can exist independently of concious awareness (such as facts - things that do exist before we are aware of them) must be objective, they have no means of being otherwise. Our understanding of facts is subjective, but the facts themselves are objective.

Now you seem to be equating hypothetical with existence.
Every hypothesis exists, although not every hypothesis is true.

Existence is true or it is not existence, regardless of whether someone hypothesises about it. Agreed. Hypothetical, "either true or not true" means a possibility of either. It will be demonstrated to be one or the other, but not both. When it is demonstrated true, then it is no longer hypothetical.
Er actually nothing can be demonstrated to be true due to what I term infinite devolution, to demonstrate things there must already be things assumed to be true, and to demonstrate the truth of those things, there must already be assumed truths, and so on.

Existence existed before human consciousness and will continue after we cease to be. Reality, chronologically, is limited to mankind's small period of interaction with existence.
Chronology is simply a human means of understanding an utilising a fact of reality. The fact that we describe and attempt to understand, and which is commonly referred to as 'time' and/or 'the passage of time'.

It's all in how you look at it. You could think of reality as another label for existence, and that is no doubt what has led to equating them, but it is a different concept when the human consciousness is restored to the equation.
No it's not in how you look at it, it is in how you symbolise it. And the symbol reality is already a symbol for something other than what you appear to be describing. Thus you will run into problems when you try to convince us that the thing which reality is a symbol for, has the traits of this other thing which you refer to using the symbol 'reality'. The concept that 'reality' describes doesnt conform to the traits you are giving to it. Therefore whatever you are describing is not the thing meant by the symbol 'reality'.

Reality being human centric and not equivalent to existence is the idea I presented in this thread.
But it's not true, because the concept symbolised by reality is such that isnt humancentric.

You do a fine job of presenting the modern, commonly accepted idea of reality equating to existence because of Science's tendency to remove consciousness (and hence any hint of subjectivity) from reality.
Nothing to do with science. I'm way out of my league in the science arena, and admittedly so. Reality is what is real, real things are things that really are, whether or not we know them to be. I honestly think that what you are describing is simply 'perception of reality', which is not the same thing as reality, (although it is a part of reality).

Jolly good! I'm trying to stretch the rigid boundaries, though, that have been built up around that idea (no doubt to protect it from such heathen as I) and restore mankind to his rightful place. Dramatic, I know; but I will persevere. ;)
The boundaries are far from ridgid (although in reality they may as a matter of facts, be ridgid), our understanding is somewhat fuzzy and not as matters currently stand absolutely verifiable.

The dictionary is a reflection of modern English and current cultural ideas of what words mean; the American Heritage Dictionary at dictionary.com the worst of the lot (as it openly professes to be subservient to one culture's common useages).
Hang on are you suggesting that words can have a meaning in a particular time other than any current cultural meanings attached to them? Where do these meanings come from? The only meanings that words have are those that are attached to them by us. Language functions simply by certain sounds being symbols for certain things. No other meaning that those currently attached, is a current meaning of a word, because words only have meaning as a result of us using them to mean the things that they mean. Whatever a word currently means is exactly what the word currently means.

I think I have adequately described the thing I am referring to. Thanks for the discussion; you've given me some ideas that I find useful.
I think that the thing you are describing is perception of reality, more specifically human perception of reality.
It's been one of the best discussions I have had on the boards. Great topic!

Facts are all real. Any fact if it really if a fact, is a real fact, this is true whether or not anyone knows it is a fact.

I dont need to. The fact human beings become aware of facts previously unknown, combined with the fact that a fact cannot be know unless it already exists, and the fact that all facts are real, is proof enough.
All facts are real
Facts must exist before conciousness can be aware of the facts
Human beings become aware of facts
Human beings become aware of things (facts) that were real before they were aware of them.
If you cannot prove the above is does not have a valid argument form, or that any of the premises are incorrect, then the conclusion is guarenteed to be logically true.
Right. All the above is correct: it is what I have said, and would say. Existence precedes consciousness. "Becoming aware" applies to becoming aware of existence; so it applies as well to becoming aware of the existence of facts (more on this later).

Existence is itself true: things exist. An imagining exists, as we have the capability to imagine. However, the content of an imagining is not itself automatically real. Imaginary is in opposition to real.

Example: If I imagine that I am William Shakespear, it is automatically a fact that I am imagining that I am William Shakespear, but it is not a fact that I am William Shakespear. So while facts are all true, not everything that exists is a fact. Things that are fact (exist as fact) are real.

This is where your consciousness seems to pull back, and say that the content of the imagining does not exist, thereby equating existence back to reality. Well, then, nothing that goes on in the mind exists: memories, feelings, thoughts, concepts, logic, wisdom, mathematics ...the entire body of knowledge. If these things do not exist, then they are nothing. Nothingness is the opposite of existence. But they do exist, they have characteristics and properties that are recognizable and particular, such that a consciousness can label them "something." All some-things exist. Memories exist. Feelings and intuitions exist. Ideas and signs exist. Concepts exist. In metaphysics, they are referred to as "immaterial entities."

I've been pondering on Alien Born's example: "a circle square nothing" as the content of a thought makes no sense, but its existence, being "of the mind", is not dependent upon sense. My mind can also recognize the existence of "nonsense". The mistake is in thinking that we must impose reality on its existence, that because it exists it must be validated: but we don't *have to* think of it as a circle, a square and nothing at the same time. Our minds, being flexible, tend to sort sense out of nonsense if we can. The contradiction Alien Born's example creates is that the idea of the circle, the square and nothing, which already exist separately in the mind, cannot be combined into nonsense, but they don't have to be because the mind can recognize nonsense for what it is. In other words, while the content of imaginings exist as recognizable things, the ability to spout nonsense does not force anyone to conjure it as "real" in the imagination. Existence must make sense in the physical world, but in the imagination we can recognize nonsense and dismiss it.

Consiousness does create some parts of existence, and belief is one of those parts.

Yes but your assertion is simply false. That is not what is meant by the term reality. If we falsely verified that someone was true when it was not, in reality it would not be true, regardless of our beliefs.
Well, if it is "falsely verified" by taking someone's word for it, there are other ways to verify that don't involve other consciousnesses. This is why we made measuing machines. If you mean a mistake of our own senses, then you necessarily involve perception: when the mistake is realised, we can backtrack and find out why what we thought was real is not. Then we realise that the understanding we had was a belief and not reality. Realty, in this context, is our understanding of existence, as in, "You live in your own little reality."

I have not seen anything yet in which you have demonstrated as you assert. As it happens the onus of proof is with the positive assertion.
Well, I'm doing my best. :)

Only information known to a particular individual is stored in that individuals brain. Information simply means things that can be known. Information must exist in order for us to put it in our brains. Information can also be stored in books, on computers, on cave art drawings, in a fossil, everywhere there is information.
You are not distinguishing between "inform-ation" (an act of knowing or being informed) and the content of that information (what it is informing you about). You are using the idea (fact) then as a symbol of the thing it represents (the content).
Information, such as being informed that you have been fired from your job, comes down to you after the fact, when you become aware of it. What goes "into your brain" is the content of information. That content already exists, indeed.

Things exist, and information about the existence of those things may be uncovered (recognized) by a consciousness. When it is, we know that those things exist. We have been informed.

Yes, knowledge can be written down and stored in books --and substituting the idea for the content of the idea is a common linguistic practice. But it is the content of knowledge that goes into books, and into the mind of readers. Knowledge is what they gain in knowing after they have read it.

No facts do have an objective existence. That is why if something is not true, it is not a fact regardless whether or not we may believe it is a fact.
We certainly have different ways of looking at things, no? :)

Can you pick up a fact and put it in your pocket? No... you can only pick up things that exist in the physical world.

That is not the definitition of reality.
Can we agree at least that reality is what is real?

Reality consists of far more things than ever have been verified. If you can provide some reason why the definition you are positing is actually the only true definition, then you need to do so. Otherwise you are not discussing reality, but some other thing that you are labelling reality.
Existence is all things that exist, all things whose existence is true. A false existence is a "no" thing, nothing. Let me ask you this: is there anything in reality that does not exist? Are there things that are unreal? If existence is reality, then unreal things do not exist. Yet... they are things. Things exist, otherwise they would be "no" things. How can a thing exist that is unreal? How can a thing exist that has no existence?

If things that are unreal do not exist, they must be nothing. How can we imagine them, then, with distinct characteristics and a distinguishing nature?

Yes, the fact's existence precedes any awareness of it. This is what I've been saying.
Then why do you say facts are not objective? Lack of objectivity stems from conciousness'es, but facts exist independently of counciousness, therefore facts must be objective.
Because facts do exist, as knowledge in the mind. They are concepts, "immaterial entities", symbols not to be confused with the content of the idea (the thing it is a fact about in the real world).

But facts do have an objective existence. They must have since you concede that they exist before we are aware of them. Subjectivity (non-objectivity) requires conciousness, so anything that can exist independently of concious awareness (such as facts - things that do exist before we are aware of them) must be objective, they have no means of being otherwise. Our understanding of facts is subjective, but the facts themselves are objective.
The content of the fact, of the information, has objective existence; that is the bit of information about something that exists passed to the consciousness. The fact itself, as a thought, also exists, objectively as well as subjectively; however, its objective existence is only as a chemical action in the brain. It's subjective existence is what you're talking about: the bit that we subjectively call a fact, the knowledge of a thing being true.

Subjective is the experience we have of the content of thoughts, memories, feelings...

Every hypothesis exists, although not every hypothesis is true.
Right, but let's clarify again.

Existence is true. "False" existence is a contradiction. Things either are, or they are not. They either exist or they do not. If they do not, they are "no" things, not things, nothing.

Therefore, the "falsehood" of your statement is not really tied to its existence. To what, then?

Er actually nothing can be demonstrated to be true due to what I term infinite devolution, to demonstrate things there must already be things assumed to be true, and to demonstrate the truth of those things, there must already be assumed truths, and so on.

Chronology is simply a human means of understanding an utilising a fact of reality. The fact that we describe and attempt to understand, and which is commonly referred to as 'time' and/or 'the passage of time'.
okay

No it's not in how you look at it, it is in how you symbolise it. And the symbol reality is already a symbol for something other than what you appear to be describing. Thus you will run into problems when you try to convince us that the thing which reality is a symbol for, has the traits of this other thing which you refer to using the symbol 'reality'. The concept that 'reality' describes doesnt conform to the traits you are giving to it. Therefore whatever you are describing is not the thing meant by the symbol 'reality'.
Yes, it is all in how we symbolize it, with words and concepts, a lovely talent we conciousnesses have. Most people don't bother to take the time to dispute the difference between reality and existence. It's not really that important in everyday life, or everyday conversation, as when you say, "It is a thing that doesn't exist" the rational mind would automatically make sense of it, whatever their concept of it is. But it makes for interesting forum discussion. :)

I have confirmed my ideas a number of times in the past two days by asking people, out of the blue, "What's the difference between reality and existence?" The answer was invariably along the lines of, "reality is our perception of existence." I personally wouldn't go that far (perception is only of things external to the consciousness, not subjective) but it works for me as a confirmation that they are not the same thing, which is all I really needed.

But it's not true, because the concept symbolised by reality is such that isnt humancentric.

Nothing to do with science. I'm way out of my league in the science arena, and admittedly so. Reality is what is real, real things are things that really are, whether or not we know them to be. I honestly think that what you are describing is simply 'perception of reality', which is not the same thing as reality, (although it is a part of reality).

The boundaries are far from ridgid (although in reality they may as a matter of facts, be ridgid), our understanding is somewhat fuzzy and not as matters currently stand absolutely verifiable.

Hang on are you suggesting that words can have a meaning in a particular time other than any current cultural meanings attached to them? Where do these meanings come from? The only meanings that words have are those that are attached to them by us. Language functions simply by certain sounds being symbols for certain things. No other meaning that those currently attached, is a current meaning of a word, because words only have meaning as a result of us using them to mean the things that they mean. Whatever a word currently means is exactly what the word currently means.
I just meant current as in now. :)

I think that the thing you are describing is perception of reality, more specifically human perception of reality.
It's been one of the best discussions I have had on the boards. Great topic!
Perception of reality is something a little different than what I was talking about. If, as I said, reality is acknowledgement by consciousness of existence, verifying it, and consciousnesses are individual and particular, then perception of reality is the scope of reality that has been verified by any one consciousness, a constantly expanding scope.

Right. All the above is correct: it is what I have said, and would say. Existence precedes consciousness. "Becoming aware" applies to becoming aware of existence; so it applies as well to becoming aware of the existence of facts (more on this later).

Existence is itself true: things exist. An imagining exists, as we have the capability to imagine. However, the content of an imagining is not itself automatically real. Imaginary is in opposition to real.
The content of an imagining is as real as it is existing.

Example: If I imagine that I am William Shakespear, it is automatically a fact that I am imagining that I am William Shakespear, but it is not a fact that I am William Shakespear. So while facts are all true, not everything that exists is a fact. Things that are fact (exist as fact) are real.

This is where your consciousness seems to pull back, and say that the content of the imagining does not exist,
Whyever would it do that? Contents of an imagining really exist, they are real and existing.
thereby equating existence back to reality.
Existence is reality, and reality is the sum total of all existence both present and previous.
Whatever leads you to this conclusion. Things that go on in the mind if they go on in the mind are things that exist. If they didnt exist, they would not go on.
Well, then, nothing that goes on in the mind exists:
memories, feelings, thoughts, concepts, logic, wisdom, mathematics ...the entire body of knowledge. If these things do not exist, then they are nothing.
But they do exist.
Nothingness is the opposite of existence. But they do exist, they have characteristics and properties that are recognizable and particular, such that a consciousness can label them "something." All some-things exist. Memories exist. Feelings and intuitions exist. Ideas and signs exist. Concepts exist. In metaphysics, they are referred to as "immaterial entities."
The problem is you are assuming things that just are not true. The contents of an imagining are real for instance.

I've been pondering on Alien Born's example: "a circle square nothing" as the content of a thought makes no sense, but its existence, being "of the mind", is not dependent upon sense. My mind can also recognize the existence of "nonsense". The mistake is in thinking that we must impose reality on its existence, that because it exists it must be validated: but we don't *have to* think of it as a circle, a square and nothing at the same time. Our minds, being flexible, tend to sort sense out of nonsense if we can. The contradiction Alien Born's example creates is that the idea of the circle, the square and nothing, which already exist separately in the mind, cannot be combined into nonsense, but they don't have to be because the mind can recognize nonsense for what it is. In other words, while the content of imaginings exist as recognizable things, the ability to spout nonsense does not force anyone to conjure it as "real" in the imagination. Existence must make sense in the physical world, but in the imagination we can recognize nonsense and dismiss it.
To say it is non sense, is to say that the sense in which it exists is 'non', which is to say that it is nothing and doesnt exist.

Well, if it is "falsely verified" by taking someone's word for it, there are other ways to verify that don't involve other consciousnesses.
There is no absolute verification means which we currently are able to verify absolutely.
This is why we made measuing machines.
How can we verify if the machines made to measure, measure is such a way as to verify other things, and how can we verify that the methods of verifying the verification ability of the machines are verified.....?

If you mean a mistake of our own senses, then you necessarily involve perception: when the mistake is realised, we can backtrack and find out why what we thought was real is not.
If we ever realise at all.

Then we realise that the understanding we had was a belief and not reality.
That's right, that it was a belief and was not reality even if we believed it was reality. The whole time something other than what we believed was reality, even though we were not aware of it, so that being the case reality did exist without a conciousness being aware of it. Reality doesnt need conciousness.

Realty, in this context, is our understanding of existence, as in, "You live in your own little reality."
That isnt reality, it is only part of reality. Reality is something that we perceive (to whatever extent and to whatever level of accuracy), not the perception itself.
Well, I'm doing my best. :)
You are not distinguishing between "inform-ation" (an act of knowing or being informed) and the content of that information (what it is informing you about).
Information is not an act, it's a noun so and not a verb, so necessarily it names a thing and not an act.

You are using the idea (fact) then as a symbol of the thing it represents (the content). Information, such as being informed that you have been fired from your job, comes down to you after the fact, when you become aware of it.
That is distribution of information, the information might be known to many and not to me, or only to me and no other or to no one at all. It's still information.

What goes "into your brain" is the content of information. That content already exists, indeed.

Things exist, and information about the existence of those things may be uncovered (recognized) by a consciousness. When it is, we know that those things exist. We have been informed.
None of this really matters. Before we were informed it was still information. It is information if one, 100, or no people know it.

Yes, knowledge can be written down and stored in books --and substituting the idea for the content of the idea is a common linguistic practice. But it is the content of knowledge that goes into books, and into the mind of readers. Knowledge is what they gain in knowing after they have read it.
Knowledge and information are not the same thing. Knowledge and reality are not the same thing.

We certainly have different ways of looking at things, no? :)

Can you pick up a fact and put it in your pocket? No... you can only pick up things that exist in the physical world.
There are many things that objectively exist which I cannot pick up and put in my pocket. Being able or unable to pick up something and put it in our pocket isnt relevent, since some objectively existing things can be picked up and put in pockets, and others cannot.

Can we agree at least that reality is what is real?
Reality is real, and anything real is part of reality.

Existence is all things that exist, all things whose existence is true. A false existence is a "no" thing, nothing. Let me ask you this: is there anything in reality that does not exist?
Yes, although they have not always not existed.

Are there things that are unreal?
No.
If existence is reality, then unreal things do not exist. Yet... they are things.
What are thing? Unreal things is a linguistic construct, and so is real and exists, but the concept that is being described is a description of non existent things. They are not thing, but rather things that are not which have an existent description. The description is not that which it describes, that there are descriptions of things that are not, doesnt make them any less not.

Things exist, otherwise they would be "no" things. How can a thing exist that is unreal? How can a thing exist that has no existence?
You are confusing the description of a thing for the thing itself. We can describe a thing and the description and concept of the thing exists, but the thing doesnt exist as itself, because it has no self, it isnt existent and has not been.

If things that are unreal do not exist, they must be nothing. How can we imagine them, then, with distinct characteristics and a distinguishing nature?
Because we can imagine much. We can take qualities that do exist and combine them to render desriptions and concepts of things that have no existence other than descriptive or conceptual ones.

Because facts do exist, as knowledge in the mind.
Knowledge of facts, is not the same as facts.

They are concepts, "immaterial entities", symbols not to be confused with the content of the idea (the thing it is a fact about in the real world).
No facts are not concepts. We can have concepts that are factual, and a fact can be percieved and cognisised in such a way as to be held as a concept by us. However if there were no creatures capable of conceptualising a particular fact, that fact would still be a fact. Our conceptualisation of facts, occurs after the fact. The fact exists to be conceptualised and exists even if it is not conceptualised.

The content of the fact, of the information, has objective existence; that is the bit of information about something that exists passed to the consciousness. The fact itself, as a thought, also exists, objectively as well as subjectively; however, its objective existence is only as a chemical action in the brain. It's subjective existence is what you're talking about: the bit that we subjectively call a fact, the knowledge of a thing being true.
You are confusing the fact, which what humans do with the fact. The content is the fact. Fact describes truths even that we dont know, even truths contrary to what we know.

Subjective is the experience we have of the content of thoughts, memories, feelings...
Right, but let's clarify again.

Existence is true. "False" existence is a contradiction. Things either are, or they are not. They either exist or they do not. If they do not, they are "no" things, not things, nothing.

Therefore, the "falsehood" of your statement is not really tied to its existence. To what, then?
What? This doesnt make any sense. What falsehood of what statement?

okay
Yes, it is all in how we symbolize it, with words and concepts, a lovely talent we conciousnesses have.
The point of communication is to communicate ideas from one mind to another. Reality has a particular meaning, and the meaning is such that it is contrary to the properties and traits you are attempting to give it, in such a way that although both what reality describes and what you describe could both be, they cannot both be described by one word and that word still remain functional.

Most people don't bother to take the time to dispute the difference between reality and existence. It's not really that important in everyday life, or everyday conversation, as when you say, "It is a thing that doesn't exist" the rational mind would automatically make sense of it, whatever their concept of it is. But it makes for interesting forum discussion. :)

I have confirmed my ideas a number of times in the past two days by asking people, out of the blue, "What's the difference between reality and existence?" The answer was invariably along the lines of, "reality is our perception of existence."
That doesnt prove or confirm your idea. Reality isnt the perception of existence, that's not what it means. Perception of reality is a perception, reality is something to be perceived. It makes no sense to say perception of reality is perception of perception of existence. Especially since perception of reality often includes perception of things that no longer exist. For instance I perceive that reality includes the former existence of Queen Elizabeth the I of England. Such a person doesnt exist in existence now, yet I still percieve her as part of reality.

I personally wouldn't go that far (perception is only of things external to the consciousness, not subjective)
Untrue, I can percieve my own happiness, my own doubt, my own hunger, my own thoughts and feelings.

but it works for me as a confirmation that they are not the same thing, which is all I really needed.
No it doesnt. If I found an equal number who gave a contrary answer would that work as counter confirmation? No, because confirmation is not so easy as a few people saying so.
I just meant current as in now. :)
Perception of reality is something a little different than what I was talking about. If, as I said, reality is acknowledgement by consciousness of existence, verifying it, and consciousnesses are individual and particular, then perception of reality is the scope of reality that has been verified by any one consciousness, a constantly expanding scope.
There is no collectivity of all human conciousnesses, so how does the acknowledgements of individuals, combine to make a 'reality' or 'the reality'? Such acknowledgements are discrete (even if in cases they reconcile with others) so there is no actual thing that is the sum of such acknowledgements. So either reality is not the sum of acknowledgements of exsitence, or it is nothing. Reality isnt nothing, so reality isnt the sum of acknowledgements by consciousnesses. I

Existence is reality, and reality is the sum total of all existence both present and previous.
Whatever leads you to this conclusion. Things that go on in the mind if they go on in the mind are things that exist. If they didnt exist, they would not go on.
An image, that I consciously create, in my mind, is only an image, a perception if you will, but not a perception of anything. It does not exist in any real sense. I can clearly imagine that there is someone standing behind me, watching as i type this. In reality there is not. The imagination went on in my mind, but it did not correspond to reality in any way.

Now, we have two options. You can say that the imagined individual did not exist, and existence is a one to one mapping of reality, or you can say that the imagined watcher "existed only in my imagination", in which case reality is a subset of existence. As you yourself have argued for determination by the normal use of language. The second option should be the one you accept by this argument. We use existence to refer to imaginary constructs.






Knowledge and information are not the same thing. Knowledge and reality are not the same thing.
Knowledge is surely simply a colection of information. (not data, but information) If I know something, a fact (to be discussed later), then I have information about a perceived state of affairs. If i know how to do something, then I have information of what actions will result in the end that I desire.
Knowledge and information are the same thing, one being perhaps the collective noun for the other.
Knowledge and reality are connected but not identified with each other. Knowledge is traditionally defined as a justified true belief. Now truth, depends upon the statement matching the reality.


What are thing? Unreal things is a linguistic construct, and so is real and exists, but the concept that is being described is a description of non existent things. They are not thing, but rather things that are not which have an existent description. The description is not that which it describes, that there are descriptions of things that are not, doesnt make them any less not.

A fine mixture of negatives. Difficult to put clearly though. Something that is describable does not have to exist. The description and the reality are separated. I think this is what you are saying. This goes back to the watcher behind me. This individual is not real, but he exists in my imagination. The same can be true of any thing that can be described. Existence is not tied to reality in the hard sense that you are demanding. In this aspect, Willamena is correct.


You are confusing the description of a thing for the thing itself. We can describe a thing and the description and concept of the thing exists, but the thing doesnt exist as itself, because it has no self, it isnt existent and has not been.
Because we can imagine much. We can take qualities that do exist and combine them to render desriptions and concepts of things that have no existence other than descriptive or conceptual ones.

But they do have this much existence. A description exists as you say. It does not make the object described real, but it does confer existence on the object.


No facts are not concepts. We can have concepts that are factual, and a fact can be percieved and cognisised in such a way as to be held as a concept by us. However if there were no creatures capable of conceptualising a particular fact, that fact would still be a fact. Our conceptualisation of facts, occurs after the fact. The fact exists to be conceptualised and exists even if it is not conceptualised.

You are conflating fact with real. Real is as the objective state of affairs is. Fact is how this objective state of affairs is believed to be by humans after passing through our reality filtering perception system. Reality is unreachable for us, but facts are not. However facts are not objective, precisely because of our filters.


Fact describes truths even that we dont know, even truths contrary to what we know.
No, real describes this, fact requires our perception.



That doesnt prove or confirm your idea. Reality isnt the perception of existence, that's not what it means. Perception of reality is a perception, reality is something to be perceived. It makes no sense to say perception of reality is perception of perception of existence. Especially since perception of reality often includes perception of things that no longer exist. For instance I perceive that reality includes the former existence of Queen Elizabeth the I of England. Such a person doesnt exist in existence now, yet I still percieve her as part of reality.

You do not perceive that reality includes the person of Queen Betty. You percieve that there are descriptions of such a person, that these descriptions are from sources that you believe to be reliable, and hence you believe that there was such a person in reality. This belief includes her in your set of facts about the world. It does not include her in your perception of reality. Reality, processed by perception can only give us facts. These facts can be true or false, reality can not be true or false, it simply is. Truth, remember is judged by the standard of reality.
In the 17th century, the facts observed about burning objects gave rise to the fact of the existence of Phlogiston, a substance with negative mass that a burning object emitted. Phlogiston at the time was a fact. It no longer is. Reality does not change with our understanding, but facts do.

There is no collectivity of all human conciousnesses, so how does the acknowledgements of individuals, combine to make a 'reality' or 'the reality'? Such acknowledgements are discrete (even if in cases they reconcile with others) so there is no actual thing that is the sum of such acknowledgements. So either reality is not the sum of acknowledgements of exsitence, or it is nothing. Reality isnt nothing, so reality isnt the sum of acknowledgements by consciousnesses.

The facts of the matter though are the sum of our communal knowledge of an event. Each individual witness to an event, will have their own particular and unique set of facts concerning that event. The only way that we can approach the reality of what happened is to use our ability to communicate to construct a composite fact. One drawing on all the available discrete facts.

This is not constructing reality, it is constructing our knowledge of reality, or at least as close as we can get to doing that.

An image, that I consciously create, in my mind, is only an image, a perception if you will, but not a perception of anything.
A perception is a perception of something, and something is not nothing, so a perception must be a perception of something.

It does not exist in any real sense.
It does exist in a real sense. It might be that it doesnt exist in any real sense other than perception/imagination, but that is not the same as existing in no real sense at all.

I can clearly imagine that there is someone standing behind me, watching as i type this. In reality there is not.
In reality if you imagine someone standing behind you watching you as you typ, then the imagining of someone standing behind you watching you type, is part of reality.
The imagination went on in my mind, but it did not correspond to reality in any way.
Your mind is part of reality, so it cannot be true that anything which occurs in your mind, doesnt correspond to reality. Whatever goes on in your mind is a part of reality, and parts of things correspond to that which they are a part of.

Now, we have two options. You can say that the imagined individual did not exist, and existence is a one to one mapping of reality, or you can say that the imagined watcher "existed only in my imagination", in which case reality is a subset of existence.
That isnt so. The imagined watcher is part of reality. The imagined watcher exists and is part of reality. The imagined watcher existence may be imaginary, but being imaginary is by definition 'being' and if it is 'being' then it exists, furthermore the imagination is a real imagination.

As you yourself have argued for determination by the normal use of language.
No I have not, I have argued that using a word to mean something that is contrary to the conventional meaning, in such a way that were the word to mean both things, it would no longer be functional, is counterproductive to communication, most especially if you are not going to explain the redefinition.

The second option should be the one you accept by this argument. We use existence to refer to imaginary constructs.
But we use real to refer to things that exist. So if things imagined exist because that is how we use the word exist, then things imagined are real, because we use real to refer to things that exist.


Knowledge is surely simply a colection of information. (not data, but information) If I know something, a fact (to be discussed later), then I have information about a perceived state of affairs. If i know how to do something, then I have information of what actions will result in the end that I desire.
Knowledge and information are the same thing, one being perhaps the collective noun for the other.
Knowledge and reality are connected but not identified with each other. Knowledge is traditionally defined as a justified true belief. Now truth, depends upon the statement matching the reality.
And....I'm not sure how this ties in, I dont see that it contradicts any of what I have said for instance.

A fine mixture of negatives. Difficult to put clearly though. Something that is describable does not have to exist. The description and the reality are separated. I think this is what you are saying.
I think so to.

This goes back to the watcher behind me. This individual is not real, but he exists in my imagination.
The watcher is not real in the same sense that a watcher that has an existence independent of imagining is real. But they are both real in the sense of having existence.

The same can be true of any thing that can be described. Existence is not tied to reality in the hard sense that you are demanding. In this aspect, Willamena is correct.
I'm not demanding anything. Nothing you are saying contradicts what I have said. The imagined watcher is real. The imagining is real, and occurs in reality, there for the imagined is real and occurs in reality. The space in which the person doesnt exist is only a part of reality, it is no more real than the space (your brain) in which the imagining is manifest. Both are equally real.

But they do have this much existence. A description exists as you say. It does not make the object described real, but it does confer existence on the object.
No it doesnt. I square circle doesnt exist, even though the concept and description do. The concept square circle is real, but square circles are not. the concept square circle is part of reality and exists, a square circle doesnt exist and isnt part of reality.

You are conflating fact with real. Real is as the objective state of affairs is. Fact is how this objective state of affairs is believed to be by humans after passing through our reality filtering perception system.
No a fact is what is real. What we believe to be facts is not facts. Example, either the fact is I was late, or the fact is Kelly's watch is fast. Kelly knows her watch is not fast, and I know I wasnt late, so if what you said was true, the fact would be that I was late and wasnt late, and that Kelly's watch was fast and wasnt fast. We do not use the word fact to refer to thinks mistakenly believed to be true, once we know that they are not true. We dont say that the facts changed, but rather that they were misinterpreted, or that people confused belief for facts, or that people had them (the facts) wrong (not that they (the facts) were wrong themselves).

Reality is unreachable for us, but facts are not. However facts are not objective, precisely because of our filters.
We dont know that reality is or is not unreachable, we dont know that facts are or are not reachable. We believe that we know facts about reality. Note that we know the facts, not that the facts are the knowing.

No, real describes this, fact requires our perception.
Facts dont require perception, perception is how we come to know of facts.

You do not perceive that reality includes the person of Queen Betty.
I do percieve it. Perception isnt merely the sensing of external stimulae, it is the end result of processes applied to stimulate, including internal processes.

You percieve that there are descriptions of such a person, that these descriptions are from sources that you believe to be reliable, and hence you believe that there was such a person in reality.
I perceive it. I internally process external stimulae and the result is my perception that Queen Elizabeth the I is part of reality.

This belief includes her in your set of facts about the world.
I dont have a set of facts, (although there are facts about me), I have knowledges, and perceptions.

It does not include her in your perception of reality. Reality, processed by perception can only give us facts.
Untrue.

These facts can be true or false, reality can not be true or false, it simply is. Truth, remember is judged by the standard of reality.
Untrue, fact is a word that that functions as a symbol for necessary truth, and it is this function that I am employing when using the word in this context, if you prefer you can read it as 'necessary truth'.

In the 17th century, the facts observed about burning objects gave rise to the fact of the existence of Phlogiston, a substance with negative mass that a burning object emitted. Phlogiston at the time was a fact. It no longer is. Reality does not change with our understanding, but facts do.
Phlogiston is either something that can and does, or can and will, or can and has existed, or it is not. Either it is one of the disjuncts refered to or not, as a matter of fact. No matter what people thought at any time, the facts remained constant. When we say 'we will try to establish the facts' I'm certain that we dont mean 'I will try to establish what is something that is either true or false but which we can believe until we no longer do believe it', but rather that we mean 'we will try to establish what is the truth'.

The facts of the matter though are the sum of our communal knowledge of an event.
No they are not, if they were we could not 'discover the facts'. We could not investigate to find out what the facts are, because there wouldnt be any facts that 'are' that we dont already know.

Each individual witness to an event, will have their own particular and unique set of facts concerning that event.
No, they will have perceptions which they might interpret as being factual or being facts.

The only way that we can approach the reality of what happened is to use our ability to communicate to construct a composite fact. One drawing on all the available discrete facts.
What do you mean availible, if not the facts that we are aware of, and what does that imply if not that there are facts we are not aware of? If there are facts we are not aware of, then facts are independent of our awareness. The phrase 'known facts' implies that there are facts unknown, and I posit that the phrase 'known facts' is not a contradictory phrase. That indeed there are facts not known, and there are things believed to be facts which simply are not.

This not constructing reality, it is constructing our knowledge of reality, or at least as close as we can get to doing that.
Facts are necessary truths of reality. We dont construct facts, we attempt to find out facts and put them into a form which is meaningful to us, but whether or not we get this right or wrong the facts remain. That someone said something was a fact or that many people believed it, doesnt make it a fact. The word fact functions as a symbol for the concept 'proposition that is true and is not false'. So when used for this function is wrong to say that some mistaken belief was a fact. The proposition regarding Phlogiston was not a proposition that was true, even if people thought it was. To say otherwise is to construe a meaning for true, that makes the word dysfunctional.

A perception is a perception of something, and something is not nothing, so a perception must be a perception of something.

Have you ever remembered any of your dreams? If so, what was it that you perceived to generate this memory? A something, but no part of reality. A perception can be entirely within the mind. As with perception of emotions.


It does exist in a real sense. It might be that it doesnt exist in any real sense other than perception/imagination, but that is not the same as existing in no real sense at all.

Now existence, imaginary or not is conflated with reality. This leaves us no criteria by which to decide if we are dreaming, imagining or experiencing the world.


In reality if you imagine someone standing behind you watching you as you typ, then the imagining of someone standing behind you watching you type, is part of reality.

Your mind is part of reality, so it cannot be true that anything which occurs in your mind, doesnt correspond to reality. Whatever goes on in your mind is a part of reality, and parts of things correspond to that which they are a part of.
Whatever goes on, in the sense of electrochemical activity is certainly part of reality, what I, as a subjective consciousness experience, is not necessarily so. It exists, but only in my mind, not in the world.


That isnt so. The imagined watcher is part of reality. The imagined watcher exists and is part of reality. The imagined watcher existence may be imaginary, but being imaginary is by definition 'being' and if it is 'being' then it exists, furthermore the imagination is a real imagination.

The power of imagination is real, the product of the imagination is imaginary (by definition, actually) Real and imaginary are different categories of existence. "This is how Bob really is, not at all how I imagined him" would be the same as saying "this is how Bob really is, not at all how he really is" if the real and the imaginary were the same thing.


No I have not, I have argued that using a word to mean something that is contrary to the conventional meaning, in such a way that were the word to mean both things, it would no longer be functional, is counterproductive to communication, most especially if you are not going to explain the redefinition.
Sorry if I misunderstod you. I do believe however that you are doing exactly this here with the claim that the imaginary is real. This is contrary to the normal meaning of real, which the Concise OED gives, amongst seven definitions as :
"Genuine; rightly so called; not artificial or merely apparent." (emphasis added) This is the second definition.
The first is not particularly useful as it introduces another unclear term (actual) . The third and fourth to do with real estate etc. The fifth, is a strict philosophical definition of real. This may be relevant. "Philos. having an absolute and necessary, not merely contingent existence" 6 and 7 refer to maths and optics respectively.

The fifth definition is the one that I would chose to work from, as this is a philosophical debate, but this is barred by the desire to use the "conventional meaning". This leaves us with a definition in terms of actuality, which just adds another undefined term to the stew, or the definition I cite above.

But we use real to refer to things that exist. So if things imagined exist because that is how we use the word exist, then things imagined are real, because we use real to refer to things that exist.
We do not use real to refer to all possible existences, but only to those that have an objective quality. The purely subjective, while existing, is not real.



And....I'm not sure how this ties in, I dont see that it contradicts any of what I have said for instance.


I'm not demanding anything. Nothing you are saying contradicts what I have said. The imagined watcher is real. The imagining is real, and occurs in reality, there for the imagined is real and occurs in reality. The space in which the person doesnt exist is only a part of reality, it is no more real than the space (your brain) in which the imagining is manifest. Both are equally real.

The space in my brain is, firstly undefined, and secondly occupied by electrochemical activity, not by an imaginary person. You are presuming a mind brain identification which you are going to have to prove. (It is your positive assertion, even if indirect). Until this identification is proven, and you can show me the objective physical manifestation that is the reality of the imagined watcher, then I will deny that this imagined being is real in any sense. He is imaginary.

No it doesnt. I square circle doesnt exist, even though the concept and description do. The concept square circle is real, but square circles are not. the concept square circle is part of reality and exists, a square circle doesnt exist and isnt part of reality.

Show me an objective concept. Where is it independent of human thought? A square circle is not real in any sense. The concept exists, yes, but a concept is subjective and internal. It does not make up part of the universe that is independant of the rational mind. Th concept is not real.


No a fact is what is real. What we believe to be facts is not facts. Example, either the fact is I was late, or the fact is Kelly's watch is fast. Kelly knows her watch is not fast, and I know I wasnt late, so if what you said was true, the fact would be that I was late and wasnt late, and that Kelly's watch was fast and wasnt fast. We do not use the word fact to refer to thinks mistakenly believed to be true, once we know that they are not true. We dont say that the facts changed, but rather that they were misinterpreted, or that people confused belief for facts, or that people had them (the facts) wrong (not that they (the facts) were wrong themselves).

At a basic level of everyday interaction with the world, we do indeed take facts to reflect reality. The question I pose though is how can a fact, or what is taken to be a fact, be wrong. Reality simply can not be wrong; the concept does not apply, it would be a category mistake to describe it as such. But a fact can be wrong. We do, on an everyday basis, use the word fact to describe ideas that we believe to be true. The actual truth or not is irrelevant to this. The fact may reflect reality, it may not. Until it has been shown to not be true we accept it as a fact.
I can see your argument, and accept that we do say that we were wrong, and that the facts were other than what we believed them to be. But until such time as a fact is proved wrong, this does not occur. No-one, or almost no-one doubts the facts, but they can be doubted. Reality can not be doubted (Descartes was wrong there), only our idea of it can.

We dont know that reality is or is not unreachable, we dont know that facts are or are not reachable. We believe that we know facts about reality. Note that we know the facts, not that the facts are the knowing.

Reality is what exists independant of our ideas, beliefs, preconceptions, judgements, limitations of perception, etc. We simply can not enter in contact, in any sense with this. We are limited to our perceptual apparatus, be it natural or artificial. The artificial just makes observable, via our natural perception, certain effects that were not so observable before.
Look at the concept of the veil of perception that exists in the work of John Locke, and nearly all epistemology since his work.Something as simple as what colour something is is not answerable. If you want to define colour by light wavelength, then you have to say that the object has no colour, as it is the light that has it. If you define colour as the impression we have, then this is internal and subjective, it exists in the mind, but is not real. We have no means, whatsoever, now or in the future, of entering into contact with reality. The noumena is forever to be unknown and unknowable (to borrow a term from Kant).


Facts dont require perception, perception is how we come to know of facts.

Knowledge requires perception, facts require perception, reality does not.

You do not perceive that reality includes the person of Queen Betty.
I do percieve it. Perception isnt merely the sensing of external stimulae, it is the end result of processes applied to stimulate, including internal processes.
I perceive it. I internally process external stimulae and the result is my perception that Queen Elizabeth the I is part of reality.

So a person, not understanding English, looking at an English text about Queen Betty would percieve her as part of reality. No, of course they would not. You do not perceive Queen Elizabeth the Ist. You understand that she exists, that she may have been part of reality. Perception and understanding are completely different processes, despite the common confusion between them caused by phrases such as "Now I see it". You do not understand the sound that the wind makes as it blows through the trees. You do perceive it however. You do understand (or at least I hope you do) that a prime number is one that only has itself and unity as factors, but you do not perceive it. You process the external stimulae, and the end result is an understanding, a belief actually, that Queen Betty was a real person in history. If you still think that this is perception, rather than understanding, try applying it to a rather laess solidly painted figure. Try it with Jesus, or with Ulysses. Do you perceive these to be real?

Untrue, fact is a word that that functions as a symbol for necessary truth, and it is this function that I am employing when using the word in this context, if you prefer you can read it as 'necessary truth'.
Fact is a word that functions to define what is currently believed to be the truth. There is nothing necessary about this, whatsoever. Facts change. That is a fact in itself. The world is flat. This was a fact. It was the representation we had of reality. It is no longer a fact, but this does not mean that it was not a fact at the time. Facts do not exist independent of people, reality does. Simply saying that this is untrue, is no counter argument. Look at the history of science, of understanding, of the fact base that the human world has had at its disposal. This has changed with time. The reality of the situation described by different temporally constrained facts, has not changed, the justified belief, i.e. facts, have changed. This is all a question of definition. You wish to use fact as synonymous with reality. Why do we have the two terms? I f they are the same, then surely we would have discarded one from use in this type of discussion. One has connotations that the other does not, and vice versa. Facts can be known, reality can not. As we are not perfect beings our knowledge can not be perfect. i.e. it can not be completely true. It can certainly be justified, and it is definitely belief, so this only leaves truth as the criterion wherin the perfection is lost. Reality can not vary in any degree from the truth as it is the measure of truth. Facts have to vary from truth. Therefore facts are not reality.


Phlogiston is either something that can and does, or can and will, or can and has existed, or it is not. Either it is one of the disjuncts refered to or not, as a matter of fact. No matter what people thought at any time, the facts remained constant. When we say 'we will try to establish the facts' I'm certain that we dont mean 'I will try to establish what is something that is either true or false but which we can believe until we no longer do believe it', but rather that we mean 'we will try to establish what is the truth'.

See above. The difference here is still that you insist that facts and reality are identified one with the other, with no mediation by the human mind. Your initia two sentences are a matter of logic. You, however describe the conclusion as a matter of fact. Now logic has no contact whatsoever with reality. It is a purely ideal technique. If a logical truth is a fact, then facts can not be the same as reality. When we say "we will try to estblish the facts" we mean that we will try to get as close to what in reality happened/exists as is possible for us as humans. We do not try to establish what is absolutely real.



No they are not, if they were we could not 'discover the facts'. We could not investigate to find out what the facts are, because there wouldnt be any facts that 'are' that we dont already know.


Of course there are facts we do not know. That a fact is the filtering of reality by our perception does not mean that the fact is previously established. The fact is related to reality, and the fact only has any content once it is known, but it is there in potential due to the phenomena generated by reality that underlie it.


No, they will have perceptions which they might interpret as being factual or being facts.
Exactly what I have been saying. Facts are interpretations of the phenomena. They are not reality.



What do you mean availible, if not the facts that we are aware of, and what does that imply if not that there are facts we are not aware of? If there are facts we are not aware of, then facts are independent of our awareness. The phrase 'known facts' implies that there are facts unknown, and I posit that the phrase 'known facts' is not a contradictory phrase. That indeed there are facts not known, and there are things believed to be facts which simply are not.

Facts are interpretations of the phenomena. How many of these interpretations are available, depends upon how many people who witnessed the phenomena are available to ask. Simple.
Known facts, means facts known to you as an individual, of course there are facts that you do not know. These are known by someone, somewhere, but are not available to you. No contradiction is required to have facts being dependant upon interpretation and still be unknown. Knowledge is not universal. If we had a universal human consciousness, then the phrase "known facts" would be redundant.



Facts are necessary truths of reality. We dont construct facts, we attempt to find out facts and put them into a form which is meaningful to us, but whether or not we get this right or wrong the facts remain. That someone said something was a fact or that many people believed it, doesnt make it a fact. The word fact functions as a symbol for the concept 'proposition that is true and is not false'. So when used for this function is wrong to say that some mistaken belief was a fact. The proposition regarding Phlogiston was not a proposition that was true, even if people thought it was. To say otherwise is to construe a meaning for true, that makes the word dysfunctional.

I agree that it would destroy the meaning of true. This is why I deny that fact stands for the concept "proposition that is true" (the "and not false" is not needed as the concept true and false are mutually exclusive). I hold that it stands for "a proposition that is agreed at this time to be true". A much weaker statement.

There have been a number of threads on this board in which people express ideas that equate existence and reality, as if they were the same thing. They are not (that's why we have two different words). Just to clarify the difference, I'd like to espouse on the idea of the tree in the forest.

1. Existence exists. This idea is easy: a thing that exists has existence; otherwise, it is nothing. "No thing existing" is nothing.

2. Consciousness requires existence. This means that in order for us to know that things exist they must first be there "in existence" for us to know them. If they do not exist, they are nothing and we would never know them. (This idea, as a result of the language we use, sets up another idea, that of "existence" as a "place" that things "exist in", when in fact it is a "state of being".)

3. Reality requires consciousness. Things are real when we know them to be real via empirical evidence. Things both imagined and real have existence.

The situation of the tree in the forest making a sound is imaginative: we are asked to imagine a hypothetical tree in a hypothetical forest, hypothetically falling and asked, 'Does it create a sound wave with no consciousness present?' Reality is the default in our language: it is understood that we are talking about a "real" sound wave. So we have moved from a hypothetical postulation to an insistence on reality, but the only way to say "for real" that there was a sound wave is to observe it.

Existence can be imagined or real. When is that tree real, that forest real, that sound real? It is real when it is observed by a consciousness. A man can go out into a real forest, find a real tree, set up a machine in the forest to measure a sound wave when he is not around, arrange for the tree to fall, and leave. The sound wave exists, but it is hypothetical until he returns to the forest and checks his machine to see what was measured with his own eyes.
EDIT: or ears. ;)

Does a tree falling in the forest, with no one around, make a sound? The only correct answer to this question is, 'Hypothetically yes.' The sound in the forest has existence with no one present, but it is not real until it is measured and verified by a consciousness.

Do you have any proof that existance exists? we can assume it's so, but if so, all things do eventually end, including the universe.

Do you have any proof that existance exists? we can assume it's so, but if so, all things do eventually end, including the universe.

1. Why would existence existing imply that existence is temporary?

2. Existance exists alright. It is a logical tautology, empty and meaningless, but true.

1. Why would existence existing imply that existence is temporary?

2. Existance exists alright. It is a logical tautology, empty and meaningless, but true.

1. Because nothing extends for infinity, even time, it's just wrapped around itself. So even if it never stops going in that one circle, it has to end before a new one is started. Hmm, i have an example. imagine there being a donut, and running around the donut is an ant, that ant can go around the donut forever without running out of space to go, but, the donut is finite and ends somewhere.

2. It may exist, but there is no way to prove it does exist. I generally say it does exist though cause i have a hard time trying to find a point in doing anything when i believe it doesn't.

1. Because nothing extends for infinity, even time, it's just wrapped around itself. So even if it never stops going in that one circle, it has to end before a new one is started. Hmm, i have an example. imagine there being a donut, and running around the donut is an ant, that ant can go around the donut forever without running out of space to go, but, the donut is finite and ends somewhere.


OK so you have a cosmological image of reality that is closed. However, if you read the three or four pages of discussion involving Willamena, Peopleandstuff and myself, not an easy task I admit, you will see that there is a disagreement about the identification of existence with reality. Wilamena and myself, as far as I can ascertain, agree that these two concepts are separate, whilst Peopleandstuff sees no difference between the two terms. (Sorry if I misrepresented anyone here).

In your example, the path that the ant takes is actually infinite. It is bounded, in that it can fit within a finte space, but in itself the path never ends and as such is infinite.

Why then does existence existing imply that existence is finite in any sense. Bounded it may be, but is your imagination finite? Is the generative grammar of our language finite in its scope? Is the real number series between zero and one finite? These things exist. They are or are not bounded, but they are not finite.

i agree with you that reality and existance are two separate things. i'm just saying you can't prove that there is existance. hmm, i guess that doesn't really have anything to do with what the later part of the discusion was about, so just ignore me and i won't say anything else.

i agree with you that reality and existance are two separate things. i'm just saying you can't prove that there is existance. hmm, i guess that doesn't really have anything to do with what the later part of the discusion was about, so just ignore me and i won't say anything else.

Oops, methinks I growled too loud. I'm sorry. :(
You are entitled to your opinions, and to state them here. It does not have to follow on from tyhe latter parts of the thread. I, for one, would welcome a new contributer to this discussion. And I am genuinely curious as to why you believe that existence is only temporary, You may well be right, I have no defined opinion on this at the moment, but havce a habit of arguing the opposite side to others, to allow the debate to progress.

Does a tree falling in the forest, with no one around, make a sound? The only correct answer to this question is, 'Hypothetically yes.' The sound in the forest has existence with no one present, but it is not real until it is measured and verified by a consciousness.
Umm ... not quite. It has more to do with semantics than with philosophy. The very cocept of "sound" presupposes a listener. By definition: no listener, no sound. :)

I will just address part of this, mostly the semantical things, and the rest later. It’s getting too long and convoluted for one post. Besides, Alien Born has picked up the ball on some of the points I woud have addressed.

Whatever leads you to this conclusion.
I apologize if I inadvertently resorted to straw-man arguments. I tried to address what are, to me, the logical consequences of equating existence and reality as identical.

The contents of an imagining are real for instance.
I can only guess that you have a different idea of what the content of an imagining is. The content of an imagining is the "things that are not which have an existent description," as you outlined below. They are not real. Real and imagined are in opposition.

To say it is non sense, is to say that the sense in which it exists is 'non', which is to say that it is nothing and doesnt exist.
"Nonsense" means something that has no meaning. Meaning is the sense we (individual consciousnesses) make of things.

None of this really matters. Before we were informed it was still information. It is information if one, 100, or no people know it.
I would contend that if no one knows it, knew it, or ever will know it, it is not information. No one is informed by it.

There are many things that objectively exist which I cannot pick up and put in my pocket.
And a fact is one of them. ;)

Unreal things is a linguistic construct, and so is real and exists, but the concept that is being described is a description of non existent things. They are not thing, but rather things that are not which have an existent description. The description is not that which it describes, that there are descriptions of things that are not, doesnt make them any less not.

You are confusing the description of a thing for the thing itself. We can describe a thing and the description and concept of the thing exists, but the thing doesnt exist as itself, because it has no self, it isnt existent and has not been.
A description is a label, words to associate with a thing in order to recognize it. Words are symbols, you are correct about that: they are not the thing they represent, although they do stand for it. The "unreal" things I was referring to are the content of imaginings. Imagination conjures images and situations to which descriptions can be attached, but the descriptions themselves are not imaginings, they're just words. The ability to imagine is more than simply describing a thing with words.

If existence is reality, then unreal things do not exist. Yet... they are things. Things exist, otherwise they would be "no" things. How can a thing exist that is unreal? How can a thing exist that has no existence?
Because we can imagine much. We can take qualities that do exist and combine them to render desriptions and concepts of things that have no existence other than descriptive or conceptual ones.
But they are not just descriptions. If I fall into a day-dream, the images and situations imagined are not things that happened, yet I put myself there in the situation and, for a little while, blot out all that's going on around me. It is experiential. The things that go on in the imagined day-dream are things; they exist as "imaginary things." I experienced them, but they are not real.

Right, but let's clarify again.

Existence is true. "False" existence is a contradiction. Things either are, or they are not. They either exist or they do not. If they do not, they are "no" things, not things, nothing.

Therefore, the "falsehood" of your statement is not really tied to its existence. To what, then?
What? This doesnt make any sense. What falsehood of what statement?
You had said, "Every hypothesis exists, although not every hypothesis is true." This means that there are hypotheses that are false. This is the "falsehood" I was referring to. I was still working here under the mistaken assumption that you equated reality and existence as identical, but other things you’ve said since have proved that to be incorrect.

Untrue, I can percieve my own happiness, my own doubt, my own hunger, my own thoughts and feelings.
Happiness is conceived, not perceived, but perhaps that’s a debate for another thread.

No, it doesn’t. If I found an equal number who gave a contrary answer would that work as counter confirmation? No, because confirmation is not so easy as a few people saying so.
Haha. No, that some confirm you doesn’t negate that fact that some confirmed me.

Umm ... not quite. It has more to do with semantics than with philosophy. The very cocept of "sound" presupposes a listener. By definition: no listener, no sound. :)
Ah, but are you talking existence or reality?

There have been a number of threads on this board in which people express ideas that equate existence and reality, as if they were the same thing. They are not (that's why we have two different words). Just to clarify the difference, I'd like to espouse on the idea of the tree in the forest.

1. Existence exists. This idea is easy: a thing that exists has existence; otherwise, it is nothing. "No thing existing" is nothing.

2. Consciousness requires existence. This means that in order for us to know that things exist they must first be there "in existence" for us to know them. If they do not exist, they are nothing and we would never know them. (This idea, as a result of the language we use, sets up another idea, that of "existence" as a "place" that things "exist in", when in fact it is a "state of being".)

3. Reality requires consciousness. Things are real when we know them to be real via empirical evidence. Things both imagined and real have existence.

The situation of the tree in the forest making a sound is imaginative: we are asked to imagine a hypothetical tree in a hypothetical forest, hypothetically falling and asked, 'Does it create a sound wave with no consciousness present?' Reality is the default in our language: it is understood that we are talking about a "real" sound wave. So we have moved from a hypothetical postulation to an insistence on reality, but the only way to say "for real" that there was a sound wave is to observe it.

Existence can be imagined or real. When is that tree real, that forest real, that sound real? It is real when it is observed by a consciousness. A man can go out into a real forest, find a real tree, set up a machine in the forest to measure a sound wave when he is not around, arrange for the tree to fall, and leave. The sound wave exists, but it is hypothetical until he returns to the forest and checks his machine to see what was measured with his own eyes.
EDIT: or ears. ;)

Does a tree falling in the forest, with no one around, make a sound? The only correct answer to this question is, 'Hypothetically yes.' The sound in the forest has existence with no one present, but it is not real until it is measured and verified by a consciousness.

Just looking at the title of the thread, I knew this would be Willamena-country... :)

You assume that, just because the tree HAS FALLEN when it is 'witnessed' retrospectively.... that the tree DOES fall while nobody was there to witness it.

You base that assumption on a pattern of observation... each time you have seen a tree falling, you have seen a fallen tree, afterwards. But, that doesnt mean that the same thing happens when there is no observation.

Perhaps observation affects the thing... and 'no witnesses' allows the event to happen in 'quantum' state... i.e. the tree is neither fallen, nor unfallen, until witnessed.

Kind of... Schrodinger's Tree... :)

Perception and understanding are completely different processes, despite the common confusion between them caused by phrases such as "Now I see it". You do not understand the sound that the wind makes as it blows through the trees. You do perceive it however. You do understand (or at least I hope you do) that a prime number is one that only has itself and unity as factors, but you do not perceive it. You process the external stimulae, and the end result is an understanding...
I don't understand why you claim in your example that one does not understand "the sound that the wind makes as it blows throught the trees." Meaning is unique to each individual consciousness (even meanings defined "universally" are subject to interpretation) so their understanding of it is encompassed in the scope of the meaning to apply to it, either as a phenomenon or as a symbol. How is understanding of the sound of the wind any less than understanding of a prime number (which I had to look up at dictionary.com to reassure myself that I remembered it correctly)?

I don't understand why you claim in your example that one does not understand "the sound that the wind makes as it blows throught the trees." Meaning is unique to each individual consciousness (even meanings defined "universally" are subject to interpretation) so their understanding of it is encompassed in the scope of the meaning to apply to it, either as a phenomenon or as a symbol. How is understanding of the sound of the wind any less than understanding of a prime number (which I had to look up at dictionary.com to reassure myself that I remembered it correctly)?

Understanding something implies that that thing imparts some meaning to you. The understanding of the term prime number, means that this term imparts a specific meaning when you hear it. With a language that you know, the actual sound is often lost beneath that meaning. When you hear someone talking, if you understand it you cease to be aware of the noise, you just hear "what they are saying" not the noises that they are making. However the noise of the wind in the trees is just a noise. It carries no meaning. It can not be understood, in the same way as words can, or concepts can. It is pure perception.

I was arguing against Peopleandstuff saying that perception and understanding were the same thing with respect to her "perceiving" Queen Elizabeth Ist of England.

I hope that was clearer.

Just looking at the title of the thread, I knew this would be Willamena-country... :)

You assume that, just because the tree HAS FALLEN when it is 'witnessed' retrospectively.... that the tree DOES fall while nobody was there to witness it.

You base that assumption on a pattern of observation... each time you have seen a tree falling, you have seen a fallen tree, afterwards. But, that doesnt mean that the same thing happens when there is no observation.

Perhaps observation affects the thing... and 'no witnesses' allows the event to happen in 'quantum' state... i.e. the tree is neither fallen, nor unfallen, until witnessed.

Kind of... Schrodinger's Tree... :)

Hume to Schrödinger in one sentence. Pure Genius.

Do you have any proof that existance exists? we can assume it's so, but if so, all things do eventually end, including the universe.
"Existence exists" is an axiom, that is "something accepted as true", and a starting point upon which to build up more ideas.

An axiom is accepted by individuals as something that is true. For instance, people who believe wholeheartedly in God accept "God is" as an axiom.

If we assume that it is so (if we accept the axiom) then it is only the form of things that end, a descriptor. A building crumbles to dust, and the dust is used to construct new things. A person dies and crumbles to dust, and the dust becomes new things (you can tell I favour cremation, can't you? ;-)).

1. Because nothing extends for infinity, even time, it's just wrapped around itself. So even if it never stops going in that one circle, it has to end before a new one is started. Hmm, i have an example. imagine there being a donut, and running around the donut is an ant, that ant can go around the donut forever without running out of space to go, but, the donut is finite and ends somewhere.

2. It may exist, but there is no way to prove it does exist. I generally say it does exist though cause i have a hard time trying to find a point in doing anything when i believe it doesn't.
"Existence exists" has nothing to do with the past or "forever". It has only to do with the present. It is present tense.

Things in their past forms can cease to exist. Existence is here and now.

I see someone else is taking Philosophy......

I, for one, would welcome a new contributer to this discussion.
Ditto

I see someone else is taking Philosophy......

I know it's addictive, but do you have to make it sound like a controlled drug? ;)

Understanding something implies that that thing imparts some meaning to you. The understanding of the term prime number, means that this term imparts a specific meaning when you hear it. With a language that you know, the actual sound is often lost beneath that meaning. When you hear someone talking, if you understand it you cease to be aware of the noise, you just hear "what they are saying" not the noises that they are making. However the noise of the wind in the trees is just a noise. It carries no meaning. It can not be understood, in the same way as words can, or concepts can. It is pure perception.
That's nice, almost poetic, and you are right in that the meaning of the wind in the trees is not understood in the way that words or concepts are. But the understanding that the wind in the trees imparts is not a logical, rational or intellectual concept, it is feeling; it is no less understanding. The sound is perception, but the interpretation is conception.

Okay, I'm an artist, I admit it.

That's nice, almost poetic, and you are right in that the meaning of the wind in the trees is not understood in the way that words or concepts are. But the understanding that the wind in the trees imparts is not a logical, rational or intellectual concept, it is feeling; it is no less understanding. The sound is perception, but the interpretation is conception.

Okay, I'm an artist, I admit it.

I wish I knew what I was. I am not an artist, nor do I have enough blind faith in science to be a scientist. I think I might be forced into admitting a philosophical turn of mind. A would be philosopher.

I wish I knew what I was. I am not an artist, nor do I have enough blind faith in science to be a scientist. I think I might be forced into admitting a philosophical turn of mind. A would be philosopher.

i really wish i could be a taxonomist(NOT TAXADERMIST, everyone always thinks i say that) and probably would specialize in the carex subgenera of Phyllostachys

i really wish i could be a taxonomist(NOT TAXADERMIST, everyone always thinks i say that) and probably would specialize in the carex subgenera of Phyllostachys

OK you want to categorise things, but your specialisation is beyond my limited knowledge. Please enlighten us.

OK you want to categorise things, but your specialisation is beyond my limited knowledge. Please enlighten us.

Phyllostachys is a genera of bamboo that grows in temparate regions. It is most commonly known for the species Phyllostachys vivax, the fastest growing plant, sometimes up to 4 feet per day, and Phyllostachys pubescens, which used to be a major cash crop in China and Taiwan since all of it's parts could be used.

"Existence exists" has nothing to do with the past or "forever". It has only to do with the present. It is present tense.

Things in their past forms can cease to exist. Existence is here and now.

if existance did exist it would apply to time also as time is a dimension and a part of the description of a location, along with space. that means it would apply to any time being talked about, tense wouldn't matter.

i really wish i could be a taxonomist(NOT TAXADERMIST, everyone always thinks i say that) and probably would specialize in the carex subgenera of Phyllostachys
That is the coolest thing I've ever heard... mostly because I've never heard of it before.

if existance did exist it would apply to time also as time is a dimension and a part of the description of a location, along with space. that means it would apply to any time being talked about, tense wouldn't matter.
"Now" is the threashold of that which we understand as the totality of time (present and past). It's not a real dimension. Things that exist in the present exist now. Existence is all things that exist.

Existance is what we do, reality is where we do it. Don't over complicate things.

Vandervecken']Existance is what we do, reality is where we do it. Don't over complicate things.

So what then exists without us? Nothing. If this is the case, how did the first conscious beings come to be?

Have you ever remembered any of your dreams? If so, what was it that you perceived to generate this memory? A something, but no part of reality. A perception can be entirely within the mind. As with perception of emotions.
A perception within the mind is still a perception of something.
Now existence, imaginary or not is conflated with reality. This leaves us no criteria by which to decide if we are dreaming, imagining or experiencing the world.
Such critieria exists, in my opinion, however the fact that such critieria doesnt appear to exist due to my manner of describing something means no more than the fact that such critieria appears not to exist due to human beings failing to be able to describe the criteria. Can you describe the critieria where by we tell the difference? Is that not a question that has failed to be answered throughout the history of philosophy?

Whatever goes on, in the sense of electrochemical activity is certainly part of reality, what I, as a subjective consciousness experience, is not necessarily so. It exists, but only in my mind, not in the world.
What is outside of reality here, your mind, which I would suspect is located in your body? Is your body not in reality, or is your mind not in your body?

The power of imagination is real, the product of the imagination is imaginary (by definition, actually) Real and imaginary are different categories of existence. "This is how Bob really is, not at all how I imagined him" would be the same as saying "this is how Bob really is, not at all how he really is" if the real and the imaginary were the same thing.
Real and imagininary are not exclusive categories.

Sorry if I misunderstod you. I do believe however that you are doing exactly this here with the claim that the imaginary is real. This is contrary to the normal meaning of real, which the Concise OED gives, amongst seven definitions as :
"Genuine; rightly so called; not artificial or merely apparent." (emphasis added) This is the second definition.
The first is not particularly useful as it introduces another unclear term (actual) . The third and fourth to do with real estate etc. The fifth, is a strict philosophical definition of real. This may be relevant. "Philos. having an absolute and necessary, not merely contingent existence" 6 and 7 refer to maths and optics respectively.

The fifth definition is the one that I would chose to work from, as this is a philosophical debate, but this is barred by the desire to use the "conventional meaning". This leaves us with a definition in terms of actuality, which just adds another undefined term to the stew, or the definition I cite above.
The 5th definition is fine, if you have an imagining then the imagining absolutely exists, necessarily. Otherwise you didnt have an imagining. I dont know that there can be partial imagainine, either you are or are not imagining.

We do not use real to refer to all possible existences, but only to those that have an objective quality. The purely subjective, while existing, is not real.
Not true, the phrase 'real love' is not contradictory or at odds with normative use of the word, and I contend that love is subjective.

And....I'm not sure how this ties in, I dont see that it contradicts any of what I have said for instance.
The space in my brain is, firstly undefined, and secondly occupied by electrochemical activity, not by an imaginary person. You are presuming a mind brain identification which you are going to have to prove. (It is your positive assertion, even if indirect). Until this identification is proven, and you can show me the objective physical manifestation that is the reality of the imagined watcher, then I will deny that this imagined being is real in any sense. He is imaginary.
I have not claimed that an imaginary person is inside your brain, nor that the imaginary person is real as a person, but only that it is real. My cat is real and not real as a person (but rather is real as a cat). Just as happiness occurs in your brain so does the imagining. It's true I lack the ability to describe the actual processes, but they are real and this is the quality in which it is real, that it is real in some other form than the form of a person doesnt make it not real. It's not a real person, I agree, but it's not unreal just because it's not a person. If not inside your brain, where does your imagining occur?

Show me an objective concept. Where is it independent of human thought? A square circle is not real in any sense. The concept exists, yes, but a concept is subjective and internal. It does not make up part of the universe that is independant of the rational mind. Th concept is not real.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. There are no objective concepts, that I am aware of. That a concept doesnt make up part of the universe independent of rational minds doesnt mean that the concept is not real. Rational minds are part of the universe, I dont see that they are so significantly different to every other part of the universe that things are only real if they exist in any place within the universe other than a rational mind.

At a basic level of everyday interaction with the world, we do indeed take facts to reflect reality. The question I pose though is how can a fact, or what is taken to be a fact, be wrong.
The fact cannot be, but our reasoning by which believe it is a fact can be. The everyday interaction is that which I employed, it is a meaning of fact, and so I cannot be wrong when I use it to mean that. You could claim that no facts exist, or similar, but you cant claim that my using the word to mean what it means is incorrect and still expect to make sense.

Reality simply can not be wrong; the concept does not apply, it would be a category mistake to describe it as such. But a fact can be wrong.
Not according to the definition I am employing, one which you have conceded is an everyday definition of it.

We do, on an everyday basis, use the word fact to describe ideas that we believe to be true. The actual truth or not is irrelevant to this. The fact may reflect reality, it may not. Until it has been shown to not be true we accept it as a fact.
Yes we accept it as a fact, doesnt mean it is a fact.

I can see your argument, and accept that we do say that we were wrong, and that the facts were other than what we believed them to be. But until such time as a fact is proved wrong, this does not occur. No-one, or almost no-one doubts the facts, but they can be doubted. Reality can not be doubted (Descartes was wrong there), only our idea of it can.
So you accept that the meaning of fact (ie what people intend to communicate when they use the word) is just as I have described. I'm not sure what your point is. :confused:


Reality is what exists independant of our ideas, beliefs, preconceptions, judgements, limitations of perception, etc.
That's what I believe, it is Willemena who believes reality is only those things we are aware of.

We simply can not enter in contact, in any sense with this. We are limited to our perceptual apparatus, be it natural or artificial. The artificial just makes observable, via our natural perception, certain effects that were not so observable before.
Again you are simply rewording my own opinion.

Look at the concept of the veil of perception that exists in the work of John Locke, and nearly all epistemology since his work.Something as simple as what colour something is is not answerable. If you want to define colour by light wavelength, then you have to say that the object has no colour, as it is the light that has it. If you define colour as the impression we have, then this is internal and subjective, it exists in the mind, but is not real. We have no means, whatsoever, now or in the future, of entering into contact with reality. The noumena is forever to be unknown and unknowable (to borrow a term from Kant).
I think the only thing I disagree with is that things occuring in the mind are not real. If such things are not occuring within reality, then where exactly are they occuring.

Knowledge requires perception, facts require perception, reality does not.
Facts dont require perception. Indeed if there are no facts until we perceive them, there would be no facts to perceive.

So a person, not understanding English, looking at an English text about Queen Betty would percieve her as part of reality. No, of course they would not. You do not perceive Queen Elizabeth the Ist. You understand that she exists, that she may have been part of reality. Perception and understanding are completely different processes, despite the common confusion between them caused by phrases such as "Now I see it". You do not understand the sound that the wind makes as it blows through the trees. You do perceive it however. You do understand (or at least I hope you do) that a prime number is one that only has itself and unity as factors, but you do not perceive it. You process the external stimulae, and the end result is an understanding, a belief actually, that Queen Betty was a real person in history. If you still think that this is perception, rather than understanding, try applying it to a rather laess solidly painted figure. Try it with Jesus, or with Ulysses. Do you perceive these to be real?
Of course it is a perception because in order to know what I understand I need to percieve my understanding.

Fact is a word that functions to define what is currently believed to be the truth.
No and you have already conceded that when we find out otherwise we dond conclude that 'the facts' (the current belief) has changed, rather we conclude that we were mistaken about the facts.

There is nothing necessary about this, whatsoever. Facts change.
No they dont.
That is a fact in itself. The world is flat. This was a fact.
No it wasnt.
It was the representation we had of reality.
No it was a misrepresentation, mistakenly believed to be factual.

It is no longer a fact, but this does not mean that it was not a fact at the time.
It wasnt a fact at the time.

Facts do not exist independent of people, reality does.
Both exist independent of people.

Simply saying that this is untrue, is no counter argument.
Simply saying it is true is no argument. ;)

Look at the history of science, of understanding, of the fact base that the human world has had at its disposal. This has changed with time.
Our understanding of facts has changed, not the facts themselves, as pointed out you have already conceded that fact has a meaning entirely consistent with my use of the word and assertions about it. That it isnt your prefered meaning isnt relevent. I've used the word consistent with normative understandings in a manner that when the word is defined as I have intended, my assertions make sense.

The reality of the situation described by different temporally constrained facts, has not changed, the justified belief, i.e. facts, have changed.
Now you are trying to make fact and belief synomous, but they are not. People dont mean "I believe it" when they say "it is a fact", they mean that they believe it and that it is absolutely true. Fact is meant to refer to more than belief and/or popular belief.
It is is all a question of definition. You wish to use fact as synonymous with reality. Why do we have the two terms?
You wish to use fact as synomonous with popular belief, why have two terms?
I f they are the same, then surely we would have discarded one from use in this type of discussion.
No we wouldnt. This isnt newspeak ;) It would be doubleplusungood to remove every word that has a meaning that could be cross referenced to another words meaning. At any rate I am not using the words to mean the same thing. A fact is a discrete truth about reality, not the entirety of reality.
One has connotations that the other does not, and vice versa. Facts can be known, reality can not.
Actually that is debatable and comes back to debates about verification, unless you construe fact to mean what most people dont mean when they use the word. That being the case we are left with a hole in language, since fact now means 'widely held opinion' whatever are we to use to refer to the thing we always thought we meant when we used the word?

As we are not perfect beings our knowledge can not be perfect. i.e. it can not be completely true. It can certainly be justified, and it is definitely belief, so this only leaves truth as the criterion wherin the perfection is lost. Reality can not vary in any degree from the truth as it is the measure of truth. Facts have to vary from truth. Therefore facts are not reality.
Why do facts have to vary from truth?

See above. The difference here is still that you insist that facts and reality are identified one with the other, with no mediation by the human mind. Your initia two sentences are a matter of logic. You, however describe the conclusion as a matter of fact. Now logic has no contact whatsoever with reality. It is a purely ideal technique. If a logical truth is a fact, then facts can not be the same as reality. When we say "we will try to estblish the facts" we mean that we will try to get as close to what in reality happened/exists as is possible for us as humans. We do not try to establish what is absolutely real.
No I dont accept that people mean 'We know we cant ever know what really happened, so lets intentionally try for second best', I believe that they really mean that they will really try to find out what happened, regardless how achievable this actually is. That someone's aim isnt realistic doesnt make it not their aim.

Of course there are facts we do not know.
Then it cannot be true that facts require our perception.

That a fact is the filtering of reality by our perception does not mean that the fact is previously established. The fact is related to reality, and the fact only has any content once it is known, but it is there in potential due to the phenomena generated by reality that underlie it.
A fact isnt a filtering. If I say 'I want to know the facts' I dont mean that I want to know of your filtering.


Exactly what I have been saying. Facts are interpretations of the phenomena. They are not reality.
No facts are truths about the pheonomena. Our interpretation of facts is opinon/belief.

Facts are interpretations of the phenomena.
No interpretations are opinions/beliefs. Very different from facts.

How many of these interpretations are available, depends upon how many people who witnessed the phenomena are available to ask. Simple.
Known facts, means facts known to you as an individual,
No it doesnt always mean this. It is used to refer to all knowledge (however mistakenly) held by all humanity, I've heard it so used on more than one occassion.

of course there are facts that you do not know. These are known by someone, somewhere, but are not available to you.
As you have already conceded there are unknown facts, as in facts known by no person at all.

No contradiction is required to have facts being dependant upon interpretation and still be unknown. Knowledge is not universal. If we had a universal human consciousness, then the phrase "known facts" would be redundant.
It is if we expand known to include all human knowledge, that it isnt all in one place doesnt mean that there isnt a sum total of it, and that there are facts which are not included in that sum total.

I agree that it would destroy the meaning of true. This is why I deny that fact stands for the concept "proposition that is true" (the "and not false" is not needed as the concept true and false are mutually exclusive). I hold that it stands for "a proposition that is agreed at this time to be true". A much weaker statement.
You dont have to agree, in fact it's not relevent to my argument. Since you know what I meant by the word you can ascertain the point I was communicating simply by translating it as you go.....

Such critieria exists, in my opinion, however the fact that such critieria doesnt appear to exist due to my manner of describing something means no more than the fact that such critieria appears not to exist due to human beings failing to be able to describe the criteria. Can you describe the critieria where by we tell the difference? Is that not a question that has failed to be answered throughout the history of philosophy?
Hahahaha! :)

Well, there's always the philosophy of metaphysics, which I've been trying to employ but you've been denying. :-)

Vandervecken']Existance is what we do, reality is where we do it. Don't over complicate things.
I like that, it's elegant. Then, as a place, "reality" is the spacial aspect of all that exists?

I like that, it's elegant. Then, as a place, "reality" is the spacial aspect of all that exists?

i agree

So a person, not understanding English, looking at an English text about Queen Betty would percieve her as part of reality. No, of course they would not. You do not perceive Queen Elizabeth the Ist. You understand that she exists, that she may have been part of reality. Perception and understanding are completely different processes, despite the common confusion between them caused by phrases such as "Now I see it".
This phrase does not exist accidentally, and the confusion stems not from it, but from the concept of reality having been adjusted over the millennia. The phrase is archaic and reflects the idea of reality that I have been promoting, namely that seeing (sensing) is required to understand the reality of something external to consciousness. QEI's existence in the form of a person is past tense, but through perception of the book we can understand that she did exist and is no longer a part of existence (present tense). The reality of her requires an understanding that she existed at one time, just as the reality of things here in the present requires that we know of them. Reality is here and now.

Reality can not vary in any degree from the truth as it is the measure of truth. Facts have to vary from truth. Therefore facts are not reality.
And who does the measuring?

Hume to Schrödinger in one sentence. Pure Genius.

:)

I wish I knew what I was. I am not an artist, nor do I have enough blind faith in science to be a scientist. I think I might be forced into admitting a philosophical turn of mind. A would be philosopher.


Oooooh, be what I am!! I'm a freelance existentialist. But it's quite hard to get contracts.

Okay, I think you may have stepped to far out on a limb here...

Neither existance nor reality are dependent upon observation. Just because no one has observed space dust, beyond our capacity to currently observe doesn't have anything to do with whether or not it exists or is a part of reality. It is just unobservable to date and we have no way of knowing if it exists in reality or not, but that doesn't change whether or not it is there.

Am I making any sense here?

Okay, I think you may have stepped to far out on a limb here...

Neither existance nor reality are dependent upon observation. Just because no one has observed space dust, beyond our capacity to currently observe doesn't have anything to do with whether or not it exists or is a part of reality. It is just unobservable to date and we have no way of knowing if it exists in reality or not, but that doesn't change whether or not it is there.

Am I making any sense here?

it makes perfect sense, but i don't think that's what we're debating over. not shure though, ask peopleandstuff, wilemena or alienborn

A perception within the mind is still a perception of something.

What kind of thing is it a perception of? A real thing, something that exists indeoendent of us as being conscious. I can not see how this would work. Hunger existing independant of the awareness that feels this hunger does not make much sense to me. If you want to be mechanistic, and describe our feelings and emotions as being epiphenomena on some mechanistic causal sequence, then maybe the perception is the perception of this causal relationship. I however, do not see emotion and desire as being epiphenomena. I see them as being mental causes in themselves. They have effects on us, but are not part of an external reality. They, like dreams, are entirely and completely subjective. They exist, but are not real.


Such critieria exists, in my opinion, however the fact that such critieria doesnt appear to exist due to my manner of describing something means no more than the fact that such critieria appears not to exist due to human beings failing to be able to describe the criteria. Can you describe the critieria where by we tell the difference? Is that not a question that has failed to be answered throughout the history of philosophy?

It is one of the fundamental questions of epistemology, and many people believe that they have answered it. In each case only to be shown that they have in some way begged the question. I can describe the criteria by which we categorise phenomena as objective and subjective, regardless of the necessary fact that all phenomena are at their root subjective.
One of these is the concept of reality. This is that set of phenomena that we have god reason to believe that others experience in the same way that we do. What are called external stimulae have temporal continuity, agreement in the description of them between individuals etc. What are called internal stimulae, imagination, emotion, dreams etc. we have no evidence that others experience these in the same way that we do. What we have is the external stimulae of their behaviour. But our own internal experience of the phenomena of acting and dissimulation prevent hard behaviourism from being a credible position.


What is outside of reality here, your mind, which I would suspect is located in your body? Is your body not in reality, or is your mind not in your body?

You selectively quoted and left out the acknowledgement of the possibility of there being a mind - brain identity. You also excluded my reasons against this. I have already addressed this point. The mind is not the brain, nor is it simply the electrochemical activity in the brain, from my point of view. This is, of course, one more big philosophical discussion, and there are strong arguments on both sides. The following is from my side of this argument.
The mind, has no location. It is not a substance or field to be located in space. So no, my mind is not in my body. To caim this is to make a category mistake. It is like saying that the number 7 exists just outside Kentucky. If you go there, and demolish it, the numbers will be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 ,9, etc
17 of course would still exist as that is buried at the bottom of a gold mine in South Africa. This makes no sense. Numbers are not material things, they are concepts, ideas, even some would claim beliefs. Now the mind is a collection of these things. It is not a material existence it is a network of memories, ideas, beliefs, desires ec. all interconnected and causally effective on each other. There are physical reflections of the current state of this abstract construct, and these are the patterns of activity in the brain. Note that I say the pattern of activity, not the activity itself. These patterns exist in reality, but if you destroy the pattern you do not destroy the mind. The patterns can re-establish itself on another portion of the substrate that is the brain. (Check neurological trauma records for evidence of this happening)
Now where does the pattern exist. Not at any particular location, It is not real. Just any single instance of that patttern has reality. The pattern itself simply exists. The mind exists, but is not real.


Real and imagininary are not exclusive categories.
True. I never used them as such. They are not however mutually inclusive either. The real is a subset of the existing.


The 5th definition is fine, if you have an imagining then the imagining absolutely exists, necessarily. Otherwise you didnt have an imagining. I dont know that there can be partial imagainine, either you are or are not imagining.
Exists yes, is real, not necessarily, it may be.


Not true, the phrase 'real love' is not contradictory or at odds with normative use of the word, and I contend that love is subjective.

Real love is meaningless. What would unreal love be? To determine if the addition of a qualifier has any meaning, try negating the qualifier. Love exists, people feel it, suffer from it, desire it etc. It is not, and can not be, however real. It is subjective, not objective.
It may be that real can be used here in the sense of "not fake" in the sense of genuine. But this is a value judgement, and no reflection of objectivity. Please do not slide between two different meanings of the same word. Real (as it has been used in this discussion up to here) is opposed to unreal, real as in real love is opposed to fake. Fake things exist objectively, a fafe diamond is still part of reality, it is real in the sense we have been using the word.

I have not claimed that an imaginary person is inside your brain, nor that the imaginary person is real as a person, but only that it is real. My cat is real and not real as a person (but rather is real as a cat). Just as happiness occurs in your brain so does the imagining. It's true I lack the ability to describe the actual processes, but they are real and this is the quality in which it is real, that it is real in some other form than the form of a person doesnt make it not real. It's not a real person, I agree, but it's not unreal just because it's not a person. If not inside your brain, where does your imagining occur?

We are simply arguing definitions here. You are insisting that real means the same as exist, and I m denying this. I have given examples of the normal usage of real (in this meaning) and of the motivation for us to have a distinction between reality and existence. You keep going back to saying that it is not like that.
Yes your cat is a real cat. My imagined person is not a real imaginary thing. That is a contradiction, It is either a real thing, like your cat, or it is imaginary, like my person. Both exist. (Actually, if I am just imagining that I could imagine a person, I am not sure if that person exists or whether it is just the imagination of that person that exists. My head hurts :eek: ) Hence existence is not coincedent with reality.


I'm not sure what you mean by this. There are no objective concepts, that I am aware of. That a concept doesnt make up part of the universe independent of rational minds doesnt mean that the concept is not real. Rational minds are part of the universe, I dont see that they are so significantly different to every other part of the universe that things are only real if they exist in any place within the universe other than a rational mind.

This again depends upon there being a difference between reality and existence. The concept of real, as depending on rational minds, is Willamena's not mine, so I will let her deal with that part. In this respect I agree with you. That reality is independant of rationality. However, with respect to rational minds being part of the universe, I would say it depends on how you define universe. My definition, the one that I use in my thinking, is that the universe is all that exists. In this case rational minds are part of the universe, as are concepts and abstract ideas. They are not however part of reality. Again you use the two concepts, existence and reality as interchangeable and equivalent, when they are not, as I have explained.


The fact cannot be, but our reasoning by which believe it is a fact can be. The everyday interaction is that which I employed, it is a meaning of fact, and so I cannot be wrong when I use it to mean that. You could claim that no facts exist, or similar, but you cant claim that my using the word to mean what it means is incorrect and still expect to make sense.

"The facts that the Bumbwanian Government are presenting to this meeting are false" would have to be meaningless if facts were the truth. It is not meaningless, ergo facts are not the truth. There is however as trong connection between fact and truth, and this connection is belief. A fact is what is currently believed to be the truth. As beliefs change so the facts change. The truth does not. How am I not making sense?


Not according to the definition I am employing, one which you have conceded is an everyday definition of it.

So you accept that the meaning of fact (ie what people intend to communicate when they use the word) is just as I have described. I'm not sure what your point is. :confused:

FACTS
I have accepted that, but I too am using it in an everyday sense, one that is different to yours. What we have to do is decide which meaning we are going to use in this discussion for the term "fact". I argue that we do not need it to mean the same as truth, as we can use the term "truth" for that. We do need a term that describes something that has the status of being believed to be true of reality. Just belief will not suffice as a belief does not have to refer to reality, it can refer to simple existence. I propose we use fact to mean this. This actually coincides with its most normal usage in English.


That's what I believe, it is Willemena who believes reality is only those things we are aware of.
Again you are simply rewording my own opinion.
I think the only thing I disagree with is that things occuring in the mind are not real. If such things are not occuring within reality, then where exactly are they occuring.
I often restate a position, particularly if it is long after the position was stated, simply to make the argument coherent and intellligable without having to go searching through the entire thread. It is just a habit from trying to teach things that transfers well to this type of forum. I do, in many things agree with you, and I was making this clear. The point I was getting to was the separation of reality from facts, knowledge etc. due to our limitations as beings. Things not occuring in reality are occuring in our minds. It keeps coming back to the disagreement on the mind-brain identity theorem. You support it, I do not.
The mind is not real, in the sense that it is not something that exists independant of us. You define reality as being independant of our experience and existence, and then claim that the mind is real. How do you reconcile these contradictory positions?


Facts dont require perception. Indeed if there are no facts until we perceive them, there would be no facts to perceive.

See the paragraph of this post entitled facts.


Of course it is a perception because in order to know what I understand I need to percieve my understanding.

One does not percieve an understanding. What sense of perception would this be? One simply understands.
OK. When you perceive something, say by seeing it, what you perceive is a coloured field. This only becomes meaningful when you understand the perception. (This takes new born babies a few weeks or months to learn how to do apparently). Perception is only useful if it is understood.
Now you say that to understand something you have to percieve this understanding. If this were true we would be caught in an infinite regress ecvery time we looked at something, and we would never be able to make sense of our visual field.
Perception requires understanding which requires perception which requires understanding . . .
Sorry. The process stops at the first understanding. You believe that Queen Betty existed bcause you understand the marks that her potential reality have created in youe experience. You simply do not, in any way, perceive her existance.


No and you have already conceded that when we find out otherwise we dond conclude that 'the facts' (the current belief) has changed, rather we conclude that we were mistaken about the facts.

No they dont.

No it wasnt.

No it was a misrepresentation, mistakenly believed to be factual.

It wasnt a fact at the time.

Both exist independent of people.

Simply saying it is true is no argument. ;)
This now does not make a lot of sense, does it? Hence the reason I tend to repeat things that have already been said, by one party or another in my posts.
This was all you denying that facts are subjective. Again. See the paragraph entitled facts.


Our understanding of facts has changed, not the facts themselves, as pointed out you have already conceded that fact has a meaning entirely consistent with my use of the word and assertions about it. That it isnt your prefered meaning isnt relevent. I've used the word consistent with normative understandings in a manner that when the word is defined as I have intended, my assertions make sense.
Again, see facts above


Now you are trying to make fact and belief synomous, but they are not. People dont mean "I believe it" when they say "it is a fact", they mean that they believe it and that it is absolutely true. Fact is meant to refer to more than belief and/or popular belief.

OK. "It is a fact" is open to two interpretations. Yours: "I beleive it" & "It is absolutely true". Mine: "I believe it" & "I believe it to be absolutely true"
The difference her is in the second part of the conjunction. We agree that people believe facts. What we disagree about is the veracity of facts. What I would argue is that we have no means whatsoever for establishing the absolute truth. Under this restriction, if anything is to be a fact, this term can not be analysed the way you have analysed it. The second half of the conjunction will always be undefined, and as a result the conjunction will be undefined. The way I define it, allows us to have some meaning for the term.

Second point. Belief is not tied to reality. I am not, as I have said earlier in this post, trying to make fact and belief synonymous. Belief can be religious, facts are of a different nature. They depend upon external evidence, not just on faith.

You wish to use fact as synomonous with popular belief, why have two terms?
Why have the two terms fact and popular belief? Because they are different things. One, fact, depends upon evidence, the other, popular belief does not.
Do aliens exist? Fact: no-one knows. Popular belief: Yes (or perhaps no, but certainly not no-one knows)

No we wouldnt. This isnt newspeak ;) It would be doubleplusungood to remove every word that has a meaning that could be cross referenced to another words meaning. At any rate I am not using the words to mean the same thing. A fact is a discrete truth about reality, not the entirety of reality.

Your last sentance justifies the two terms. Fact is then, in your view, the noun derived from the adjective real.

Actually that is debatable and comes back to debates about verification, unless you construe fact to mean what most people dont mean when they use the word. That being the case we are left with a hole in language, since fact now means 'widely held opinion' whatever are we to use to refer to the thing we always thought we meant when we used the word?

Sorry it is not debatable that reality and fact have different connotations. We react differently to them. "It's real", and "It's a fact" are not equivalent in connotative terms. One implies an objective existence, the other implies a correlation to the truth.

"63% of all underwater palm trees have been cut down to make sea lanes"
"Is that a fact?"

makes sense

"63% of all underwater palm trees have been cut down to make sea lanes"
"Is that real?"

does not.



Why do facts have to vary from truth?
They do not. We just can not know if they do or not.



No I dont accept that people mean 'We know we cant ever know what really happened, so lets intentionally try for second best', I believe that they really mean that they will really try to find out what happened, regardless how achievable this actually is. That someone's aim isnt realistic doesnt make it not their aim.

Of course people do not say "let's try for second best", they say "Let's do the best we can." If these two happen to denote the same thing, then we do try for the second best. We aim to know the truth, science has done so for five hundred years in a row now. Science has also recognised for the last 100 years that we can not know the truth, so we do the best we can. (Heisenberg/Gödel et al.) We aim to discover as much as we can. We aim to produce elegant, but unverifiable basic theories. Elegance rather than truth has become the measure of theoretical physics.



Then it cannot be true that facts require our perception.
Red lighted, you jumped the gun. Read the rest of the paragraph this comes from



A fact isnt a filtering. If I say 'I want to know the facts' I dont mean that I want to know of your filtering.

Ok what is hot, what is red, what is dangerous, what is many? Every thing you know and percieve has been filtered by your mind. I am not talking about deliberate selection, I am talking about the way our minds work.
All perception is meaningless until we impose order on it using the mental concepts we have. Thes concepts define how we perceive the world, how we relate to it. You, liek me, see the world in a certain range of wavelengths of light. You like me divide these up into colours. You like me have different names for these colours, and we categorise what we see by these names. You see something as green, something else as blue. I will probably see them the same. Now for the surprise. Ancient greek does not have separate names for these two colours. They just had one name (which I don't know). For the greeks looking at a green thing and a blue thing, it would be factual to say that the two were the same colour. For us it would not. Facts are culturally filtered.
There is no such thing as unmediated perception. All is meduiated by our cultural values, our education, our way of categorising things. Facts are necessarily filtered by our own minds. You may not like it, but there is jackshit you can do about it.





No it doesnt always mean this. It is used to refer to all knowledge (however mistakenly) held by all humanity, I've heard it so used on more than one occassion.
Occasionally, yes, but I have always argued against it being meaningful in this sense.



As you have already conceded there are unknown facts, as in facts known by no person at all.
Wrong, I have not conceded that. I have conceded that there are potential facts not yet known. But these only become facts when they are known.
The facts are unknown, simply means that the facts do not exist yet. The truth exists, but the facts do not.



It is if we expand known to include all human knowledge, that it isnt all in one place doesnt mean that there isnt a sum total of it, and that there are facts which are not included in that sum total.
I specifiicaly said that we do not have universal consciousness. This eliminates the possibility you are proposing. We can not expand known, to mean more than is known by the individual speaking. This would mean that he or she was referring to something not known by themself as being known, which is contradictory itself. Choose your contradiction I suppose. I choose neither.



You dont have to agree, in fact it's not relevent to my argument. Since you know what I meant by the word you can ascertain the point I was communicating simply by translating it as you go.....

I can understand the argument, no problem. I disagree with it. That is the problem, and your argument depended upon your interpretation of the word fact. If you can restate it, without this dependency, then I can reconsider it.

Okay, I think you may have stepped to far out on a limb here...

Neither existance nor reality are dependent upon observation. Just because no one has observed space dust, beyond our capacity to currently observe doesn't have anything to do with whether or not it exists or is a part of reality. It is just unobservable to date and we have no way of knowing if it exists in reality or not, but that doesn't change whether or not it is there.

Am I making any sense here?

Yes you are making sense, but this is not the argument. Well, not the one between myself and Peopleandstuff. We boith agree with you. Willamena may well take issue with this though. She seems to hold that observation is necessary for reality to emerge from existence (Did I put that correctly, Willamena?)

Our disagreement is over things like imaginary beasts, minds, and other non physical (in my view) stuff.
I am arguing that these things exist, but are not real. They are not independant of awareness. Peopleandstuff is arguing that reality and existence are just two names for the same set and that everything is real.

Then there is a more important discussion on the status of facts. I argue that facts are our current justified beliefs about reality, and that this is the best we can do for now. Peeps is arguing that fact is the noun derived from real. That a fact just is a fact, independant of us, our perception and belief etc.

Okay, I think you may have stepped to far out on a limb here...

Neither existance nor reality are dependent upon observation. Just because no one has observed space dust, beyond our capacity to currently observe doesn't have anything to do with whether or not it exists or is a part of reality. It is just unobservable to date and we have no way of knowing if it exists in reality or not, but that doesn't change whether or not it is there.

Am I making any sense here?
Being conscious of things does not bring them into existence: its existence is not depedent upon observation. We agree there.

Being conscious of things is not what makes them real: we can be conscious of the content of imaginings knowing that they are not real. We agree there, too.

To use your example, just because no one has observed space dust does not mean it doesn't exist. We cannot say it is real, though, as in saying that we mean that we know it for sure.. we cannot pronounce it real until a consciousness has verified that is it so.

If we have no way of knowing if it exists in reality or not, how can we honestly say it is real? We hypothesize its existence.

"...whether or not it is there" refers to existence.

think of something absurd, the example my friends and i use is a purple elephant. this elephant dissapears everytime you search for it, but it is always there. it has no affect on anything else at all. it would exist, correct? but since it can't be observed by it's affects on any matter or energy, it's not real then? but that means it can't be proven to exist either so you can't prove something exists unless you know if it's real or not? is that about where we are in the discussion?

this is a great thread we have to have more like it.

Yes you are making sense, but this is not the argument. Well, not the one between myself and Peopleandstuff. We boith agree with you. Willamena may well take issue with this though. She seems to hold that observation is necessary for reality to emerge from existence (Did I put that correctly, Willamena?)
Ahh, no; I wouldn't say that. There is no "becoming" or "emerging" when talking about reality, except as a figure of speech. In my own parlance, reality is the subjective perspective on existence.

Being conscious of things does not bring them into existence: its existence is not depedent upon observation. We agree there.

Being conscious of things is not what makes them real: we can be conscious of the content of imaginings knowing that they are not real. We agree there, too.

To use your example, just because no one has observed space dust does not mean it doesn't exist. We cannot say it is real, though, as in saying that we mean that we know it for sure.. we cannot pronounce it real until a consciousness has verified that is it so.

If we have no way of knowing if it exists in reality or not, how can we honestly say it is real? We hypothesize its existence.

"...whether or not it is there" refers to existence.

Fairly reasonable. We can't pronounce something to be real or to exist without some form of personal experience with it, with much credibility, but what consititutes observation/personal experience? We are really looking at the nature of knowledge(our knowledge of reality/existance) more than discusing existance or reality aren't we?

What of hallucinations? They are observable to the person hallucinating. Does that make what the hallucinating individual perceives real? I'd say probably not, but I certainly can't prove it.

think of something absurd, the example my friends and i use is a purple elephant. this elephant dissapears everytime you search for it, but it is always there. it has no affect on anything else at all. it would exist, correct? but since it can't be observed by it's affects on any matter or energy, it's not real then? but that means it can't be proven to exist either so you can't prove something exists unless you know if it's real or not? is that about where we are in the discussion?

this is a great thread we have to have more like it.
Let's turn around a bit... let's imagine a purple elephant (or a large rabbit, if you prefer) that only one person can see. To everyone else this thing is intangible. But what if the effects of the immaterial elephant can be observed and measured by those who cannot see/feel/smell it. Should they then assume that it is real?

Yes you are making sense, but this is not the argument. Well, not the one between myself and Peopleandstuff. We boith agree with you. Willamena may well take issue with this though. She seems to hold that observation is necessary for reality to emerge from existence (Did I put that correctly, Willamena?)

Our disagreement is over things like imaginary beasts, minds, and other non physical (in my view) stuff.
I am arguing that these things exist, but are not real. They are not independant of awareness. Peopleandstuff is arguing that reality and existence are just two names for the same set and that everything is real.

Then there is a more important discussion on the status of facts. I argue that facts are our current justified beliefs about reality, and that this is the best we can do for now. Peeps is arguing that fact is the noun derived from real. That a fact just is a fact, independant of us, our perception and belief etc.

Interesting. Whether or not an "imaginary" thing exists or is real, depends only on your definition of and application of those words. Basically a semantical issue. I'd say the same is true of the word fact. Based on the definition I subscribe to, a fact is immutable. Of course that would make many things we consider to be facts, not actually facts. So then you end up with the arguement as to which definition of the word is most functional. Basically and endless discussion.

What of hallucinations? They are observable to the person hallucinating. Does that make what the hallucinating individual perceives real? I'd say probably not, but I certainly can't prove it.
This is what psychiatric types refer to as blurring the line between existence and reality, no?

Let's turn around a bit... let's imagine a purple elephant (or a large rabbit, if you prefer) that only one person can see. To everyone else this thing is intangible. But what if the effects of the immaterial elephant can be observed and measured by those who cannot see/feel/smell it. Should they then assume that it is real?

well, you could just call that person crazy and leave. but because of all the people that lie that there is something there, or have mental ilness, we wouldn't believe someone even if it actually was there.

Hehe. "Hypothetical" means based on an hypothesis, combining facts and reasonable speculation.

Hypotheses are imagined and then remain in a "hypothetical" state until such a time as a test is developed to demonstrate their reality; then they are tested and become proper theory.

how do you prove something noone is around to provide empirical evidence for?

Interesting. Whether or not an "imaginary" thing exists or is real, depends only on your definition of and application of those words. Basically a semantical issue. I'd say the same is true of the word fact. Based on the definition I subscribe to, a fact is immutable. Of course that would make many things we consider to be facts, not actually facts. So then you end up with the arguement as to which definition of the word is most functional. Basically and endless discussion.

Yep, it is endless. But fun anyway. It does have the benefit of making you question how you know what you know, and why you think that you know it though.

This is what psychiatric types refer to as blurring the line between existence and reality, no?

Pretty much yeah. The problem is that none of us can claim objectivity. We are all consciously or unconsciously biased by our life experience. As a result, any single human definition or collection of similar human definitions of reality is/are limited at best.

The only way for objective reality to be defined would be to have an omniscient individual define it.

Yep, it is endless. But fun anyway. It does have the benefit of making you question how you know what you know, and why you think that you know it though.

Just don't get lost in the maze and end up not having any grounding point.

Just don't get lost in the maze and end up not having any grounding point.

I have a little too much experience to still get caught that way. But good advice all the same, thank you. :)

how do you prove something noone is around to provide empirical evidence for?
You don't. Not as something real.

Pretty much yeah. The problem is that none of us can claim objectivity. We are all consciously or unconsciously biased by our life experience. As a result, any single human definition or collection of similar human definitions of reality is/are limited at best.

The only way for objective reality to be defined would be to have an omniscient individual define it.

And this only works if this omniscient individual has no perception restrictions in the sense of having direct awareness of reality, unmediated by the deforming process of sense perception. The knowledge would have to be innate, not acquired. The individual would have to be constantly aware of all changes of state in reality. Hum, it begins to sound like the awareness that could define reality is reality itself.

And this only works if this omniscient individual has no perception restrictions in the sense of having direct awareness of reality, unmediated by the deforming process of sense perception. The knowledge would have to be innate, not acquired. The individual would have to be constantly aware of all changes of state in reality. Hum, it begins to sound like the awareness that could define reality is reality itself.

Or at least its creator... ;)

Or at least its creator... ;)

I was sort of constucting an identification between the two concepts. Reality and the creator of reality. Self creating universes. :cool:

Reality is something you believe. Exsistence is something you do

Being conscious of things is not what makes them real: we can be conscious of the content of imaginings knowing that they are not real. We agree there, too... we cannot pronounce it real until a consciousness has verified that is it so.
What of hallucinations? They are observable to the person hallucinating. Does that make what the hallucinating individual perceives real? I'd say probably not, but I certainly can't prove it.
I'm no expert on such, or what the experience might be like, but my definition of reality ties it in with truth. In being 'verified existence' it is verified true, and verified to someone. For the hallucinating person that believes what he sees to be real and true, he can make the proclamation that it is real and true. This does not create reality --none of us do. Reality is not something we bring into being (see below).

The problem is that none of us can claim objectivity. We are all consciously or unconsciously biased by our life experience. As a result, any single human definition or collection of similar human definitions of reality is/are limited at best.

The only way for objective reality to be defined would be to have an omniscient individual define it.
Reality happens in the moment when consciousness, which has recognized existence, verifies for itself truth in what it perceives. Things that exist have a true existence, so for instance a hallucination is a true hallucination, but failing to recognize it as a hallucination would lead to believing the content viewed is true when it is not. As you said, that is one limitation of the human mind with a subjective bias.

Because of something Peoples said earlier, I have been struggling to decide if consciousness can be said to be the source of reality. I think not. Consciousness is the source of concepts, and certainly we have a concept of reality to hold in our minds, but that's not really the reality that I am talking about in these discussions. I see reality as a perspective on existence, and perspective is not a thing we conceive in our minds, like we do ideas; it is a result of perceiving the world in and around us. Our viewpoint simply is, because consciousness is... In that sense, reality is objectively real (perhaps the only thing that truely is).

I was sort of constucting an identification between the two concepts. Reality and the creator of reality. Self creating universes. :cool:


IMO they can't be completely seperated, but I view all that exists as having its existance dependent in an ongoing manner on that which created it. Though that is not the only possible conclusion, it is the one I personally subscribe to.

Reality is something you believe. Exsistence is something you do

Excuse me while I existence. I believe that Chelsea will beat Barcelona tomorrow, ergo Chelsea beating Barcelona will be reality. (I hope it will be, but as of the moment it is not real in any way)
No, existence and reality are both nouns, the question is whether they denote the same thing (or set of things).

I'm no expert on such, or what the experience might be like, but my definition of reality ties it in with truth. In being 'verified existence' it is verified true, and verified to someone. For the hallucinating person that believes what he sees to be real and true, he can make the proclamation that it is real and true. This does not create reality --none of us do. Reality is not something we bring into being (see below).


Reality happens in the moment when consciousness, which has recognized existence, verifies for itself truth in what it perceives. Things that exist have a true existence, so for instance a hallucination is a true hallucination, but failing to recognize it as a hallucination would lead to believing the content viewed is true when it is not. As you said, that is one limitation of the human mind with a subjective bias.

Because of something Peoples said earlier, I have been struggling to decide if consciousness can be said to be the source of reality. I think not. Consciousness is the source of concepts, and certainly we have a concept of reality to hold in our minds, but that's not really the reality that I am talking about in these discussions. I see reality as a perspective on existence, and perspective is not a thing we conceive in our minds, like we do ideas; it is a result of perceiving the world in and around us. Our viewpoint simply is, because consciousness is... In that sense, reality is objectively real (perhaps the only thing that truely is).

Okay, now you confused me. Unfortunately, I don't have time to stick around and sort it out. Have a good evening/morning/afternoon/night, whatever it is where you are.

PR

I'm no expert on such, or what the experience might be like, but my definition of reality ties it in with truth. In being 'verified existence' it is verified true, and verified to someone. For the hallucinating person that believes what he sees to be real and true, he can make the proclamation that it is real and true. This does not create reality --none of us do. Reality is not something we bring into being (see below).

I would still like to know how this verification works. Does it depend upon corrporation. The recogniton by another of the validity of your experience?

Reality happens in the moment when consciousness, which has recognized existence, verifies for itself truth in what it perceives. Things that exist have a true existence, so for instance a hallucination is a true hallucination, but failing to recognize it as a hallucination would lead to believing the content viewed is true when it is not. As you said, that is one limitation of the human mind with a subjective bias.

OK, a little more confused now. What consciousness is it that verifies for itself the truth? How does it do this? Up to now a verificationist view of truth could have been held, in the sense that if I saw it as red X, and she says that she saw it as red X, and they say that they saw it as red X, then I am justified in saying that, in truth, it is red X. How would I recognize, just with my own consciousness that the green X I saw was an illusion/hallucination. That it was only a true illusion/hallucination of green X rather than a true green X

What would be a false existence? Unless this makes sense, adding the term true to existence is adding nothing.

Because of something Peoples said earlier, I have been struggling to decide if consciousness can be said to be the source of reality. I think not. Consciousness is the source of concepts, and certainly we have a concept of reality to hold in our minds, but that's not really the reality that I am talking about in these discussions. I see reality as a perspective on existence, and perspective is not a thing we conceive in our minds, like we do ideas; it is a result of perceiving the world in and around us. Our viewpoint simply is, because consciousness is... In that sense, reality is objectively real (perhaps the only thing that truely is).

OK our view of reality is mediated by our minds. This is a theme I have been arguing with Peopleandstuff. She wants to claim that facts correspond to reality, I claim that facts are mediated beliefs about reality (all very long winded) Reality is objective, but unknowable, in my conception of this. Our viewpoint, the mediation through which we contact reality can change, but it can not be removed. Scientific instruments extend and expand our perceptive range, but the understanding still passes through our concept mesh in our minds.

So what then exists without us? Nothing. If this is the case, how did the first conscious beings come to be?
CORRECT!
If I am not here than nothing exists. We all deal only in our own reality. Our reality changes from instant to instant based on our awareness, our experience, and our beliefs.

As far as consciousness coming into being...
That's going to depend on what you believe. If you are a spiritualist, then you are going to need to believe that some First Cause started the chain of events that caused the first sentient being to say "I am". If you are not, then you will need to believe that natural selection caused the proper conditions for an evolutionary mutation to brought about consciousness as a survival trait.

Vandervecken']CORRECT!
If I am not here than nothing exists. We all deal only in our own reality. Our reality changes from instant to instant based on our awareness, our experience, and our beliefs.

As far as consciousness coming into being...
That's going to depend on what you believe. If you are a spiritualist, then you are going to need to believe that some First Cause started the chain of events that caused the first sentient being to say "I am". If you are not, then you will need to believe that natural selection caused the proper conditions for an evolutionary mutation to brought about consciousness as a survival trait.

Ah, a pure solipsist. What are you doing posting on a public forum? The world is real only as you perceive it to be. If you am not perceiving it, then it is not real. Who, then is typing this? It is not you, it is me. I am real, I know myself to be real, by your standards as I perceive myself to exist. However, you do not perceive me to exist. You just perceive these images on the computer screen in front of you. So what created them? Or are you just schizophrenic and arguing against your own expressed belief?

Why did Sartre ever write anything?

<snip>

Why did Sartre ever write anything?
To make money and get laid?

To make money and get laid?

:headbang: Now why didn't I think of that ;)

Excuse me while I existence.
Is "to be" not a verb? Is our existence not defined by a state of being?

I never really thought of it before, but why isn't it a verb?

Okay, now you confused me. Unfortunately, I don't have time to stick around and sort it out. Have a good evening/morning/afternoon/night, whatever it is where you are.

PR
Sorry, I should have just stuck to defining it through the terms of metaphysics.

Is "to be" not a verb? Is our existence not defined by a state of being?

I never really thought of it before, but why isn't it a verb?

Existence is a noun. To exist is the verb.
Being may also be a noun, so "existence is defined by our state of being" becomes "<NP1> is defined by <NP2>" (NP being a noun phrase).

If existence was not a noun, then your starting phrase, "existence exists", would have been gramatically unsound, which it is not.

Existing is either the present participle of to exist or an adjective.
Existing for ever would be boring. (verb).
The existing information we have ... (adjective).

OK. (Grammar is no fun, but at times it is useful.)

Ah, a pure solipsist. What are you doing posting on a public forum? The world is real only as you perceive it to be. If you am not perceiving it, then it is not real. Who, then is typing this? It is not you, it is me. I am real, I know myself to be real, by your standards as I perceive myself to exist. However, you do not perceive me to exist. You just perceive these images on the computer screen in front of you. So what created them? Or are you just schizophrenic and arguing against your own expressed belief?

Why did Sartre ever write anything?

Not at all. I indicated that my reality, (and yours for that fact), is based upon awareness, (I am aware that you exist because I see your words), experience, (in my experience, words do not take it upon themselves to form ideas), and beliefs, (I believe that people exist that I have never met, and so am capable of admitting that you are real).

A solipist would be interested in this thread only for the audience, not for the interaction.

Schizophrenic? Only to the point where I can see my mistakes and admit when I am wrong.

Vandervecken']CORRECT!
If I am not here than nothing exists. We all deal only in our own reality. Our reality changes from instant to instant based on our awareness, our experience, and our beliefs.

Ah, a pure solipsist. What are you doing posting on a public forum?
Vandervecken']Not at all. I indicated that my reality, (and yours for that fact), is based upon awareness, (I am aware that you exist because I see your words), experience, (in my experience, words do not take it upon themselves to form ideas), and beliefs, (I believe that people exist that I have never met, and so am capable of admitting that you are real).

The first quote and the second quote of your posts are contradictory. "If I am not here, then nothing exists" is not the same as "my reality is based upon awareness".
In the first the awareness is specified as being yours. no other awareness has this power of defining reality, just yours. Now this is a definition of solipsism.
The second post awareness has been generalised. This is contradictory to the first.You can choose solipsism or idealism but you can not have both.

The reality changes according to your awareness, experience and belief. You have no awareness of me, you have no experience of me, you can have no justified beliefs about me. Beliefs you can have of course, but I am sure that ungrounded beliefs are not the type that you wish to bring in to this discussion. If you were to then reality just becomes whatever you believe it to be. So I can be no part of your reality, as a solipsist. The text I write can have, but you have can have no justified belief that this is actually being written by another being. If you want to believe that I, my computer and all the rest of the things around me that are real, but of which you have no awareness, experience or belief, are real. then you have to discard your first position.
In your second position you state that you believe that people exist that you have never met. How did you come by this belief? Your definition of reality denies that people you have never met are real.

I would still like to know how this verification works. Does it depend upon corrporation. The recogniton by another of the validity of your experience?
My fingers rest lightly on the keyboard infront of me; it is real. Behind me I can hear the cat munching on hard food; that's real. For the existence of things, a simple sensory verification determines the reality of its existence. I suppose verification can be more complex and involving other opinions. What verification method depends on how much knowledge a consciousness needs to be presented with before it reaches a point of trust in the validity of reality.

OK, a little more confused now. What consciousness is it that verifies for itself the truth? How does it do this? Up to now a verificationist view of truth could have been held, in the sense that if I saw it as red X, and she says that she saw it as red X, and they say that they saw it as red X, then I am justified in saying that, in truth, it is red X. How would I recognize, just with my own consciousness that the green X I saw was an illusion/hallucination. That it was only a true illusion/hallucination of green X rather than a true green X.
Not "the truth" but "truth in what it perceives" (belief). If you see something and recognize it as red X, you have no reason to doubt that it is red X until someone comes along and says, "Hey! Look at that nice green X." Its true nature is not significant until that moment; until that moment, it *is* red X for you. If I understand the meaning of a hallucination correctly, there is no way for a mind to distinguish the unreality of it; therefore, to that individual, it is real.

OK our view of reality is mediated by our minds. This is a theme I have been arguing with Peopleandstuff. She wants to claim that facts correspond to reality, I claim that facts are mediated beliefs about reality (all very long winded) Reality is objective, but unknowable, in my conception of this. Our viewpoint, the mediation through which we contact reality can change, but it can not be removed. Scientific instruments extend and expand our perceptive range, but the understanding still passes through our concept mesh in our minds.
The view can change, but our viewpoint cannot change. We change position in the world, but the subjective viewpoint (from our perspective) remains a constant. To change that, we would have to somehow be able to put our consciousness into someone else, like telepaths on science fiction shows.

"Our view of reality is mediated by the mind." I like that wording, thanks. The mind is the medium to see (understand) reality.

Existence is a noun. To exist is the verb.
Being may also be a noun, so "existence is defined by our state of being" becomes "<NP1> is defined by <NP2>" (NP being a noun phrase).

If existence was not a noun, then your starting phrase, "existence exists", would have been gramatically unsound, which it is not.

Existing is either the present participle of to exist or an adjective.
Existing for ever would be boring. (verb).
The existing information we have ... (adjective).

OK. (Grammar is no fun, but at times it is useful.)
Ah, got it. To be in a state != a state of being (grammatically).

reality is only as u perceive it to be but ur perceprion isnt always reality therefore itis an endless argument that only ends where u perceive which might still not be reality making all things false and just a state of mind :) i feel smart

The first quote and the second quote of your posts are contradictory. "If I am not here, then nothing exists" is not the same as "my reality is based upon awareness".
Only technically correct, if you leave a room are you aware of events occuring inside? If you are not present then the events occuring are not part of your awareness unless another agent brings them to your attention.

In the first the awareness is specified as being yours. no other awareness has this power of defining reality, just yours. Now this is a definition of solipsism.
The second post awareness has been generalised. This is contradictory to the first.You can choose solipsism or idealism but you can not have both.
True, this is the definition of solipsism. In the first post I was speaking of myself, and I DO define my own reality by my awareness, experience and beliefs. Are you saying that you do not? Perhaps you have another method of defining reality.
The reality changes according to your awareness, experience and belief. You have no awareness of me, you have no experience of me, you can have no justified beliefs about me. Beliefs you can have of course, but I am sure that ungrounded beliefs are not the type that you wish to bring in to this discussion...
Ah, but I do have awareness of you. Your ideas reach across the planet painting themselves as words across my screen. The words do not form ideas by themselves. I have faith in the instrumentality that carries these words. I have the ability to deduce your existance from the patterns your ideas form. We are all essentially solipsists, there is much in the world that is not real to us becase it has not touched us. There is much that we do not know is real, but that does not mean that we are incapable of grasping that these things are real when they present themselves to us.

What kind of thing is it a perception of? A real thing, something that exists indeoendent of us as being conscious.
Depends on what you mean by conciousness, is dreaming a form of consiousness? Either way there is no requirement that something percieved be percieved independently of conciousness.

I can not see how this would work.
That's because you are interjecting an utterly unnecessary qualification. What has independent of conciousness got to do with perception?

Hunger existing independant of the awareness that feels this hunger does not make much sense to me.
Of course it doesnt, but what has independent of conciousness got to do with perception. I know of no meaning of perception that requires what is being percieved to be independent of conciousness.

If you want to be mechanistic, and describe our feelings and emotions as being epiphenomena on some mechanistic causal sequence, then maybe the perception is the perception of this causal relationship. I however, do not see emotion and desire as being epiphenomena. I see them as being mental causes in themselves. They have effects on us, but are not part of an external reality. They, like dreams, are entirely and completely subjective. They exist, but are not real.
They are real. Of course they are real. Realness doesnt require an absense of conciousness, nor can realness only stem from those things that are independent of conciousness. Why on should it?

It is one of the fundamental questions of epistemology, and many people believe that they have answered it. In each case only to be shown that they have in some way begged the question.
Exactly.

I can describe the criteria by which we categorise phenomena as objective and subjective, regardless of the necessary fact that all phenomena are at their root subjective.
One of these is the concept of reality. This is that set of phenomena that we have god reason to believe that others experience in the same way that we do.
Perhaps that is your concept of what reality means, in which case we are left without a word to mean what I mean by reality.

What are called external stimulae have temporal continuity, agreement in the description of them between individuals etc. What are called internal stimulae, imagination, emotion, dreams etc. we have no evidence that others experience these in the same way that we do. What we have is the external stimulae of their behaviour. But our own internal experience of the phenomena of acting and dissimulation prevent hard behaviourism from being a credible position.
None of this explains why everything that really happens isnt part of reality and real. It simply seems to me that you are defining reality to mean a subset of those things I define to be reality, and your only rational for this is that we cant confirm how people experiance these things. But we cant confirm if other people's experiances are the same as ours at all. The fact that people describe things the same way, may be a result of language. After all the thing that reality is a symbol for so far as you are concerned is not the thing it is a symbol for so far as I am concerned. That people appear to agree may simply be a by-product of habits formed around language. However 2 people percieve 'blue' they are both in the habit of referring to their particular perception as 'blue' and so both imagine they percieve the same thing, and perhaps they do percieve the same thing, or not.


You selectively quoted and left out the acknowledgement of the possibility of there being a mind - brain identity.
I didnt selectivley quote, (I certainly did not edit anything out intentionally, but my mouse is crappy and sometimes when I'm trying to insert quotes using the highlight feature, I end wiping them out instead.).

You also excluded my reasons against this. I have already addressed this point. The mind is not the brain, nor is it simply the electrochemical activity in the brain, from my point of view. This is, of course, one more big philosophical discussion, and there are strong arguments on both sides. The following is from my side of this argument.
I'm not convinced that I accept that our minds are anything other than our brains, and since reality is a word coined and used independently of your theory, reality's meaning must also be independent of your particular theory. If your meaning of reality requires your theory to be true, then your meaning of reality is not what is meant by reality. Language functions via convention.

The mind, has no location. It is not a substance or field to be located in space. So no, my mind is not in my body. To caim this is to make a category mistake. It is like saying that the number 7 exists just outside Kentucky. If you go there, and demolish it, the numbers will be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 ,9, etc
17 of course would still exist as that is buried at the bottom of a gold mine in South Africa. This makes no sense. Numbers are not material things, they are concepts, ideas, even some would claim beliefs. Now the mind is a collection of these things. It is not a material existence it is a network of memories, ideas, beliefs, desires ec. all interconnected and causally effective on each other. There are physical reflections of the current state of this abstract construct, and these are the patterns of activity in the brain. Note that I say the pattern of activity, not the activity itself. These patterns exist in reality, but if you destroy the pattern you do not destroy the mind. The patterns can re-establish itself on another portion of the substrate that is the brain. (Check neurological trauma records for evidence of this happening)
Now where does the pattern exist. Not at any particular location, It is not real. Just any single instance of that patttern has reality. The pattern itself simply exists. The mind exists, but is not real.
I disagree with your theory. I note the word reality exists indendently of your theory, and so I suggest that your theory and the word reality are independent of each other unless and until you can prove your theory. So far as I am concerned your mind (and mine) is a result of brain function and so that's where your mind exists, inside your brain. Destroy the brain, destroy the mind.

True. I never used them as such. They are not however mutually inclusive either. The real is a subset of the existing.
No the existing is a subset of the reality. Things that no longer exist are still form part of reality. The fact that Alexander Bell no longer exists as Alexander Bell doesnt make him not part of reality, the fact that I often use a telephone indicates to me that the reality of Alexander Bell is continuous.

Exists yes, is real, not necessarily, it may be.
However it appears the concept you have tagged to the symbol real, is at odds with the concept that is normatively meant by shared convention. When you say real, it appears you actually mean something other than what is conventionally meant by real, so in fact you dont mean real at all.

Real love is meaningless. What would unreal love be?
Love that isnt really love.

To determine if the addition of a qualifier has any meaning, try negating the qualifier. Love exists, people feel it, suffer from it, desire it etc. It is not, and can not be, however real. It is subjective, not objective.
Of course it is real, it has real tangible effects, there are apparantly real processes occuring in the brain that can be measurered, and it has real impact within reality.

It may be that real can be used here in the sense of "not fake" in the sense of genuine. But this is a value judgement, and no reflection of objectivity. Please do not slide between two different meanings of the same word. Real (as it has been used in this discussion up to here) is opposed to unreal, real as in real love is opposed to fake. Fake things exist objectively, a fafe diamond is still part of reality, it is real in the sense we have been using the word.
I mean real as in not unreal, it is what it is. Love is what it is. If it is it is real. This is the same definition I have used throughout. I realise you dont agree with it, but that doesnt justify an accusation of sliding definition. The only definition I have employed for real of course includes love because love really exists.

We are simply arguing definitions here. You are insisting that real means the same as exist, and I m denying this. I have given examples of the normal usage of real (in this meaning) and of the motivation for us to have a distinction between reality and existence. You keep going back to saying that it is not like that.
Which is pretty much as you have being doing. I have given examples completely consistent with what I mean when I say real, and your response is that this isnt so, and alternative examples for an alternative definition.

Yes your cat is a real cat. My imagined person is not a real imaginary thing. That is a contradiction, It is either a real thing, like your cat, or it is imaginary, like my person.
According to your definition, which appears no more sound than my own. I see no reason why I should substitute your meaning of real for my own, when you have failed to establish a good reason for my doing so.

Both exist. (Actually, if I am just imagining that I could imagine a person, I am not sure if that person exists or whether it is just the imagination of that person that exists. My head hurts :eek: ) Hence existence is not coincedent with reality.
As I have pointed out, many English speakers I knows believe that if you say real, the meaning is 'truely existing' as opposed to not existing. I see no reason to ignore this normal conventional definition.

This again depends upon there being a difference between reality and existence. The concept of real, as depending on rational minds, is Willamena's not mine, so I will let her deal with that part. In this respect I agree with you. That reality is independant of rationality. However, with respect to rational minds being part of the universe, I would say it depends on how you define universe. My definition, the one that I use in my thinking, is that the universe is all that exists. In this case rational minds are part of the universe, as are concepts and abstract ideas. They are not however part of reality.
Well this is clearly where we depart ways. I believe that all existing things and things that have existed are part of reality. Reality to me is all of everything. That is the purpose of the word. May I ask (out of curiosity) what word you use to refer to all of everything that exists, and has existed, or does your linguistic symbolism system require you to go about it the long way (ie via description involving more than one word, rather than a one word symbol)

Again you use the two concepts, existence and reality as interchangeable and equivalent, when they are not, as I have explained.
I dont have them as interchangable, existence is a subset of reality, it refers to the 'now' part of reality, whereas reality is the sum of all existence that has ever been and currently is.

"The facts that the Bumbwanian Government are presenting to this meeting are false" would have to be meaningless if facts were the truth. It is not meaningless, ergo facts are not the truth.

It is a different use of the word fact, your assertion here is no more salient than my own example of the use of fact 'everyone was wrong about the facts'. Either only one of these can be meaningful, (your example or mine) or both are meaningful and fact has more than one use. I suggest the latter and again point out that my use is the use whereby the assertion 'everyone in the world mistakenly believed it was a fact' has meaning. That there are other uses/meanings for the word should cause no confusion once I have clarified my particular use in a particular context, and I have. Attempting to say that what I am communicating is incorrect because you insist on interpreting a word that has more than one meaning, to mean one of the meanings that wouldnt make sense, doesnt change the fact that what I am saying does make sense if you interpret the word to mean the conventional meaning that I have made clear I am using. Surely what I am attempting to communicate is more important than the symbols used, provding those symbols can mean what I am intending to communicate, and in this case fact has such a meaning as would render my comments meaningful and true. To insist on restricting it's use to another meaning that renders my comments untrue or meaningless, is unproductive.

There is however as trong connection between fact and truth, and this connection is belief. A fact is what is currently believed to be the truth. As beliefs change so the facts change. The truth does not. How am I not making sense?
You are not making sense because although we both know that words can have more than one meaning, and although you have not proven that the meaning I am giving to facts, isnt a normative conventional meaning, you insist on ignoring that meaning. This is like me saying 'get that head of cabbage over there' doesnt make sense because heads are the things that belong on necks...

FACTS
I have accepted that, but I too am using it in an everyday sense, one that is different to yours.
No you are attempting to say that what I am communicating is untrue because there are other meanings to the symbol fact, as though those other meanings render my communication nonsense. I am using a proper conventional meaning of the word, that there are other meanings, doesnt render what I say incorrect, any more than the other uses for the word 'head' renders the assertion 'that is a head of cabbage' incorrect.

What we have to do is decide which meaning we are going to use in this discussion for the term "fact". I argue that we do not need it to mean the same as truth, as we can use the term "truth" for that. We do need a term that describes something that has the status of being believed to be true of reality. Just belief will not suffice as a belief does not have to refer to reality, it can refer to simple existence. I propose we use fact to mean this. This actually coincides with its most normal usage in English.
I have already invited you to translate any occurance of 'fact' with whatever word/phrase symbolises what I am referring to when I use the word.

I often restate a position, particularly if it is long after the position was stated, simply to make the argument coherent and intellligable without having to go searching through the entire thread. It is just a habit from trying to teach things that transfers well to this type of forum. I do, in many things agree with you, and I was making this clear. The point I was getting to was the separation of reality from facts, knowledge etc.
I dont think your point can make any sense until you have made sense of my point. My point isnt the meaning of the word fact, it is the quality of certain things which the word is a conventional symbol for, and until what I mean by the word can be communicated to you, you cant really know what my point is.

due to our limitations as beings. Things not occuring in reality are occuring in our minds. It keeps coming back to the disagreement on the mind-brain identity theorem. You support it, I do not.
Well I point out that reality so far as I know is a term used by many people who firmly believe the mind is in the brain, so clearly normative use of the word by such people cannot mean what you state it means if such a meaning requires belief in your theory.

The mind is not real, in the sense that it is not something that exists independant of us. You define reality as being independant of our experience and existence, and then claim that the mind is real. How do you reconcile these contradictory positions?
I dont claim the two are independent of each other, but rather that reality isnt dependent on conciousness. This is no more contradictory than claiming the sea isnt dependent on whales. Again this is a matter of ignoring a meaning of a word in favour of a meaning that renders my comments meaningless or contradictory. When I clearly mean 'independent' in the sense of 'not requiring to function' it is disengenious to pretend that 'independent' only can mean 'not related in any way'. Reality doesnt require our conciousness, that doesnt mean the two are completely unconnected.

See the paragraph of this post entitled facts.
One does not percieve an understanding. What sense of perception would this be? One simply understands.
OK. When you perceive something, say by seeing it, what you perceive is a coloured field. This only becomes meaningful when you understand the perception. (This takes new born babies a few weeks or months to learn how to do apparently). Perception is only useful if it is understood.
This is another case of ignoring a meaning that is conventional (and so correct as per language function) in favour of a meaning that would render my comments nonsense. In fact a quick look at a dictionary gives as a meaning for perception
"to apprehend with the mind; understand"
Ignoring such a meaning when that is the meaning I intend, is a disengenious way of attempting to prove my comments wrong.

Now you say that to understand something you have to percieve this understanding. If this were true we would be caught in an infinite regress ecvery time we looked at something, and we would never be able to make sense of our visual field.
Perception requires understanding which requires perception which requires understanding . . .
Sorry. The process stops at the first understanding. You believe that Queen Betty existed bcause you understand the marks that her potential reality have created in youe experience. You simply do not, in any way, perceive her existance.
As pointed out, you are trying to restrict the word to only one of it's legitimate definitions.

This now does not make a lot of sense, does it? Hence the reason I tend to repeat things that have already been said, by one party or another in my posts.
This was all you denying that facts are subjective. Again. See the paragraph entitled facts.
Nothing makes sense if you insist on applying only the legitimate definitions that render something senseless rather than the equally legitimate definitions that are consistent with the comments you are interpreting.

Again, see facts above
OK. "It is a fact" is open to two interpretations. Yours: "I beleive it" & "It is absolutely true". Mine: "I believe it" & "I believe it to be absolutely true"
The difference her is in the second part of the conjunction. We agree that people believe facts. What we disagree about is the veracity of facts.
No I believe that people believe that something they think is a fact is so because it is true.

What I would argue is that we have no means whatsoever for establishing the absolute truth. Under this restriction, if anything is to be a fact, this term can not be analysed the way you have analysed it.
No, under my definition we cant necessarily know that what we believe to be a fact is a fact.

The second half of the conjunction will always be undefined, and as a result the conjunction will be undefined. The way I define it, allows us to have some meaning for the term.
Second point. Belief is not tied to reality. I am not, as I have said earlier in this post, trying to make fact and belief synonymous. Belief can be religious, facts are of a different nature. They depend upon external evidence, not just on faith.
If what people believe to be true is a fact even if it is not true, then indeed belief and fact become synomonous, belief can be religious and many who believe religious things take such things as being facts. Those who believe in God, are certain God is a fact, just as those who believed the earth is flat, are certain the earth is, always was and always will be flat. Whether or not the belief is religious or scientific doesnt make it not a belief.

Why have the two terms fact and popular belief? Because they are different things. One, fact, depends upon evidence, the other, popular belief does not.
Do aliens exist? Fact: no-one knows. Popular belief: Yes (or perhaps no, but certainly not no-one knows)
Popular belief can be based on 'evidence', for example the once popular belief that the earth is flat, a belief that according to you was once a fact.

Your last sentance justifies the two terms. Fact is then, in your view, the noun derived from the adjective real.
No fact is truth arising from real.

Sorry it is not debatable that reality and fact have different connotations. We react differently to them. "It's real", and "It's a fact" are not equivalent in connotative terms. One implies an objective existence, the other implies a correlation to the truth.
Truth is objective, it is our views of truth that are subjective. 'It's real', if 'it' is 'real' is a fact about something and it's status with regards to being real.

"63% of all underwater palm trees have been cut down to make sea lanes"
"Is that a fact?"
It may be a description of a fact. You cant talk or word a fact, our words our means of communicating what we believe to be facts. The facts are truths about the things that are and the words we use to describe a fact are simply our closest means of communicating them.

makes sense

"63% of all underwater palm trees have been cut down to make sea lanes"
"Is that real?"

does not.
Hang on why would replacing a noun with an adjective necessarily make sense, since that is what you have posited as begin your understanding of my comments.

They do not. We just can not know if they do or not.
They dont ever vary from the truth, if you accord the word 'fact' with the legitimate meaning that I am according the word, they might if you accord another meaning to the word, but why would you do so, if it is clear that the other meaning is not the meaning I am employing? Why ignore a legitimate meaning of the word that makes sense when applied to my comments, in favour of an alternative legitimate meaning that doesnt make sense. Doing so doesnt make my comments any less true or correct, it doesnt change the concept I intend to communicate, it simply pretends that such a concept doesnt exist, when clearly if I am thinking the concept, it does exist.


Of course people do not say "let's try for second best", they say "Let's do the best we can." If these two happen to denote the same thing, then we do try for the second best. We aim to know the truth, science has done so for five hundred years in a row now. Science has also recognised for the last 100 years that we can not know the truth, so we do the best we can. (Heisenberg/Gödel et al.) We aim to discover as much as we can. We aim to produce elegant, but unverifiable basic theories. Elegance rather than truth has become the measure of theoretical physics.
That doesnt change what is meant when people use the word. Most people are not familiar with Heisenberg/Godel et al, so clearly they dont mean anything dependent on knowledge of such people's theories. In fact many people have never considered the extent to which we can verify and know, it is entirely common for people to believe that science is 'all knowing' and such people commonly use the word fact accordingly.

Red lighted, you jumped the gun. Read the rest of the paragraph this comes from
Makes no difference to my comments.

Ok what is hot, what is red, what is dangerous, what is many? Every thing you know and percieve has been filtered by your mind. I am not talking about deliberate selection, I am talking about the way our minds work.
Aha, I'm aware of these things, but I am not using the word fact a symbol for a definition that requires that we ever know 'facts' in their 'raw state', their 'unfiltered state'. That's my whole point. There is such a thing/s that isnt false, that is true, regardless of our filtering, and that thing/s is what I am using the word fact to refer to. But you are ignoring this legitimate definition in favour of a definition that supports your assertion that I am incorrect.

All perception is meaningless until we impose order on it using the mental concepts we have. Thes concepts define how we perceive the world, how we relate to it. You, liek me, see the world in a certain range of wavelengths of light. You like me divide these up into colours. You like me have different names for these colours, and we categorise what we see by these names. You see something as green, something else as blue. I will probably see them the same. Now for the surprise. Ancient greek does not have separate names for these two colours. They just had one name (which I don't know).
No surprise to me (although I wasnt aware that the ancient Greek culture particularly didnt have discrete terms for both blue and green), I am well aware that not every culture does have discrete terms for the colours that our own identifies and gives symbols to.

For the greeks looking at a green thing and a blue thing, it would be factual to say that the two were the same colour. For us it would not. Facts are culturally filtered.
No it would be factual to say that they had the same terminology for the colour of a blue thing and a green thing.

There is no such thing as unmediated perception.
I'm not suggesting their is, but rather that facts (as I am using the symbol in this context) are things that exist as they exist, regardless of our perception.

All is meduiated by our cultural values, our education, our way of categorising things. Facts are necessarily filtered by our own minds. You may not like it, but there is jackshit you can do about it.
Facts are the things that we filter, not the product of such filtering.

Occasionally, yes, but I have always argued against it being meaningful in this sense.
Meaning (of words) is a shared convention. You may disagree with the convention, but the meaning is whatever the convention is, that's how language functions.

Wrong, I have not conceded that. I have conceded that there are potential facts not yet known. But these only become facts when they are known.
The facts are unknown, simply means that the facts do not exist yet. The truth exists, but the facts do not.
Such a position requires a certain definition be applied to the word fact, but it doesnt negate an alternative legitimate definition of the word fact and comments made using it illegitimate of wrong. You are challenging my position, and to do so legitimately, you need to address my position, rather than a straw man built out of ignoring legitimate definitions of a word.

I specifiicaly said that we do not have universal consciousness. This eliminates the possibility you are proposing.
Things need not be gathered altogether for there to be a sum total of those things.

We can not expand known, to mean more than is known by the individual speaking. This would mean that he or she was referring to something not known by themself as being known, which is contradictory itself. Choose your contradiction I suppose. I choose neither.
No it doesnt. The fact that I dont know something doesnt mean it is unknown. Known isnt necessarily self referenced. I know that many people know things I dont know, I even often have some notion as to the kind of things that they have knowledge about that I dont. For instance I dont know how to build a tv, it isnt a contradiction for me to say that the method of building a tv isnt unknown to human beings, even though it is unknown to some human beings. Anything known by anyone is something that is known, and thus not unknown.

I can understand the argument, no problem. I disagree with it. That is the problem, and your argument depended upon your interpretation of the word fact. If you can restate it, without this dependency, then I can reconsider it.
How am I to restate it if you insist on interpreting words with a definition that isnt the legitimate definition I was intending for them. I am simply making it clear that there are things which are true, whether we know them or not. I call those things facts because it is a legitimate conventional meaning of the word, you reject/ignore that meaning and replace it with one which is equally legitimate and then pretend that it is the only definition. But it's not...

I cant work out if the pain in my head is brain or tumour growth ;)

think of something absurd, the example my friends and i use is a purple elephant. this elephant dissapears everytime you search for it, but it is always there. it has no affect on anything else at all. it would exist, correct? but since it can't be observed by it's affects on any matter or energy, it's not real then? but that means it can't be proven to exist either so you can't prove something exists unless you know if it's real or not? is that about where we are in the discussion?
If you are looking for the purple elephant, then it has an effect, the effect is your looking (for it). This is why it is real, because if it were unreal, how could it have a real effect (the effect of you choosing to, and then actually, looking for it)?

this is a great thread we have to have more like it.
;) In reality, as a matter of fact, I really agree. ;)

Vandervecken']Only technically correct, if you leave a room are you aware of events occuring inside? If you are not present then the events occuring are not part of your awareness unless another agent brings them to your attention.
Hume's famous staircase. When I think philosophically about this, then no I am not aware of even the continued existence of the contents of the room. In practice though, I don't care about this, and trreat these contents as having continuous existence. The same aplies to heresay for events.

Vandervecken']True, this is the definition of solipsism. In the first post I was speaking of myself, and I DO define my own reality by my awareness, experience and beliefs. Are you saying that you do not? Perhaps you have another method of defining reality.
Yes I do have another method. I define reality as being that that exists independent of my beliefs and ideas. Of course, I have no access to this reality. It is noumenal, to follow Kant. Our definitions appear to be diametricaly opposed. I am a realist, in the sense that I believe that there is a reality, that there exists something beyond us and our minds. Your definition is purely idealist. What makes something real is the minds that are aware of it.
Vandervecken']Ah, but I do have awareness of you. Your ideas reach across the planet painting themselves as words across my screen. The words do not form ideas by themselves. I have faith in the instrumentality that carries these words. I have the ability to deduce your existance from the patterns your ideas form. We are all essentially solipsists, there is much in the world that is not real to us becase it has not touched us. There is much that we do not know is real, but that does not mean that we are incapable of grasping that these things are real when they present themselves to us.
Being a realist, my ideas are not me. You only have awareness of my ideas, well, not even that, you have an awareness of my ideas mediated by the medium of transmission, the language used, and the concept set that you have in your mind. Those ideas that you have an awareness of, are clearly not me. You have an awareness of your idea of me. That is all.
I am not essentially a solipsist, to any degree. I do not believe in a causal power going from perception to reality. The causal relationship is the reverse. Reality causes perception.
There is indeed much that we do not know, but these things are nonetheless real, even if they are not known by any conciousness. This is the antithesis of solipsism.

These are getting tooooooo looooonnnnngggg. I am going to break my reply up into separate posts.

Depends on what you mean by conciousness, is dreaming a form of consiousness? Either way there is no requirement that something percieved be percieved independently of conciousness.

Yes dreaming is a form of consciousness. As to the second part. Huh????
What I had said was What kind of thing is it a perception of? A real thing, something that exists independent of us as being conscious. How do you get from this that perception could even be independent of consciousness, let alone has to be? The independence is predicated of the thing perceived, not of the perception.


That's because you are interjecting an utterly unnecessary qualification. What has independent of conciousness got to do with perception?

I was addressing your previous post, you had started this with:
A perception within the mind is still a perception of something.
I was saying that a perception in the mind is only a perception of something,if that thing exists independently of the mind. If the thing does not exist independently of the mind then the perception is not a perception of a thing. It is a sensation, an internal perception, something that impinges upon our awareness but is not a result of an external cause.


Of course it doesnt, but what has independent of conciousness got to do with perception. I know of no meaning of perception that requires what is being percieved to be independent of conciousness.
Nothing. I never mentioned this. It has no connection with what I wrote. Please read more carefully.


Perhaps that is your concept of what reality means, in which case we are left without a word to mean what I mean by reality. Try physical or material. To me it seems that either would fit.


None of this explains why everything that really happens isnt part of reality and real. It simply seems to me that you are defining reality to mean a subset of those things I define to be reality, and your only rational for this is that we cant confirm how people experiance these things. But we cant confirm if other people's experiances are the same as ours at all. The fact that people describe things the same way, may be a result of language. After all the thing that reality is a symbol for so far as you are concerned is not the thing it is a symbol for so far as I am concerned. That people appear to agree may simply be a by-product of habits formed around language. However 2 people percieve 'blue' they are both in the habit of referring to their particular perception as 'blue' and so both imagine they percieve the same thing, and perhaps they do percieve the same thing, or not.
Your first sentence here begs the question, directly. "what really happens" is of course real. What I imagine to happen is not. What I feel is not real, it is not objective. It can not be verified, even minimally.

I would ask you how it is that language is possible, given your opinions here. How do we learn what a word means? The fact that people describe things the same way is due to the language being molded on experience. It has to be, otherwise language never gets off the ground.

Language starts with direct indicitive references associated with sounds. *Point finger* *say word* repeat.

I have taught a child to speak, twice, in two different languages (the same child, he was 1 year old when we moved). The method is this. Now this ensures that his perceptual association with the word "marrom" is the same as mine. If I point to the unpainted woden chair and say "marrom" and then later point to the Welsh Collie and say "marrom" he searches his perception and his memory of the perceptioin of the chair and finsds something in common. It can go wrong. In this case he could decide that "marrom" meant quadroped, which it does not. Further examples eliminate more and more possibilities. The tree trunk is "marrom", the cardboard tube is "marrom". Eventually, he, like you knows what "marrom" means.

We can be rather more confident that we use descriptive terms in the same sense.

I didnt selectivley quote, (I certainly did not edit anything out intentionally, but my mouse is crappy and sometimes when I'm trying to insert quotes using the highlight feature, I end wiping them out instead.).
My apologies. :(
My original post is corrupted and I had not noticed. My concern was that the section you quoted simply did not make sense to me, and I had written it.

I will stop there as the subject matter changes to mind - brain identity fro a while. A suitable break point.

More reply to follow later. (It is 02:45 here. I have to sleep.)

These are getting tooooooo looooonnnnngggg. I am going to break my reply up into separate posts.
An excellent idea!

Yes dreaming is a form of consciousness. As to the second part. Huh????
What I had said was How do you get from this that perception could even be independent of consciousness, let alone has to be? The independence is predicated of the thing perceived, not of the perception.
Because there is a dispute about the definition of real, I assumed that the question wasnt reliant on an unproved definition of real, the very thing that is being disputed. I simply assumed you were not being circular and didnt interpret the 'something that exists independent of us as being conscious' as being intended to repeat or define the concept you had already expressed as real, (since this would be a circular and thus flawed means of proving what is or isnt real). Since real is being disputed I believed that the words refered to a necessay condition for perception.

I was addressing your previous post, you had started this with:

I was saying that a perception in the mind is only a perception of something,if that thing exists independently of the mind. If the thing does not exist independently of the mind then the perception is not a perception of a thing. It is a sensation, an internal perception, something that impinges upon our awareness but is not a result of an external cause.
I am stating that I dont know of any such requirement. Why must something exist independently of the mind in order to be perceived? I see no reason why something must be 'externally caused' in order to be 'apprehended by the mind; understood', and such is a conventional (and thus according to the function of language) correct employment of the word. Ignorning this correct definition and posting another without proving it is the only possible definition simply makes communicating much more difficult than needs to be.


Nothing. I never mentioned this. It has no connection with what I wrote. Please read more carefully.
Now now...tsk tsk..
I've read your comments, but as you are aware we materially disagree on certain definitions and those definitions materially effect the interpretation of comments. I had interpreted your comments earlier to mean that
" something that exists independent of us as being conscious" was a necessary condition for perception, rather (as I now believe you meant it to be) a possible definition of real.

Try physical or material. To me it seems that either would fit.
Physical or material might exclude many things that I am referring to. Does your imaginary watcher qualify as physical or material, if not, we are still left without a word that applies to the concept I use 'reality' as a symbol for.

Your first sentence here begs the question, directly. "what really happens" is of course real. What I imagine to happen is not. What I feel is not real, it is not objective. It can not be verified, even minimally.
Your answer places an unproved definition on real, the very thing at dispute, you cant prove what is real by defining real to only mean that which you are proving to be real without being circular (aka begging the question). As it happens I am not insisting that the thing you imagined happened, but that you imagining it did happen.

I would ask you how it is that language is possible, given your opinions here. How do we learn what a word means? The fact that people describe things the same way is due to the language being molded on experience. It has to be, otherwise language never gets off the ground.

Language starts with direct indicitive references associated with sounds. *Point finger* *say word* repeat.

I have taught a child to speak, twice, in two different languages (the same child, he was 1 year old when we moved). The method is this. Now this ensures that his perceptual association with the word "marrom" is the same as mine. If I point to the unpainted woden chair and say "marrom" and then later point to the Welsh Collie and say "marrom" he searches his perception and his memory of the perceptioin of the chair and finsds something in common. It can go wrong. In this case he could decide that "marrom" meant quadroped, which it does not. Further examples eliminate more and more possibilities. The tree trunk is "marrom", the cardboard tube is "marrom". Eventually, he, like you knows what "marrom" means.
Hang on, we cant know that what he percieves when he looks at the thing you both percieve as 'marrom' is the same, only that the perception is triggered by the same thing. When it comes to symbols your theory falls down entirely, how are we to point to 'reality'? When did someone point at reality and name it so that you could know what it means?

We can be rather more confident that we use descriptive terms in the same sense.
Again we cant be certain that what 'blue' looks like to one person is what it 'looks like' to another, merely that the thing we recognise as blue is recognisable as discrete from other 'non-blue' things, and that we all are in the habit of refering to this thing we recognise as different from non-blue things, as blue.

My apologies. :(
My original post is corrupted and I had not noticed. My concern was that the section you quoted simply did not make sense to me, and I had written it.
No worries.

I will stop there as the subject matter changes to mind - brain identity fro a while. A suitable break point.

More reply to follow later. (It is 02:45 here. I have to sleep.)
Sweet dreams.... :)

Vandervecken']Only technically correct, if you leave a room are you aware of events occuring inside? If you are not present then the events occuring are not part of your awareness unless another agent brings them to your attention.
Technicalities is what allows us to more fully understand each other in such a (I dare say) delicate conversation as this. The only thing we really agree on is that existence exists, and although we buy it we haven't been able to point to the truth of this statement (apart from grammatical precision). Everyone seems to have a slightly different idea of reality.

Vandervecken']True, this is the definition of solipsism. In the first post I was speaking of myself, and I DO define my own reality by my awareness, experience and beliefs. Are you saying that you do not? Perhaps you have another method of defining reality.
There is a difference we have been skirting in this thread beween reality and the perception of reality. I think most agree that they are not the same thing. My position here is the most tenuous :) as perception, being a ...quality? of consciousness, necessarily enters into a definition that I have been trying to address objectively (to myself, but also to the subject).

Alien Born, I know you've probably said it before but it would be helpful to me, too, if you could restate what reality is in your view, in relation to existence. Your use of the word seems to be very in line with how I understand the concept, yet I seem to remember you insisting it has some objective existence (no?).

I think I'm a bit lost in all the varying ideas at this point.

Vandervecken']Ah, but I do have awareness of you. Your ideas reach across the planet painting themselves as words across my screen. The words do not form ideas by themselves. I have faith in the instrumentality that carries these words. I have the ability to deduce your existance from the patterns your ideas form. We are all essentially solipsists, there is much in the world that is not real to us becase it has not touched us. There is much that we do not know is real, but that does not mean that we are incapable of grasping that these things are real when they present themselves to us.
ooh! another artist. :)

I am not a solipsist. Reality is not existence.

...Being a realist, my ideas are not me. You only have awareness of my ideas, well, not even that, you have an awareness of my ideas mediated by the medium of transmission, the language used, and the concept set that you have in your mind. Those ideas that you have an awareness of, are clearly not me. You have an awareness of your idea of me. That is all.
I am not essentially a solipsist, to any degree. I do not believe in a causal power going from perception to reality. The causal relationship is the reverse. Reality causes perception.
There is indeed much that we do not know, but these things are nonetheless real, even if they are not known by any conciousness. This is the antithesis of solipsism.

So you are saying that your ideas exist independently from your consciousness? I will agree that the medium of transmission can distort the meaning of our communication, but unless you have a better method of communication, this will have to do for now. We will just have to make allowances.

Your say that reality causes perception and I cannot agree. Unperceived reality causes nothing. If there is no awareness, directly or indirectly, by whaterver form or proxy, how can it be? What is reality if it is unknown and unknowable? Reality is derived from what is real, in order for it to be real, it must be realized, for it to be realized, a sentient mind must be involved. This does not mean that much of the physical universe is not real, it just means that it is waiting to be realized.

You believe in a physical universe the same as I do. We both agree that events happen in that arena. To you, apparantly, reality is the physical universe. If you have four people observe an event, and then ask them what happened, you will get four different, and hopefully similar versions of that event. Each persons story of what really happened will be based on their perception of that event. Which one is real? What physically happened may be an absolute but each person will believe their own version is real. If they all talk together, they may come up with a fifth version and agree that that is reality, and it still may not match precisely the physical event.

Based on your argument, then, only an unbiased omniscient observer can know what reality is.

Sigh... I don't qualify.

Reply to Post #137: part 2

I'm not convinced that I accept that our minds are anything other than our brains, and since reality is a word coined and used independently of your theory, reality's meaning must also be independent of your particular theory. If your meaning of reality requires your theory to be true, then your meaning of reality is not what is meant by reality. Language functions via convention.

The mind being identified with the brain or not has nothing to do with my understanding of reality. I would ask you to restate your definition of reality as it is not clear to me. Mine is that that exist independant of our awareness.
Which, as far as I can establish is as good a concise definition of the normal usage of reality that I can think of. The options I know of for defining real, and hence reality are most readily given by their opposites
a: opposite of illusiory
b: opposite of relative (absolute is often a better term for this)
c: opposite to possible
d: opposite to the mode of understanding (a real idea of God as opposed to a negative idea of God)

Then there are some legal and financial definitions. (And it is the name of our money :) )
In the first three of these cases real things exist independant of our awareness.
Language does function by convention. But it apears that the conventions are not that rigid when it comes to abstract nouns. The whole of our debate apeasrs to be about the meaning of two or three of these. (Reality, fact)

I disagree with your theory. I note the word reality exists indendently of your theory, and so I suggest that your theory and the word reality are independent of each other unless and until you can prove your theory. So far as I am concerned your mind (and mine) is a result of brain function and so that's where your mind exists, inside your brain. Destroy the brain, destroy the mind.

It is not my theory. A concise description of 50 years of debate on this is given by the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://www.iep.utm.edu/i/identity.htm)

No the existing is a subset of the reality. Things that no longer exist are still form part of reality. The fact that Alexander Bell no longer exists as Alexander Bell doesnt make him not part of reality, the fact that I often use a telephone indicates to me that the reality of Alexander Bell is continuous.

If you include a temporal element in the argument, then both reality and existence at this time are subsets of reality and existence over all time. I was not using any temporal element. Alexander Graham Bell, by my use of the term is real, he as a consequence exists. Time, I view as just dividing reality and existence into overlapping portions. Now contains a subset of all reality. The next moment may (unlikely) present the same subset, but normally is a changed subset with some elements added and some removed. This is a definition of time for me. It depends upon reality and not the other way around. You are using existing in a temporal sense. I am using it in an atemporal ontological sense, along with Willamena.
To introduce temporal terms into my position I would have to say that reality is that subset of existence that was, is and will be independent of our awareness.
I f i limit existence to the subset of reality that currently is. Then I have no term for those phenomena that do depend upon our awareness. Illusions, imagination, hallucinations, sensations, desires etc. These phenomena exist for me. I am presuming that you would describe them as real, given that you want existence to be a subset of reality. I then struggle with a definition for reality and fro existence. At the moment I am only stuck with a problem in defining existence.

However it appears the concept you have tagged to the symbol real, is at odds with the concept that is normatively meant by shared convention. When you say real, it appears you actually mean something other than what is conventionally meant by real, so in fact you dont mean real at all.

Sorry. This time you have the definition contrary to the normal usage, not I. When I say that something is real, I mean that it is (or was or will be) there, that it is not a figment of our minds. That is the normal everyday meaning of real. It is a real dog, not an imaginary one; the ghost was real, it scared me. These are normal uses. They take real to mean independant of our minds.

What would unreal love be?
Love that isnt really love.
No. that is fake love, not unreal love.

Of course it is real, it has real tangible effects, there are apparantly real processes occuring in the brain that can be measurered, and it has real impact within reality.
I mean real as in not unreal, it is what it is. Love is what it is. If it is it is real. This is the same definition I have used throughout. I realise you dont agree with it, but that doesnt justify an accusation of sliding definition. The only definition I have employed for real of course includes love because love really exists.

As I said above, please provide us with a definition for real. I no longer know what you mean by it. Saying that you mean what it normally means, simply implies that you change its meaning as you go as there is no single normal meaning.

Which is pretty much as you have being doing. I have given examples completely consistent with what I mean when I say real, and your response is that this isnt so, and alternative examples for an alternative definition.

My examples of real have been, throughout this discussion, examples where the definition of real is "independent of our awareness". I am asking you for your definition. What I have seen so far is the negation of other definitions, but no positive statement.


According to your definition, which appears no more sound than my own. I see no reason why I should substitute your meaning of real for my own, when you have failed to establish a good reason for my doing so.
As I have pointed out, many English speakers I knows believe that if you say real, the meaning is 'truely existing' as opposed to not existing. I see no reason to ignore this normal conventional definition.

OK a definition. Good. (I write my replies in the same way as you appear to, working paragraph by paragraph.)
How do you qualify something as truely existing? An illusion or hallucination in my mind truely exists. Just this existence is only for me. Not for anyone else. It is a true, but subjective existence. For an insane person hearing the voice of God, the voice truely exists. There is no means of differentiating reality from illusion here. The second problem is that of time, the true existence or not of Alexander Bell, but I have already addressed that as my definiton has the same potential problem.

People in general do use the word real to mean something that exists external to them. Not to mean something that truely exists. They do include sensations as being external, in the sense that they are involuntary. Now I do not, but that is just that I have thought more about sensations than most people.
If you say something hurts, your left knee for example, you locate the pain in the knee, it is external to your mind. In truth, however, pain is only a mental phenomenon and located nowhere. As people locate sensations in the external world, they describe them as real, real pain. However this is a common misuse of the word.
Well this is clearly where we depart ways. I believe that all existing things and things that have existed are part of reality. Reality to me is all of everything. That is the purpose of the word. May I ask (out of curiosity) what word you use to refer to all of everything that exists, and has existed, or does your linguistic symbolism system require you to go about it the long way (ie via description involving more than one word, rather than a one word symbol)
Existence. no long winded explanation involved. What do you use to describe all experience and all the external universe combined. It can not be reality or existence as you have restricted these two. They can not include the non external phenomena that we are aware of.
I dont have them as interchangable, existence is a subset of reality, it refers to the 'now' part of reality, whereas reality is the sum of all existence that has ever been and currently is.
If you read my reply to the Alexander Bell part, you will see why I regard them, in your usage as equivalent. If you separate them by time qualification, then fine. I still disagree with your usage of the two, and find that your usage is very unusual.

Break.

Vandervecken']So you are saying that your ideas exist independently from your consciousness? I will agree that the medium of transmission can distort the meaning of our communication, but unless you have a better method of communication, this will have to do for now. We will just have to make allowances.

Your say that reality causes perception and I cannot agree. Unperceived reality causes nothing. If there is no awareness, directly or indirectly, by whaterver form or proxy, how can it be? What is reality if it is unknown and unknowable? Reality is derived from what is real, in order for it to be real, it must be realized, for it to be realized, a sentient mind must be involved. This does not mean that much of the physical universe is not real, it just means that it is waiting to be realized.

You believe in a physical universe the same as I do. We both agree that events happen in that arena. To you, apparantly, reality is the physical universe. If you have four people observe an event, and then ask them what happened, you will get four different, and hopefully similar versions of that event. Each persons story of what really happened will be based on their perception of that event. Which one is real? What physically happened may be an absolute but each person will believe their own version is real. If they all talk together, they may come up with a fifth version and agree that that is reality, and it still may not match precisely the physical event.

Based on your argument, then, only an unbiased omniscient observer can know what reality is.

Sigh... I don't qualify.


If you go back a couple of pages you will find me saying something about this.
Here, in reply to Personal Responsabilit (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8270964&postcount=115)

One of the joys of communication is that it allows our ideas independence. They are not slaves to our consciousness, and for ever restricted to the awareness of just one entity.

Unpercieved reality can cause all kinds of things. Just not perception. A tree faling in a forest when nothin perceives this does still have physical and real consequences. The sound wave will be generated. Whether you chose to call this noise or not is irrelevant to the effect.

Unknown and unknowable reality is what is out there. Knowable and known perceptions and ideas do not have to have any bearing on this reality.

You say you are a realist, but only after tying reality to perception. A strange combination that is internally inconsistant.

The only thing we really agree on is that existence exists, and although we buy it we haven't been able to point to the truth of this statement (apart from grammatical precision). Everyone seems to have a slightly different idea of reality.
Concise and to the point. If you look at it as a hierarchy, we all exist in the (same) physical universe, our perception of that universe is based upon our awareness on that universe, since our awareness differs, so does our reality. Most of this thread is actually about the difference between what is physical and what is real. Real requires a mind.
I am not a solipsist. Reality is not existence.
I will revisit my original post:
Existance is what we do, reality is where wo do it.
If you wish a description that is more palatable:
The physical universe defines the arena in which we exist, our awareness of that physical universe defines what we percieve as real.

Our perception of reality is based in the physical universe, if all sentient life were to be erased, the physical universe would continue to exist, but who would realize it?

...Unpercieved reality can cause all kinds of things. Just not perception. A tree faling in a forest when nothin perceives this does still have physical and real consequences. The sound wave will be generated. Whether you chose to call this noise or not is irrelevant to the effect.

Unknown and unknowable reality is what is out there. Knowable and known perceptions and ideas do not have to have any bearing on this reality.

You say you are a realist, but only after tying reality to perception. A strange combination that is internally inconsistant.

(Sigh - If a tree falls in a forest...)
What I actually said was:
If there is no awareness, directly or indirectly, by whaterver form or proxy, how can it be?
I can walk by that tree years later and know that it has fallen. Long after it has returned to the soil I can determin its existance were I to care to look. I can receive the information about your hypothetical tree through any number of sources. My perception of the event in the physical universe is not limited to being present at the moment it happens.

The physical universe exists, but reality requires a mind.

Vandervecken'](Sigh - If a tree falls in a forest...)
yeah, corny, but it was where this thread started, and I could not resist closing the circle.


Vandervecken']What I actually said was:

I can walk by that tree years later and know that it has fallen. Long after it has returned to the soil I can determin its existance were I to care to look. I can receive the information about your hypothetical tree through any number of sources. My perception of the event in the physical universe is not limited to being present at the moment it happens.

The physical universe exists, but reality requires a mind.

I disagree with your definition of reality. It comes down to that again. To me, reality is that that exists independantly of our awareness or consciousness. To you it is not, it is something constructed by the perception of something that exists. (If I understand you aright).
What is a dream? Does it exist, is it perceived. Well. I would answer yes to both. This, under your definition, makes dreams real. Unless you want to make dreams part of reality, then you have to deny that they exist, or deny that they are perceived, or change your definition of reality.

Oh and a tree that falls on a planet that then falls into a black hole (far fetched, but possible). Was this real? No current evidence is possible, this is purely a thought experiment type thing.

...I disagree with your definition of reality. It comes down to that again. To me, reality is that that exists independantly of our awareness or consciousness. To you it is not, it is something constructed by the perception of something that exists. (If I understand you aright)...

(moved for the moment for continuity)

...Oh and a tree that falls on a planet that then falls into a black hole (far fetched, but possible). Was this real? No current evidence is possible, this is purely a thought experiment type thing.
Without disagreements we would have very little to talk about. Allow me to restate our basic differences as I understand them:

You believe that reality is the physical events occuring in the universe and that the tree that falls in the forest that falls into the black hole is real regardless of whether any sentient being knew that it happened.

I believe that the physical events that happen in the universe are unrealized unless made real by the discovery of a sentient mind.

Neither of us deny that the hypothetical tree could have existed. Neither stance can call the tree real unless you know it was there. In order to know it was there you have to have an awareness of it by some form or proxy.

Zwicky would be writhing in ecstasy.

While almost diametrically opposed at the root level, it seems that ther is no way to tell the two apart at the physical level.

What is a dream? Does it exist, is it perceived. Well. I would answer yes to both. This, under your definition, makes dreams real. Unless you want to make dreams part of reality, then you have to deny that they exist, or deny that they are perceived, or change your definition of reality.
(I am going to try to take this as I think you intended it.)
I can read a book, and while I really read the book, I do not confuse the events that occur within that book as being real unless they are stated as being so. Even then I know that they are another's perception of reality, and may not therefore agree with my own perception of reality. I can have a dream, (sleeping), I can recognize that the dream is not reality, but I cannot deny that the dream occured. Do you not dream? Are not those dreams caused by the the firing of neurons in your brain. Are not the firing of those neurons events that occur in the physical universe that you call reality? Hmmm. I guess you have to take dreams more seriously than I do.

Vandervecken']Without disagreements we would have very little to talk about. Allow me to restate our basic differences as I understand them:

You believe that reality is the physical events occuring in the universe and that the tree that falls in the forest that falls into the black hole is real regardless of whether any sentient being knew that it happened.

I believe that the physical events that happen in the universe are unrealized unless made real by the discovery of a sentient mind.

Neither of us deny that the hypothetical tree could have existed. Neither stance can call the tree real unless you know it was there. In order to know it was there you have to have an awareness of it by some form or proxy.

Zwicky would be writhing in ecstasy.

While almost diametrically opposed at the root level, it seems that there is no way to tell the two apart at the physical level.

At the physical level we agree completely. True. (good huh, this implies that at least we agree on our ecveryday experience :) )

On the ontological and definitional levels we are diametrically opposed. My stance does call the tree real, even if it can never be known that it existed. Reality, for me, does not depend upon knowledge. The dependancy is the other way. Knowledge can only exist where there is some underlying reality to suppoert it.


Vandervecken'](I am going to try to take this as I think you intended it.)
I can read a book, and while I really read the book, I do not confuse the events that occur within that book as being real unless they are stated as being so. Even then I know that they are another's perception of reality, and may not therefore agree with my own perception of reality. I can have a dream, (sleeping), I can recognize that the dream is not reality, but I cannot deny that the dream occured. Do you not dream? Are not those dreams caused by the the firing of neurons in your brain. Are not the firing of those neurons events that occur in the physical universe that you call reality? Hmmm. I guess you have to take dreams more seriously than I do.
[/quote]
I deny mind brain identity. I follow Hillary Putnam here (well, nearly). A dream, an intentional state, a fear, are not simply electrochemical states in our brains. That the brain state is real, is not in doubt, that the dream is real, I have difficulty in accepting.
Try it with imagination, willed rather than unconscious, and there are two claims that can be made, The imagination itself is real, what is imagined is not real. We are, however aware of what is imagined. to be aware of it it has to exist in some sense. How then is it not real?

...On the ontological and definitional levels we are diametrically opposed. My stance does call the tree real, even if it can never be known that it existed. Reality, for me, does not depend upon knowledge. The dependancy is the other way. Knowledge can only exist where there is some underlying reality to suppoert it.
I think it is time to agree to disagree on this point. Unless something new come up on the nature of the universe I think we are stuck.
I deny mind brain identity. I follow Hillary Putnam here (well, nearly).
Now that really explains your view on reality.
A dream, an intentional state, a fear, are not simply electrochemical states in our brains. That the brain state is real, is not in doubt, that the dream is real, I have difficulty in accepting.
Try it with imagination, willed rather than unconscious, and there are two claims that can be made, The imagination itself is real, what is imagined is not real. We are, however aware of what is imagined. to be aware of it it has to exist in some sense. How then is it not real?
While I have long pondered the nature on consciousness, I do not think that mankind has come close to cracking that nut. I have many problems with mind-brain identity, but I do like to believe that the interface to the mind lies in the brain. (Off topic - Sorry)

Vandervecken']I think it is time to agree to disagree on this point. Unless something new come up on the nature of the universe I think we are stuck.

Now that really explains your view on reality.

While I have long pondered the nature on consciousness, I do not think that mankind has come close to cracking that nut. I have many problems with mind-brain identity, but I do like to believe that the interface to the mind lies in the brain. (Off topic - Sorry)

I think we have both made our positions clear enough, and as you say, we will have to wait on external events to decide between them.

Thank you for the intelligent discussion :)

I think we have both made our positions clear enough, and as you say, we will have to wait on external events to decide between them.

Thank you for the intelligent discussion :)

The pleasure was mine also.

Addressing some of these...

One of the joys of communication is that it allows our ideas independence. They are not slaves to our consciousness, and for ever restricted to the awareness of just one entity.
This might be pedantic, but I don't understand communication as ideas with "independence from consciousness." When I hear that phrase my mind rejects the idea as an attempt to give wholly subjective things reality.

An idea in a mind is content for a thought. There it is unreal. Once the content is actualized ("brought out" as the content of voice/sound, written word, etc.) it is real, and it has objective existence, but it's not the same content. It is no longer the content of a thought, but that content translated into symbols, the symbols of communication. Then, when another perceives the spoken or written knowledge, they conceive an idea of the content subjective to them. The idea is not, then, the same thing it was when it started this perceived "journey"; it has changed state twice (become two wholly different things: actualized in media, and another person's thought) since then, and plus has been filtered by another mind.

Vandervecken]Ah, but I do have awareness of you. Your ideas reach across the planet painting themselves as words across my screen. The words do not form ideas by themselves. I have faith in the instrumentality that carries these words. I have the ability to deduce your existance from the patterns your ideas form. We are all essentially solipsists, there is much in the world that is not real to us becase it has not touched us. There is much that we do not know is real, but that does not mean that we are incapable of grasping that these things are real when they present themselves to us.
Being a realist, my ideas are not me. You only have awareness of my ideas, well, not even that, you have an awareness of my ideas mediated by the medium of transmission, the language used, and the concept set that you have in your mind. Those ideas that you have an awareness of, are clearly not me. You have an awareness of your idea of me. That is all.
Your ideas are not you, but your consciousness and your physical form are. My consciousness perceives, and so is aware of, you (you exist), but not your consciousness, or at least only indirectly. If you are present, aware of your physical form with a demonstratable consciousness; if you are online, aware you are another consciousness inputting words to the medium using a presumed physical form.

What is a dream? Does it exist, is it perceived. Well. I would answer yes to both. This, under your definition, makes dreams real...
Small point: no, a dream is conceived. Although a dream state might allow perception of the world around us, the dream itself is conceived in the mind, and never real. I admit I don't know So-and-so Big-name's fundamental research ideas about this, but I am quite sure that I have never had a dream that was real. Real-like, but not real.

Unpercieved reality can cause all kinds of things. Just not perception. A tree faling in a forest when nothin perceives this does still have physical and real consequences. The sound wave will be generated. Whether you chose to call this noise or not is irrelevant to the effect.
"Unperceived existence..." Its existence can be assumed if the effects or consequences of it are known. Real effects (observed), not imagined ones.

Unknown and unknowable reality is what is out there. Knowable and known perceptions and ideas do not have to have any bearing on this reality.
I would seem to me that we should question a thing's existence before we begin to speculate on the questionability of the reality of its existence. If we never know that the tree falls in the forest --if no one ever knows it exists --then how do we distinguish between its existence being real or imagined? If we speculate on its existence, then its existence is imagined. No?

To me, reality is that that exists independantly of our awareness or consciousness...

Oh and a tree that falls on a planet that then falls into a black hole (far fetched, but possible). Was this real? No current evidence is possible, this is purely a thought experiment type thing.
It is as "real" as a tree that falls on Earth that is a thought experiment thing: that is, not real at all. Until someone goes out into the woods, that is...

*cue teddy bear music*

<BUMP>
bbl

This might be pedantic, but I don't understand communication as ideas with "independence from consciousness." When I hear that phrase my mind rejects the idea as an attempt to give wholly subjective things reality.

When you pick up and read a book written by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carrol), this book contains printed marks that you interpret as words and these words convey a meaning (or not as the case may be). Assuming that some meaning is conveyed this generates ideas in your mind. Whose ideas are these? They in one sense are yours, as they are in your mind, but in another sense they are the ideas of Charles Dodgson. It is in this second sense that I claim that communication provides independence for ideas from consciousness. Charles Dodgson is dead. His consciousness is no longer with us, but his ideas are, independent of this. The ideas stored in static media (print, recordings, non ephemeral media) are freed from the limitations of consciousness, but are only actuated when they are encountered by a consciousness. That of the reader, listener, or viewer. No objectivity is conferred, just a liberation from the limiting factors of being in one mind only.

An idea in a mind is content for a thought. There it is unreal. Once the content is actualized ("brought out" as the content of voice/sound, written word, etc.) it is real, and it has objective existence, but it's not the same content. It is no longer the content of a thought, but that content translated into symbols, the symbols of communication. Then, when another perceives the spoken or written knowledge, they conceive an idea of the content subjective to them. The idea is not, then, the same thing it was when it started this perceived "journey"; it has changed state twice (become two wholly different things: actualized in media, and another person's thought) since then, and plus has been filtered by another mind.
I am not sure what you mean by your first sentence here. To me the terms idea and thought are pretty much synonymous.
I agree that ideas and other mental phenomena are unreal. When it is realized, then the medium that it is transmited in is real, the patterns that represent the idea/thought are real. The idea itself, however is not, nor can it ever be, as ideas only exist in the mind. When the patterns that represent this idea are perceived by a consciousness than the idea exists in that second consciousness. Of course this idea is mediated, by the limitations of the patterns in representing it, and by the interpretations imposed by the consciousness perceiving these patterns.

Your ideas are not you, but your consciousness and your physical form are. My consciousness perceives, and so is aware of, you (you exist), but not your consciousness, or at least only indirectly. If you are present, aware of your physical form with a demonstratable consciousness; if you are online, aware you are another consciousness inputting words to the medium using a presumed physical form.

A point I disagree with very strongly.
Your consciousness does not perceive me, it infers me. Your awareness only perceives the patterns within which I am encoding my ideas. These patterns, in your experience are created by conscious entities (people to be specific)
So, seeing the patttern your consciousness infers my existence.


Small point: no, a dream is conceived. Although a dream state might allow perception of the world around us, the dream itself is conceived in the mind, and never real. I admit I don't know So-and-so Big-name's fundamental research ideas about this, but I am quite sure that I have never had a dream that was real. Real-like, but not real.
I can accept that. It matters not whether the dream is perceived or conceived, the argument is still the same.


"Unperceived existence..." Its existence can be assumed if the effects or consequences of it are known. Real effects (observed), not imagined ones.
I was not discussing our assumptions as to whether the tree exists. I was saying that a real tree, necessarily exists, whether we perceive it or not. That is simply what real means to me.

If we never know that the tree falls in the forest --if no one ever knows --then how do we distinguish between its existence being real or imagined?

We can not, but that does not matter as the tree is outside of our possible knowledge. It is simply a matter of definition.


It is as "real" as a tree that falls on Earth that is a thought experiment thing: that is, not real at all. Until someone goes out into the woods, that is...

Uh uh. It is real. I specified that it was real. That we never find out about it does not make this impossible. The Black hole thing is just to stymie the "we know it was real because it left traces of its reality" argument. I do not regard reality as dependant upon our knowledge. That is far too egocentric for my mind. It is a little like describing God as a human. Unjustifiable.

*cue teddy bear music*[/QUOTE]

There have been a number of threads.... bla bla bla...<snip>
Existence=good
Reality=not good

all you need to know

Existence=good
Reality=not good

all you need to know

Not quite. You have to know how to avoid the not good, while simultaneously avoiding the consequences of avoiding the not good.

Reply to Post #137: part 2
Yay, we've gone 'mini series'! :D

The mind being identified with the brain or not has nothing to do with my understanding of reality. I would ask you to restate your definition of reality as it is not clear to me.
Reality is the sum of all existence that has occured and currently is.

Mine is that that exist independant of our awareness.
Mine is all that yours is but it includes awareness.

Which, as far as I can establish is as good a concise definition of the normal usage of reality that I can think of.
I'm not sure most people normally believe that they think and feel or indeed do anything 'outside' reality.

The options I know of for defining real, and hence reality are most readily given by their opposites
a: opposite of illusiory
b: opposite of relative (absolute is often a better term for this)
c: opposite to possible
d: opposite to the mode of understanding (a real idea of God as opposed to a negative idea of God)

Then there are some legal and financial definitions. (And it is the name of our money :) )
That's just so lawyers can get their cut, real estate agents where I live managed to get the right to cut lawyers out of conveyences, boy were the lawyers ever pissed about that one.... ;) (ok I'm being a bit flippant here...)

In the first three of these cases real things exist independant of our awareness.
Language does function by convention. But it apears that the conventions are not that rigid when it comes to abstract nouns. The whole of our debate apeasrs to be about the meaning of two or three of these. (Reality, fact)
The debate about reality is legitimate (since it is a largely undefined noun and the subject of the debate itself), but about facts, since both definitions are legitimate, it would be more productive to argue over whether or not the concept I am using the word to describe, is possible and/or actual, than it would be to argue about the word I have used to convey the concept.

It is not my theory. A concise description of 50 years of debate on this is given by the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://www.iep.utm.edu/i/identity.htm)
I call it your theory, because you have raised it in this particular conversations, (frankly I doubt that any of the theories raised in this thread are unique). The origins of the theory are not a materially relevent point, the fact that many people are unaware of it was material point of my comments.

If you include a temporal element in the argument, then both reality and existence at this time are subsets of reality and existence over all time.
Reality at this time is a subset of reality at any and all future times (as I have defined reality).
I was not using any temporal element. Alexander Graham Bell, by my use of the term is real, he as a consequence exists.
Alexander Bell as a breathing living human being, does not currently exist but having existed is (according to my usage of the terminologies we are discussing) part of reality.

Time, I view as just dividing reality and existence into overlapping portions. Now contains a subset of all reality. The next moment may (unlikely) present the same subset, but normally is a changed subset with some elements added and some removed. This is a definition of time for me. It depends upon reality and not the other way around.
I extend reality to include all that has been and is real. I term existence to refer to now, and reality encompasses existence and exists to 'was/has been'.

You are using existing in a temporal sense. I am using it in an atemporal ontological sense, along with Willamena.
Other than to prove my definition is a valid one, I dont often have to reach for a dictionary....I can only hope you fee suitably smug about having been the cause of such a rare event... ;)
In my defence I can only say, that's what you get for leaving high school without having completed at least two years...

To introduce temporal terms into my position I would have to say that reality is that subset of existence that was, is and will be independent of our awareness. I f i limit existence to the subset of reality that currently is. Then I have no term for those phenomena that do depend upon our awareness. Illusions, imagination, hallucinations, sensations, desires etc. These phenomena exist for me. I am presuming that you would describe them as real, given that you want existence to be a subset of reality. I then struggle with a definition for reality and fro existence. At the moment I am only stuck with a problem in defining existence.
I do include illusions, imagination etc to be real phenomonem and thus part of reality.

Sorry. This time you have the definition contrary to the normal usage, not I. When I say that something is real, I mean that it is (or was or will be) there, that it is not a figment of our minds. That is the normal everyday meaning of real. It is a real dog, not an imaginary one; the ghost was real, it scared me. These are normal uses. They take real to mean independant of our minds.
No it my usage isnt not a normal use, people refer to real emotions (as opposed to faked emotions, ie the person is really unhappy rather than merely pretending to be) in normative situations. While your definition is a normative one, it is not the only normative one.

What would unreal love be?
It would either be a misapprehension on the part of the one professing love, or faked (ie not real).

No. that is fake love, not unreal love.
Fake as opposed to genuine (ie real)?

As I said above, please provide us with a definition for real. I no longer know what you mean by it. Saying that you mean what it normally means, simply implies that you change its meaning as you go as there is no single normal meaning.
That it does (or has) in truth exist/(ed). The same definition I believe (although I admit to failability, so it's possible I have not achieved my intent and have overlooked this) that I have applied throughout this discussion.

My examples of real have been, throughout this discussion, examples where the definition of real is "independent of our awareness". I am asking you for your definition. What I have seen so far is the negation of other definitions, but no positive statement.
My definition is that if something exists or has existed then it is real or was real and so is a component of reality.

OK a definition. Good. (I write my replies in the same way as you appear to, working paragraph by paragraph.)
Appearances can be deceiving, but in this instance it appears they have not been....I do indeed write my replies paragraph by paragraph.... ;)

How do you qualify something as truely existing? An illusion or hallucination in my mind truely exists. Just this existence is only for me. Not for anyone else. It is a true, but subjective existence. For an insane person hearing the voice of God, the voice truely exists. There is no means of differentiating reality from illusion here. The second problem is that of time, the true existence or not of Alexander Bell, but I have already addressed that as my definiton has the same potential problem.
Time isnt a problem for me, if it is not something that is now, then it doesnt exist, although it may have. Reality encompasses all that has ever and currently existed. As to illusions, they are real phenomonem. That something is other than it appears, doesnt make it less real.

People in general do use the word real to mean something that exists external to them. Not to mean something that truely exists. They do include sensations as being external, in the sense that they are involuntary. Now I do not, but that is just that I have thought more about sensations than most people.
I know a lot of people who dont perceive sensations such as happiness to be 'outside themselves' but they do consider happiness to be real. Many people I know refer to their emotions as being real. In fact I know people who consider that their emotions are more real than any other part of (what I refer to as) reality.

If you say something hurts, your left knee for example, you locate the pain in the knee, it is external to your mind. In truth, however, pain is only a mental phenomenon and located nowhere.
Actually if a person believes (as I do) that their mind is located in their brain, then pain occurs in the brain at least in part. I percieve pain in my mind, but I believe that it occurs in the place I perceive as 'hurting', in my brain, and in the nerves that send 'pain messages' between the two.

As people locate sensations in the external world, they describe them as real, real pain. However this is a common misuse of the word.
It's a normative use who's convention is widely shared, how can that be a misuse? If the convention is widely shared it's not a misuse, because the widespread sharing of a language convention, makes it proper use.

Existence. no long winded explanation involved. What do you use to describe all experience and all the external universe combined. It can not be reality or existence as you have restricted these two. They can not include the non external phenomena that we are aware of.
In what way have I restricted reality? Throughout I have maintained that reality includes non external phenomena...Reality includes everything that is or has been.

If you read my reply to the Alexander Bell part, you will see why I regard them, in your usage as equivalent. If you separate them by time qualification, then fine. I still disagree with your usage of the two, and find that your usage is very unusual.

I'm not sure that you've understood my usage at all, the preceeding paragraph indicates that you have not.

Break.
Well I sure feel like I've earned one... ;)

Existence=good
Reality=not good
Wha--?! What is not good about reality?

When you pick up and read a book written by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carrol), this book contains printed marks that you interpret as words and these words convey a meaning (or not as the case may be). Assuming that some meaning is conveyed this generates ideas in your mind. Whose ideas are these? They in one sense are yours, as they are in your mind, but in another sense they are the ideas of Charles Dodgson. It is in this second sense that I claim that communication provides independence for ideas from consciousness. Charles Dodgson is dead. His consciousness is no longer with us, but his ideas are, independent of this. The ideas stored in static media (print, recordings, non ephemeral media) are freed from the limitations of consciousness, but are only actuated when they are encountered by a consciousness. That of the reader, listener, or viewer. No objectivity is conferred, just a liberation from the limiting factors of being in one mind only.
I'm sure I'd be happy to say that they are Charles' ideas, and I would not hestiate to give him credit. If I understand them correctly, the way he intended, I'm sure he would claim them as his, too; but, what that really means is "similar to his." If I read the ideas wrong, with words in the wrong context, and garner a meaning (idea) he did not intend, would he still claim it as his own? The idea of a thing is not what is communicated; rather, a similar understanding of the symbols has to be worked toward by the reader, usually involving some mental effort (and lots of examples and explanations) i.e. learning.

I am not sure what you mean by your first sentence here. To me the terms idea and thought are pretty much synonymous.
I agree that ideas and other mental phenomena are unreal. When it is realized, then the medium that it is transmited in is real, the patterns that represent the idea/thought are real. The idea itself, however is not, nor can it ever be, as ideas only exist in the mind. When the patterns that represent this idea are perceived by a consciousness than the idea exists in that second consciousness. Of course this idea is mediated, by the limitations of the patterns in representing it, and by the interpretations imposed by the consciousness perceiving these patterns.
They are synonymous, I'm sorry for the confusion. I had created this thread to cure myself of such habits and strengthen my language regarding these ideas, so thank you for raising my awareness. I had been thinking of an idea as the content of a thought, and "thought" being a more generic term to compass all kinds of things (ideas, imaginings, concepts) that go on in the mind but with no specific content. (I imagine, now, that it's not a suitable use of the word since there is no thought without content?) But yes, an idea is unreal even after translated into symbols we speak or write (though I still believe as I said before that it is not the same identical idea). I agree with you on the reality of ideas.

Your ideas are not you, but your consciousness and your physical form are. My consciousness perceives, and so is aware of, you (you exist), but not your consciousness, or at least only indirectly. If you are present, aware of your physical form with a demonstratable consciousness; if you are online, aware you are another consciousness inputting words to the medium using a presumed physical form.
A point I disagree with very strongly.
Your consciousness does not perceive me, it infers me. Your awareness only perceives the patterns within which I am encoding my ideas. These patterns, in your experience are created by conscious entities (people to be specific)
So, seeing the pattern your consciousness infers my existence.
Thank you; "infer" is a more appropriate word to convey the idea of the online version of "you". But for the version present with me (if ever should be the case) I would still be perceiving you (becoming aware of through the senses).

What is a dream? Does it exist, is it perceived. Well. I would answer yes to both. This, under your definition, makes dreams real...
Small point: no, a dream is conceived.
I can accept that. It matters not whether the dream is perceived or conceived, the argument is still the same.
I think the difference is significant. It matters because things perceived can be real, but things conceived cannot.

I was not discussing our assumptions as to whether the tree exists. I was saying that a real tree, necessarily exists, whether we perceive it or not. That is simply what real means to me.
Well, this is what I am saying: if it is unknown how can its reality be determined from the imaginative (equating imaginative with unreal)? With the phrase "unknown real tree" you assume a reality, the same way we assume an existence in the face of solipsists; but while the opposite of existence is nothing, the opposite of reality is still something. Which state it is (really) in (real or unreal) cannot truthfully be assumed.

We can not, but that does not matter as the tree is outside of our possible knowledge. It is simply a matter of definition.

Uh uh. It is real. I specified that it was real.
Nothing but a thought experiment.

That we never find out about it does not make this impossible. The Black hole thing is just to stymie the "we know it was real because it left traces of its reality" argument. I do not regard reality as dependant upon our knowledge. That is far too egocentric for my mind. It is a little like describing God as a human. Unjustifiable.
No, things leave traces of their existence.

Well I used to be interested in Philosophy untill I recognised it for the useless mental masturbation that it is. If the tree makes a sound, it makes a sound. Whether there is someone around to hear it or not makes no difference to the tree whatsoever, and the world goes on as it did, not noticing the big fuss philosophers have made up about it.

Well I used to be interested in Philosophy untill I recognised it for the useless mental masturbation that it is. If the tree makes a sound, it makes a sound. Whether there is someone around to hear it or not makes no difference to the tree whatsoever, and the world goes on as it did, not noticing the big fuss philosophers have made up about it.
But that just avoids the problem.

*snip* But yes, an idea is unreal even after translated into symbols we speak or write (though I still believe as I said before that it is not the same identical idea). I agree with you on the reality of ideas.
We agree on this then. Excellent :)


Thank you; "infer" is a more appropriate word to convey the idea of the online version of "you". But for the version present with me (if ever should be the case) I would still be perceiving you (becoming aware of through the senses).

Getting closer, but I suggest that you do not in anyway perceive me, you perceive your idea of me. There is no reason to think that there is any correlation between me and your idea of me. For exactly the reasons you gave about the distortion that mediation creates.


I think the difference is significant. (perception vs conception) It matters because things perceived can be real, but things conceived cannot.

Huh? I can conceive of a car with six wheels. Oh look, a Panther six (http://www.geocities.com/henry_bloomfield/toptrumps.jpg) (for the Brits old enough to remember that very strange beast).
Nothing about being a conception prevents something from also being real. There is no necessary connection between the two, but the same applies to perception as well.


Well, this is what I am saying: if it is unknown how can its reality be determined from the imaginative (equating imaginative with unreal)? With the phrase "unknown reality" you assume a reality, the same way we assume an existence in the face of solipsists; but while the opposite of existence is nothing, the opposite of reality is still something. Which state it is (really) in (real or unreal) cannot truthfully be assumed until we know.

To me the opposite of real, unreal, is not something unless it is a mental existence of some kind. If it is a mental existence then it has to be something that some mind is aware of and thus can not be unknown. Existence for me divides in two distinctly different ways: Known and unknown, real and imaginary.
This results in the following propositions:
Non existence is nothing.
Known existence can be real or imaginary.
Unknown existence can only be real.
Real existance can be known or unknown.
Imaginary existance can only be known.
I do not determine reality by awareness, this would be the solipsism that you claim to avoid by assuming existence. If existence includes ideas and imagination etc. then existence exists does not preclude that all that exists is in the mind of the one individual. The denial of this possibility results in the need to have unknown reality.

No, things leave traces of their existence.
Not always. That was the point. If there are no traces, then we can never know about the thing, but that does not preclude the thing from having existed. If it existed without us having any possibility of knowledge of it, it has to have been external to our minds, thereby not imaginary, but existential. What would you call this under your system? In mine it is called a real thing.

Well I used to be interested in Philosophy untill I recognised it for the useless mental masturbation that it is. If the tree makes a sound, it makes a sound. Whether there is someone around to hear it or not makes no difference to the tree whatsoever, and the world goes on as it did, not noticing the big fuss philosophers have made up about it.

Fine. Philosophy does not intend to provide directly practical results (except in ethics). It does however make you question your assumptions. It was philosophy that produced the now generally cherished ideas of democracy, autonomy, equality, human rights, and liberty, amongst others. I, for one, do not regard this as being insignificant.
The world goes on, but with the chance of being better than it was before.

...I think the difference is significant. It matters because things perceived can be real, but things conceived cannot...
Hi.
If I can jump in here, (tell me to butt out and I will).
Thing percieved may be real, but things concieved can be realized. It is a fact of our existance that we can alter our reality.

Well, this is what I am saying: if it is unknown how can its reality be determined from the imaginative (equating imaginative with unreal)? With the phrase "unknown real tree" you assume a reality, the same way we assume an existence in the face of solipsists; but while the opposite of existence is nothing, the opposite of reality is still something. Which state it is (really) in (real or unreal) cannot truthfully be assumed.

Although Alien Born and I differ on this somewhat because my version of reality is subjective. An "unknown real tree" would meerly be unrealized as opposed to real or unreal. Just as we can alter reality by inventing, say a Star Trek style tricorder, (we're almost there), we can bring things from the realm of the imaginary into reality by realizing (in this case inventing) them. This tricorder did not exist in the physical universe, and was therfore unreal to Alien Born, but its potential was there waiting to be realized.

The third and thrilling final instalment of our latest Saturday matinee series:
"Reply to post #137"
After which there will be a brief interval to buy popcorn and refreshments.
(I may have finally cracked :) )

It is a different use of the word fact, your assertion here is no more salient than my own example of the use of fact 'everyone was wrong about the facts'. Either only one of these can be meaningful, (your example or mine) or both are meaningful and fact has more than one use. I suggest the latter and again point out that my use is the use whereby the assertion 'everyone in the world mistakenly believed it was a fact' has meaning.
Agreed.


That there are other uses/meanings for the word should cause no confusion once I have clarified my particular use in a particular context, and I have. Attempting to say that what I am communicating is incorrect because you insist on interpreting a word that has more than one meaning, to mean one of the meanings that wouldnt make sense, doesnt change the fact that what I am saying does make sense if you interpret the word to mean the conventional meaning that I have made clear I am using. Surely what I am attempting to communicate is more important than the symbols used, provding those symbols can mean what I am intending to communicate, and in this case fact has such a meaning as would render my comments meaningful and true. To insist on restricting it's use to another meaning that renders my comments untrue or meaningless, is unproductive.
This is however something that we both have been doing. I admit that your arguments fail with me, because when I read them I understand something different from the position you intended to state. The same appears to happen the other way around.
The problem is how to make the idea that you are trying to communicate clear. While you use a word in a sense that I do not, and I use it in a sense that you do not, the idea is lost. To say that the idea is more important than the symbol is true, but gives no guidance in how to access the idea without the mediation and interference of the symbols. I am simply incapable of radically changing what I understand when I hear or read the word fact, and it apears that the same aplies to you.
That I understand that you understand something different does not mean that I can understand the term in the same way as you understand it. (That is probably going in my sig to confuse the world, not just us.)

You are not making sense because although we both know that words can have more than one meaning, and although you have not proven that the meaning I am giving to facts, isnt a normative conventional meaning, you insist on ignoring that meaning. This is like me saying 'get that head of cabbage over there' doesnt make sense because heads are the things that belong on necks...
Not quite. Head is a concrete noun. You can point to heads. Fact is an abstract noun, you can not point to a fact. This makes it very difficult indeed to be sure that the term has any common referrent at all.

As I said above, I am not ignoring your meaning, it is simply that it does not mean that for me. You are doing exactly the same with regard to the meaning I attribute to fact.

It is not a matter of showing that the meaning you use is not normal. It is a matter of my not internalising the meaning you use. This is not a conscious or deliberate thing, it is simply that the word fact already has a complex and established meaning me, and to simply understand it as something else when I encounter it, would mean relabelling all of my thinking in this area. Not a practical proposition, nor one that I can voluntarily undertake.

(Aside. Working in moral philosophy I avoid the word normative as it has the specialist meaning of something that causes you to act in that field.)

No you are attempting to say that what I am communicating is untrue because there are other meanings to the symbol fact, as though those other meanings render my communication nonsense. I am using a proper conventional meaning of the word, that there are other meanings, doesnt render what I say incorrect, any more than the other uses for the word 'head' renders the assertion 'that is a head of cabbage' incorrect.
I was not saying that what you were saying was untrue for everyone. I was saying that it was untrue for me. If we use different meanings for a label, and we do, then the communication does become meaningless. For both of us.
I have already invited you to translate any occurance of 'fact' with whatever word/phrase symbolises what I am referring to when I use the word.
and I have explained above that this is not a possibility. The word itself has connotations, whenever i read the word these connotations are present to my mind. It does not matter if I create a look up table for the denotation, the connotations will still be present.
This is a failing of all humans as far as I can establish. Computers do not suffer from this, but I am not a computer (I hope :rolleyes: )
I dont think your point can make any sense until you have made sense of my point. My point isnt the meaning of the word fact, it is the quality of certain things which the word is a conventional symbol for, and until what I mean by the word can be communicated to you, you cant really know what my point is.
Exactly.
Well I point out that reality so far as I know is a term used by many people who firmly believe the mind is in the brain, so clearly normative use of the word by such people cannot mean what you state it means if such a meaning requires belief in your theory.
Have you never "changed your mind"? Never been "worried out of your mind"? Have you not used the phrase "I don't mind"? The normal use of the word simply does not support you.
The normal use of mind is different in nearly every aspect to the normal use of brain. One has to do with opinions, ideas, awareness, presence, emotions, desires, passions and so on. The other is a physical organ made up of nerve cells of various types that is operated on by neurosurgeons. That is a physical object. It weighs a certain amount, it has a certain size. The mind has none of thes properties.
Do we not question if other species are aware? We don't question if they have brains, we can look and see. Finding that a mouse has a brain does not mean that the mouse is aware of itself, is conscious.
The majority of people who firmly believe that the mind is in somewhere have never really thought about it. They would also believe in centrifugal force, because they feel it. If you study and think just a little more, these obvious truths become obviously false. (Centripetal force exists, centrifugal force is just an illusion caused by inertia.)
I dont claim the two are independent of each other, but rather that reality isnt dependent on conciousness. This is no more contradictory than claiming the sea isnt dependent on whales. Again this is a matter of ignoring a meaning of a word in favour of a meaning that renders my comments meaningless or contradictory. When I clearly mean 'independent' in the sense of 'not requiring to function' it is disengenious to pretend that 'independent' only can mean 'not related in any way'. Reality doesnt require our conciousness, that doesnt mean the two are completely unconnected.
Whoa there, slow down and back up a little. By reality is independant of our experience and existence. I meant independent of our experience and independent of our existence, not existence as a whole. (Existence was predicated on us, not the clearest of phrasings I admit. :( )
Either reality is independent of us, which does not mean, I agree, unrelated, but does mean not causally related, or it depends upon us. Can you agree to this?
The mind is causally related to us. Without us minds do not exist, and without minds we do not exist. (Us here meaning self aware beings, not specifically humans)
I am not being disengenious. I genuinely see that there is a necessary and causal connection between us and minds. I also genuinely believe that real means something that exists independantly of us. The consequence is that minds can not be real.
This is another case of ignoring a meaning that is conventional (and so correct as per language function) in favour of a meaning that would render my comments nonsense. In fact a quick look at a dictionary gives as a meaning for perception
"to apprehend with the mind; understand"
Ignoring such a meaning when that is the meaning I intend, is a disengenious way of attempting to prove my comments wrong.
Firstly, what is conventionally understood is not necessarily the appropriate meaning in a philosophical discussion such as this.
Perception is normally meant in philosphy to mean the awarewness of stimulae. No understanding whatsoever is involved. The word does have the very loose meaning, in everyday usage of understanding, but only by analogy.
I am not being disengenious. I am using the word perception in the context of thei discussionas it is normally used in such discussions. It is critical to any discussion of the mind that perception be distinguished from conception. One is a result of external causes, the other an internal construction.
I am sorry if you were not aware of this normal usage in context.
There can be no normal usage of any word outside of the context of the discussion. You, I believe are a Kiwi (Correct me if I am wrong, or if you are insulted by the term) If I say to you "I spent the day watching cricket", you would make sense of this. If I said it to a literate American, they would correct me and tell me that it should be either "crickets" or "a cricket"
The same type of thing is happening here. Perception, in philosophical discussion has a much morte specific meaning than you realised.
As pointed out, you are trying to restrict the word to only one of it's legitimate definitions.

Nothing makes sense if you insist on applying only the legitimate definitions that render something senseless rather than the equally legitimate definitions that are consistent with the comments you are interpreting.
As I said above. I don't insist. I can no more avoid doing so than you can.
No I believe that people believe that something they think is a fact is so because it is true.
Two points.
1. Why No? What I said your position was is what you state here. Logically because can be interpreted as either material implication or conjunction.
Fact = "I beleive it" & "It is absolutely true" is an analysis of your statement here. It can also be expressed as ("I believe A" & "A is absolutely true")-> A is a fact for me.
2. How do they know it is true? (Herein lies the crux of the disagreement)
No, under my definition we cant necessarily know that what we believe to be a fact is a fact.

If what people believe to be true is a fact even if it is not true, then indeed belief and fact become synomonous, belief can be religious and many who believe religious things take such things as being facts. Those who believe in God, are certain God is a fact, just as those who believed the earth is flat, are certain the earth is, always was and always will be flat. Whether or not the belief is religious or scientific doesnt make it not a belief.
The first sentence simply implies that the set "is a fact" is an empty set. The word is meaningless if this is the case.
In the second paragraph we have simply transfered the belief term outside of the concept of fact. So instead of fact meaning ("I believe A" & "I believe A to be true") we get fact as meaning (I believe that ("I believe A" and "A is true"))
This is not what I am arguing. I am arguing that the belief stays inside the analysis. I believe it to be true, rather than I believe it.
Truth, remember I have defined as being correlated with reality. If you believe something to be real, then this is a fact for you. This does not however make it true. Facts can be false. Religious belief is factual for the believer. Go ask Keruvalia, or (dare I suggest this) Jesussaves if their beliefs are based on fact.
Popular belief can be based on 'evidence', for example the once popular belief that the earth is flat, a belief that according to you was once a fact.
Yes, it was. It was not true, but it was a fact.
No fact is truth arising from real.
Fact = true. Why do we need the word fact then? Just say it is true.
Truth is objective, it is our views of truth that are subjective. 'It's real', if 'it' is 'real' is a fact about something and it's status with regards to being real.
Rephrasing to clarify in my mind. It is real is a fact only if that thing denoted by the word it in this sentance is real. If that thing denoted by the word it is not real, despite our believing it to be real implies that the sentance is not factual.
I disagree. Again this is simply defining fact = real. My objection still stands.
It may be a description of a fact. You cant talk or word a fact, our words our means of communicating what we believe to be facts. The facts are truths about the things that are and the words we use to describe a fact are simply our closest means of communicating them.
I am not the one that frequently argues on the basis of the common usage of words. Either this is valid argumentation, and you have insisted that it is, or it is not. It can not be valid for one and not for the other. You have used words as facts throughout this discussion, so of course I can use words as facts.
Hang on why would replacing a noun with an adjective necessarily make sense, since that is what you have posited as begin your understanding of my comments.
Sorry, my slip. However replying "Is that reality" does not work either, which is what I should have put there
They dont ever vary from the truth, if you accord the word 'fact' with the legitimate meaning that I am according the word, they might if you accord another meaning to the word, but why would you do so, if it is clear that the other meaning is not the meaning I am employing? Why ignore a legitimate meaning of the word that makes sense when applied to my comments, in favour of an alternative legitimate meaning that doesnt make sense. Doing so doesnt make my comments any less true or correct, it doesnt change the concept I intend to communicate, it simply pretends that such a concept doesnt exist, when clearly if I am thinking the concept, it does exist.
OK. in good Portuguese. Chega. Let us get rid of this thing about the "legitimacy" of the use of a word. Any usage whatsoever of a word is legitimate. The law does not define the usage or meaning of words. If I said that for me, fact means a red pillowcase, this would be a legitimate usage.
"If I accord the word "fact" with the <insert meaningless rhetorical adjective here> meaning that I am according the word"
I do not ignore your usage, I simply inform you that your usage is not universal and definite. About the transference of concepts, I have commented above concerning the problem of connotation.
No pretence involved whatsoever.
For me facts do vary from truth, for you they do not. These are our positions. Where is the pretension that your position is not possible. I deny its validity, I disagree with it, but you hold it so it is possible. Your comments are not true, in my opinion. You would have to show their correlation with reality to make them necessarily true, and this can not be done. The same aplies to my position. However I simply believe that I am expounding the truth, I do not claim categorical truth as you are doing.
Please try and open your mind to the possibility that your inerpretations are just that, your interpretations. This does restrict somewhat their claim to be true, but it does not deny the possibility of their being true.
I have not said that any concept of yours does not exist, I have simply said that my concepts are different.
That doesnt change what is meant when people use the word. Most people are not familiar with Heisenberg/Godel et al, so clearly they dont mean anything dependent on knowledge of such people's theories. In fact many people have never considered the extent to which we can verify and know, it is entirely common for people to believe that science is 'all knowing' and such people commonly use the word fact accordingly.
Which is the reason I reject common usage as being a useful criteria. Common usage generally reflects common ignorance. Not a criticism of the people of the world a statement of fact (Something I believe and that I believe to be true ;) )
Makes no difference to my comments.
Let us rewinfd a fraction:
Of course there are facts we do not know.
Then it cannot be true that facts require our perception.
That a fact is the filtering of reality by our perception does not mean that the fact is previously established. The fact is related to reality, and the fact only has any content once it is known, but it is there in potential due to the phenomena generated by reality that underlie it.
A fact is a temporal entity. It exists now for me. I appreciate that with your definition this is not the case, a fact is outside of time for you. A fact we do not know, is one that is not yet known, from my interpetation. From yours, it is the same. There is no conflict here.
Aha, I'm aware of these things, but I am not using the word fact a symbol for a definition that requires that we ever know 'facts' in their 'raw state', their 'unfiltered state'. That's my whole point. There is such a thing/s that isnt false, that is true, regardless of our filtering, and that thing/s is what I am using the word fact to refer to. But you are ignoring this legitimate definition in favour of a definition that supports your assertion that I am incorrect.
So facts are unknowable? Not very useful as I learnt a lot of them in my life. Waste of time really. This by the way just reinforces that fact=reality, an unnecessary linguistic complication.
No surprise to me (although I wasnt aware that the ancient Greek culture particularly didnt have discrete terms for both blue and green), I am well aware that not every culture does have discrete terms for the colours that our own identifies and gives symbols to.
We all learn useless facts every day.
No it would be factual to say that they had the same terminology for the colour of a blue thing and a green thing.
It is deeper than that. They had no conceptual difference between blue and green, they could see no difference apparently. A cultural colour blindness. This is the most extreme case of this that I know of. Usually these things tend to refer to internal unverifiable concepts such as emotional states.
I'm not suggesting there is, but rather that facts (as I am using the symbol in this context) are things that exist as they exist, regardless of our perception.
Facts are the things that we filter, not the product of such filtering.
As I noted before then, facts are unknowable by this definition, but I definitely know some facts. The Eifel tower is in Paris, France would be a fact. (of course someone could have moved it without my being aware of it, but it still remains a fact to me. Until I have evidence to the contrary)
Meaning (of words) is a shared convention. You may disagree with the convention, but the meaning is whatever the convention is, that's how language functions.
The convention is what I am trying to establish. A linguisitc convention is not universal, it is negotiated by the participants in the communication. In this case you and I, and Willamena.
This is how language functions.
We have to agree on some terms if we wish to move forward. To agree on terms we have to decide which term best fits what concept.To do this the concepts have to be clear. Now here it gets difficult because the circle closes. To clarify the concept, we have to use the very terms that we are trying to negotiate. To insist beforehand that one term is correct for any concept is to deny this negotiation. There are other terms that may apply, and that term may apply to a different concept.

I have, as clearly as possible stated my understanding of the terms
existence, reality, and fact. You likewise have stated your understanding of these terms. We are now in the negotiation phase.
This means that I argue whay your conception of these terms is unsatisfactory, and why mine is more usable. You argue the other way. This does not mean that I am denying any pre established convention, because there was no such convention to which I was party.

Such a position requires a certain definition be applied to the word fact, but it doesnt negate an alternative legitimate definition of the word fact and comments made using it illegitimate of wrong. You are challenging my position, and to do so legitimately, you need to address my position, rather than a straw man built out of ignoring legitimate definitions of a word.
I am, in general, attacking your definition, or had you not noticed. You may defend it, by justifyingg the definition. Attacking my attack is not defending your position, it is implying that your position is undefendable by other means.
Show me the straw man if I am using a straw man argument.
The facts are unknown is a meaningful statement. My statement about this explains how this is possible with my definitions. I am entitled to defend against an attack on my position with an explanation of how my position meets the challenge.
Things need not be gathered altogether for there to be a sum total of those things.
No, but for such a total to be known there has to be one consciousness that has this knowledge. The total certainly exists, but is in general unknown.
No it doesnt. The fact that I dont know something doesnt mean it is unknown. Known isnt necessarily self referenced. I know that many people know things I dont know, I even often have some notion as to the kind of things that they have knowledge about that I dont. For instance I dont know how to build a tv, it isnt a contradiction for me to say that the method of building a tv isnt unknown to human beings, even though it is unknown to some human beings. Anything known by anyone is something that is known, and thus not unknown.
Once morewe encounter the same type of problem. Knowledge to me is something one has, not something that is. To know something is an internal fact, it is a belief about yourself. You can say that others know how to build a TV, true. But this is part of your knowledge. You know that others know how to build a TV. If you did not know this then you could not say it. Now you have a knowledge bank, the facts (by whatever definition) that you have learned. This includes knowledge that others have knowledge that you do not. You can not however say that how to build a TV is known to you. You are restricted to knowing only what you yourself, an individual knows. There is no possibility of communal knowledge.
How am I to restate it if you insist on interpreting words with a definition that isnt the legitimate definition I was intending for them. I am simply making it clear that there are things which are true, whether we know them or not. I call those things facts because it is a legitimate conventional meaning of the word, you reject/ignore that meaning and replace it with one which is equally legitimate and then pretend that it is the only definition. But it's not...
It appears that we are not going to make any progress on this subject. You, rightly so, keep to your definitions, and I do likewise. Both sets are potentially plausable.
What I suggest is that we apply our definitions to Willanena's classic tree problem and see how they compare.

OK
For me:
The Tree
Exists - Yes
Is Real - Yes
Is a fact - No

The Sound
Exists - Yes
Is Real - Depends on the meaning of sound. see below
Is a fact - No.

Sound has two interpretations that make a difference to it's reality in my scheme.
Sound = Sound wave, a physical event. In this case Yes it is real
Sound = What we perceive with our minds, In this case No it is not real.

I cant work out if the pain in my head is brain or tumour growth ;)
Oh, sorry I'll stop beating you round the head with my definitions. That might help. :D

Unknown existence can only be real. (me: uh... how do we determine that again?)


We do not. There is nothing that requires us to know about something real. I am just separating reality from our awareness. The two are, for me, completely independent.

Oh, and the Panther six was very real indeed. It made a lot of noise and cost a fortune at the time (1980s. I lived near the factory where they were hand made).

Yes, having no traces does not preclude it from ever having existed. "If" it existed. But then we have no information about it or its existence at all, and any speculation about it is just that --speculation. I would call that imagined.

I would not. It is not even imagined. Any example I give, is of course imagined, otherwise I could not give it. But there will be real events that leave no trace that we do not imagine. We will never know anything about them, not even that they happened except in theoretical terms. This theory does not describe the events, so they are not imagined, it simply describes reality in general terms.

Yes, having no traces does not preclude it from ever having existed. "If" it existed. But then we have no information about it or its existence at all, and any speculation about it is just that --speculation. I would call that imagined.
I would not. It is not even imagined. Any example I give, is of course imagined, otherwise I could not give it. But there will be real events that leave no trace that we do not imagine. We will never know anything about them, not even that they happened except in theoretical terms. This theory does not describe the events, so they are not imagined, it simply describes reality in general terms.
Yes, there mostly likely will be something that exists somewhere that leaves traces that we have no knowledge of, but we cannot say any specific such thing really exists. As soon as you do, I should rightfully demand you define its nature.

A "something" that has no other identity is nothing in particular. :)

Yes, there mostly likely will be something that exists somewhere that leaves traces that we have no knowledge of, but we cannot say any specific such thing really exists. As soon as you do, I should rightfully demand you define its nature.

A "something" that has no other identity is nothing in particular. :)


What does the verb "be" mean in your first sentence. In what sense will this thing be. I am not saying that we can know anything whatsoever about it, other than it exists, and is not dependant upon us knowing about it for it to exist. By my definitions, this makes it real. That is all.
It is something, not nothing. It may be nothing in particular, but this does not make it non-existant.

The third and thrilling final instalment of our latest Saturday matinee series:
"Reply to post #137"
After which there will be a brief interval to buy popcorn and refreshments.
(I may have finally cracked :) )
Having typed a reply to your post, and having lost it due to 'not being logged in' and the use of the 'back' button not recovering my post, I have certainly cracked...I'll re attempt my reply later, when I feel less devastated about loosing the reply I already typed out.... :(

Having typed a reply to your post, and having lost it due to 'not being logged in' and the use of the 'back' button not recovering my post, I have certainly cracked...I'll re attempt my reply later, when I feel less devastated about loosing the reply I already typed out.... :(
I hate when that happens...

What does the verb "be" mean in your first sentence. In what sense will this thing be. I am not saying that we can know anything whatsoever about it, other than it exists, and is not dependant upon us knowing about it for it to exist. By my definitions, this makes it real. That is all.
The "be" is a "mostly likely be". Its only possible "existence" is a best guess based on rational thinking. Its only existence is as a thought.

It is something, not nothing. It may be nothing in particular, but this does not make it non-existant.
It is something, a thought.

Having typed a reply to your post, and having lost it due to 'not being logged in' and the use of the 'back' button not recovering my post, I have certainly cracked...I'll re attempt my reply later, when I feel less devastated about loosing the reply I already typed out.... :(

I have taken to copying and pasting my posts into open office to avoid this risk. I lost a few before I started doing this, but since, I have had no problem.

I sympathise. :fluffle:
(only my second ever fluffle)

Vandervecken'] ...I think the difference is significant. It matters because things perceived can be real, but things conceived cannot...
Hi.
If I can jump in here, (tell me to butt out and I will).
Thing percieved may be real, but things concieved can be realized. It is a fact of our existance that we can alter our reality.
Your ideas are welcome, and I'd like to use this post to rehash old ideas, if you don't mind. So bear with me, I don't want to confuse anyone.

By 'things conceived that alter reality,' are you referring to understandings? An understanding (as opposed to the process of understanding) is a type of idea, and so unreal. Ideas are conceived in the mind. This definition accepts "imagined" or "thought of" and "real" as opposite concepts. This also accepts imagination as a function of the mind, the faculty that creates images and situations in the mind that do not correspond to anything physical. These non-physical things are referred to as the content of the mind (what I've mistakenly referred to "content of thoughts" earlier, but feel free to ignore that).

Metaphysics distinguishes between an idea's physical existence in the body and the existence of content in the mind. An idea has both a conceptual existence, as content of the mind, and a chemical physical existence. Its reality as an idea is linked to the physical (experiential); the content of a mind is always unreal. (The mind itself is unreal, as (I think) Alien Born pointed out, and I agree.) This recognizes "real" not as a physical thing, but as a property of existence (existence is either "real" or "unreal", or, as you pointed out, "unknown").

The question posed in this thread is, what is reality? (more on that later)

"Realizing" has a few contexts, most relevantly synonymous with understanding and actualizing, but we do not "make things real" by realizing them except figuratively. Realizing confers "real" on something, in the sense of adding a new characteristic-label to the other labels we use to identify that something. When we actualize things, we do something physically to bring an idea to "life", to make a physical representation so that it can be acknowledged as real. When we understand something, like a wonderful reality-altering idea recognized as "the truth", since the content of an idea is unreal it does not come to "life" in the same sense; a representation can be made physically, but subjective concepts (like feelings) are often hard to translate. This is why metaphor is such an often disliked thing, and why mathematics is so well liked, because it is simple to translate. In the act of acknowledging the truth of the idea of a truth (an understanding) we do not confer "real" on the content of the idea. If I realize "2+2=4" as a truth, it does not make "2+2=4" something real that I can pluck out of my brain and put in my pocket.

"Making something real" I have no problem with, it's just a matter of symbolizing it. "Making reality" is a phrase I would wince at. Reality is a confirmation of physical existence; in order for something physical to be real, it must itself exist, not a proxy of it, and not as a proxy. We can create thoughts, and they exist, and we can realize them in symbols, but to "make reality" would imply creating physical existence. It is the truth of physical existence that is being verified "in realty," and that verification is accomplished through the senses, or perceived. Physical things cannot be unreal; mental ones cannot be real.

We recognize existence (consciousness becoming aware of it) and according to metaphysics this means the things recognized already existed. We can recognize a cat, we can recognize an idea written in a book: they existed before we became aware of them. We create a new identity for a thing that we previously had no awareness of; started a new file in consciousness, so to speak. Reality, as I've been pushing the term, is acknowledging the "real" about something, and that means the somethings that already have been identified to consciousness.

But this is cool: with understanding, a truth has been recognized on a whole new level apart from the ideas that led to that truth, so it seems something new and marvellous has "come into existence", though strictly mental existence. But existence precedes consciousness, so the knowledge gained through understanding was "there for the taking" before it was realized. I don't think there is anyone who has had such a realization who would dispute that, "Now I see it!" The concepts were all in place that led to this realization.

Still, I like to think I have a new idea every now and then. :)

Vandervecken']Although Alien Born and I differ on this somewhat because my version of reality is subjective. An "unknown real tree" would meerly be unrealized as opposed to real or unreal. Just as we can alter reality by inventing, say a Star Trek style tricorder, (we're almost there), we can bring things from the realm of the imaginary into reality by realizing (in this case inventing) them. This tricorder did not exist in the physical universe, and was therfore unreal to Alien Born, but its potential was there waiting to be realized.
Right, its reality is only potential until we actualize it.

I hope this all made sense; I don't have time to proof-read today.

By 'things conceived that alter reality,' are you referring to understandings? An understanding (as opposed to the process of understanding) is a type of idea, and so unreal. Ideas are conceived in the mind. This definition accepts "imagined" or "thought of" and "real" as opposite concepts. This also accepts imagination as a function of the mind, the faculty that creates images and situations in the mind that do not correspond to anything physical. These non-physical things are referred to as the content of the mind (what I've mistakenly referred to "content of thoughts" earlier, but feel free to ignore that).
Actually - I am referring to both. The original context was:
...I think the difference is significant. It matters because things perceived can be real, but things conceived cannot...
Consider two cases (each of which is possible):
I can conceive that the physical universe operates in a certain way, I can then under take to prove or disprove what I have imagined is true. If it proves to be true then I have realized ("to conceive vividly as real") this facet of the physical universe. This has become part of what I subjectively think of as real.
I can also concieve of something that has never existed in the physical universe, lets say a bacterial infection that I can infect you with that would clean all the plaque out of your arteries before it died. I can then work to bring this into existance, (it was not ever part of the physical universe), so by me realizing it ("to bring into concrete existence") I have not only altered reality, I have altered the physical universe.
Metaphysics distinguishes...
I'd like to skip the metaphysics for the momemt.
..."Making something real" I have no problem with, it's just a matter of symbolizing it. "Making reality" is a phrase I would wince at. Reality is a confirmation of physical existence; in order for something physical to be real, it must itself exist, not a proxy of it, and not as a proxy. We can create thoughts, and they exist, and we can realize them in symbols, but to "make reality" would imply creating physical existence. It is the truth of physical existence that is being verified "in realty," and that verification is accomplished through the senses, or perceived. Physical things cannot be unreal; mental ones cannot be real.
In my second example I took an imagined physical object and brought it into existence. While I too would shudder at calling it "Making reality", it did create physical existance, did it not? (Only spin doctors can "Make reality".)
Our existance derives from the physical universe, but our reality is not limited to it. As we discover things about the universe it alters our perception of the universe allowing us to better control our reality. While the physical universe - existance - reality relationship is an interdependant one - (i.e. you cannot discover an unreal thing) - it is a balanced relationship allowing each to impact the other, (i.e. you can imagine an unreal thing and make it real, changing all three).
But this is cool: with understanding, a truth has been recognized on a whole new level apart from the ideas that led to that truth, so it seems something new and marvellous has "come into existence", though strictly mental existence. But existence precedes consciousness, so the knowledge gained through understanding was "there for the taking" before it was realized. I don't think there is anyone who has had such a realization who would dispute that, "Now I see it!" The concepts were all in place that led to this realization.
By limiting our existance to the physical universe we close the door to the fact that only a mind can alter reality, and that it takes a mind to discover new aspects of the universe to add to our control of reality. Everything that can be is not already in existance, or even in the physical universe. Reality transcends the limitations of these and allows us to alter them. If all things are limited to what we can discover about the physical universe then where did the (unreal) mind come from. The hard question is: If there were no minds in existance in the universe, would there still be reality? My personal answer is no. If the mind can alter reality by bringing into existance something heretofor unrealized in the physical universe then reality is not the physical universe, nor is it existance. It must therefor be a third agent acting in concert the these other two.

I know I didn't address all of what was in your post, but I tried to hit the high points.

Vandervecken']Consider two cases (each of which is possible):
I can conceive that the physical universe operates in a certain way, I can then under take to prove or disprove what I have imagined is true. If it proves to be true then I have realized ("to conceive vividly as real") this facet of the physical universe. This has become part of what I subjectively think of as real.
I can also concieve of something that has never existed in the physical universe, lets say a bacterial infection that I can infect you with that would clean all the plaque out of your arteries before it died. I can then work to bring this into existance, (it was not ever part of the physical universe), so by me realizing it ("to bring into concrete existence") I have not only altered reality, I have altered the physical universe.

In my second example I took an imagined physical object and brought it into existence. While I too would shudder at calling it "Making reality", it did create physical existance, did it not? (Only spin doctors can "Make reality".)
Our existance derives from the physical universe, but our reality is not limited to it. As we discover things about the universe it alters our perception of the universe allowing us to better control our reality. While the physical universe - existance - reality relationship is an interdependant one - (i.e. you cannot discover an unreal thing) - it is a balanced relationship allowing each to impact the other, (i.e. you can imagine an unreal thing and make it real, changing all three).
Ahh. This is a context of "realizing" that I hadn't addressed in my post. I was referring to how thought cannot directly create things (bring them into existence). When I said "things conceived cannot be real" I was referring to their being unreal while they are still thought, in the mind. In your example, you actualize your idea into a voiced statement, perhaps a plan or experiment, "making it real" --then perhaps go out and got funding, and then set about realizing it with activity. Yes, it is a real thing you created, because physical things (consisting of matter/energy) are real (really exist) and can be manipulated to make other real things; but there are a lot of small steps involved between creating the existence of this thing and the originally conceived idea.

Vandervecken']By limiting our existance to the physical universe we close the door to the fact that only a mind can alter reality, and that it takes a mind to discover new aspects of the universe to add to our control of reality. Everything that can be is not already in existance, or even in the physical universe. Reality transcends the limitations of these and allows us to alter them. If all things are limited to what we can discover about the physical universe then where did the (unreal) mind come from. The hard question is: If there were no minds in existance in the universe, would there still be reality? My personal answer is no. If the mind can alter reality by bringing into existance something heretofor unrealized in the physical universe then reality is not the physical universe, nor is it existance. It must therefor be a third agent acting in concert the these other two.

I know I didn't address all of what was in your post, but I tried to hit the high points.
I have not suggested that existence is limited to the physical universe (things that are real and unreal exist), but reality is limited. I, too, balk at the idea of excluding consciousness from the equation, which is what began this thread.

My position is that since reality is a conscious acknowledgement of existence (physical) then without consciousness there is only existence. Consciousness gives existence meaning, and "real" is one of those meanings. Of course, there is "real" in the other context of "genuine", and that applies equally to concepts. Alien Born has also made a distinction here, though: it is not the context of real that we are discussing. But it does create another type of reality, that would make for interesting discussion (how they differ, what they have in common, whether the differences are significant, etc).

My position is that since reality is a conscious acknowledgement of existence (physical) then without consciousness there is only existence. Consciousness gives existence meaning, and "real" is one of those meanings. Of course, there is "real" in the other context of "genuine", and that applies equally to concepts. Alien Born has also made a distinction here, though: it is not the context of real that we are discussing. But it does create another type of reality, that would make for interesting discussion (how they differ, what they have in common, whether the differences are significant, etc).
Alien Born's position is far more literal than mine. His arguments have logical consistency and as far as my knowledge extends, I cannot shake his views. My own views are possibly further from that position than yours are, but far more similar to yours.

My views basically boil down to:
Our existance takes place within the physical universe, a subset if you will.
Reality is the conscious perception of that existance and that universe combined with the effects that that consciousness has upon that system causing a dynamic and constantly changing system.

As an intellectual exercise, consider the concepts of most religions of life after death, and heven and he11. I doubt that these exist within the physical universe, and yet these beliefs of the (unreal) mind are pervasive and there is some evidence, though not conclusive, to support their existance. Could it not be that if these are part of your reality then they exist, and if you are an atheist they do not. I gives a whole new meaning to the words "a test of faith" :p . And if these things are unreal and they do exist, how does that impact existance?

The third and thrilling final instalment of our latest Saturday matinee series:
"Reply to post #137"
After which there will be a brief interval to buy popcorn and refreshments.
(I may have finally cracked :) )


Agreed.



This is however something that we both have been doing. I admit that your arguments fail with me, because when I read them I understand something different from the position you intended to state. The same appears to happen the other way around.
The problem is how to make the idea that you are trying to communicate clear. While you use a word in a sense that I do not, and I use it in a sense that you do not, the idea is lost. To say that the idea is more important than the symbol is true, but gives no guidance in how to access the idea without the mediation and interference of the symbols. I am simply incapable of radically changing what I understand when I hear or read the word fact, and it apears that the same aplies to you.
The same doesnt apply to me. Frankly I'm surprised it does apply to you. What do you do when for instance you learn that a word has a specialised convention in philosophy? Do you ignore the convention or do are you suddenly unable to understand what the word means when applied in circumstances where philosophical conventions dont apply?

That I understand that you understand something different does not mean that I can understand the term in the same way as you understand it. (That is probably going in my sig to confuse the world, not just us.)


Not quite. Head is a concrete noun. You can point to heads. Fact is an abstract noun, you can not point to a fact. This makes it very difficult indeed to be sure that the term has any common referrent at all.
Whether or not the word is a noun isnt relevent. What is relevent is that words can and often do have more than one definition and to suggest what a person says is wrong or makes no sense because there is an alternative meaning, would render a great deal of the English language non-functional.

As I said above, I am not ignoring your meaning, it is simply that it does not mean that for me. You are doing exactly the same with regard to the meaning I attribute to fact.
No, I'm not. I have not challenged your definition of the word, I have simply attempted to defended the accuracy of a concept which I tried to communicate.

It is not a matter of showing that the meaning you use is not normal. It is a matter of my not internalising the meaning you use. This is not a conscious or deliberate thing, it is simply that the word fact already has a complex and established meaning me, and to simply understand it as something else when I encounter it, would mean relabelling all of my thinking in this area. Not a practical proposition, nor one that I can voluntarily undertake.

(Aside. Working in moral philosophy I avoid the word normative as it has the specialist meaning of something that causes you to act in that field.)


I was not saying that what you were saying was untrue for everyone. I was saying that it was untrue for me. If we use different meanings for a label, and we do, then the communication does become meaningless. For both of us.

and I have explained above that this is not a possibility. The word itself has connotations, whenever i read the word these connotations are present to my mind. It does not matter if I create a look up table for the denotation, the connotations will still be present.
This is a failing of all humans as far as I can establish. Computers do not suffer from this, but I am not a computer (I hope :rolleyes: )
Well I'm not a computer but I have no trouble doing it. What I want to know though is what is the purpose of negotiating what a word will mean in a certain discussion if you will not be able to actually apply whatever meaning is agreed to?

Exactly.

Have you never "changed your mind"? Never been "worried out of your mind"? Have you not used the phrase "I don't mind"? The normal use of the word simply does not support you.
Hang on if these 'normal uses' prove anything about my use of the word, then they prove something about your use. How can you worry yourself out of something if that something has no location? Surely to worry oneself out of one's mind, a mind must be somewhere, else you wouldnt be able to be in a mind in order to worry yourself out of that mind...
This is another case of taking one use of the word and attempting to invalidate other uses of the word.

The normal use of mind is different in nearly every aspect to the normal use of brain. One has to do with opinions, ideas, awareness, presence, emotions, desires, passions and so on. The other is a physical organ made up of nerve cells of various types that is operated on by neurosurgeons. That is a physical object. It weighs a certain amount, it has a certain size. The mind has none of thes properties.
This is a strawman, my comment said that I consider the mind to be in the brain, I dont consider that a box is inside of itself. How can I say the mind is in the brain and mean that the mind is exactly equivalent to the brain in every way? I couldnt. By saying the mind is in the brain, I am by implication excluding the thing you are objecting to. I dont see how you got from 'the mind is in the brain' to 'the mind is the same as the brain physically and in every respect'. If I said the engine was in the car, would you argue that this couldnt be so because the engine weighs less than the car? I doubt that you would.

Do we not question if other species are aware? We don't question if they have brains, we can look and see. Finding that a mouse has a brain does not mean that the mouse is aware of itself, is conscious.
I and many others wonder what goes on in the mind of animals belonging to other species.

The majority of people who firmly believe that the mind is in somewhere have never really thought about it. They would also believe in centrifugal force, because they feel it. If you study and think just a little more, these obvious truths become obviously false. (Centripetal force exists, centrifugal force is just an illusion caused by inertia.)
Maybe so, maybe not. Absence of thought in order to reach a conclusion doesnt necessitate that the conclusion is incorrect. Even if the thinking which leads to a word having a definition attached, is faulty, that isnt relevent. Words acquire definitions throught usage, it is not necessary that such usage be well thought out.

Whoa there, slow down and back up a little. By reality is independant of our experience and existence. I meant independent of our experience and independent of our existence, not existence as a whole. (Existence was predicated on us, not the clearest of phrasings I admit. :( )
Either reality is independent of us, which does not mean, I agree, unrelated, but does mean not causally related, or it depends upon us. Can you agree to this?
The mind is causally related to us. Without us minds do not exist, and without minds we do not exist. (Us here meaning self aware beings, not specifically humans)
I am not being disengenious. I genuinely see that there is a necessary and causal connection between us and minds. I also genuinely believe that real means something that exists independantly of us. The consequence is that minds can not be real.
I dont agree that we have no causal relationship with reality. How can we be part of reality and have no causal relationship thereof? Cars are part of reality, if humans didnt do their necessary part in causing cars to be, reality wouldnt be exactly as it is, so clearly humans are a cause of reality being as it is.

Firstly, what is conventionally understood is not necessarily the appropriate meaning in a philosophical discussion such as this.
Actually it has to be. Jargon (such as specialised definitions being attached to words by trained philosophers) has two primary uses, one of which I reject on a public message board (exclusion of the uninitiated), the other, is to make words more effective mediators of people's ideas and thoughts. In this case I dont know the philosophical conventions to which you refer, so employing them cannot serve the purpose of more effective mediation of ideas, I cant employ conventions I have no knowledge of, and there is little point in you employing them unless you explicitly explain them as you go, which would be no more efficient than simply not using them in the first place. So in this context there is no good reason to employ philosophical jargon.

Perception is normally meant in philosphy to mean the awarewness of stimulae. No understanding whatsoever is involved. The word does have the very loose meaning, in everyday usage of understanding, but only by analogy.
This isnt relevent, I can assure you I was not using the word in the context of philosophical jargon, I wasnt even aware of the words use as 'jargonese' so clearly I couldnt have intended to so use it.

I am not being disengenious. I am using the word perception in the context of thei discussionas it is normally used in such discussions.
It's not normal to use philosophical jargon in a discussion in which the participants dont know philosophical jargon, doing so can only inhibit communication in such a circumstance.

It is critical to any discussion of the mind that perception be distinguished from conception. One is a result of external causes, the other an internal construction.
Internal to what? External to what? Either the mind has location or it doesnt, I contend it is in the brain, but if you contend that it isnt in the brain, then where is the mind that things can be internal or external to it?

I am sorry if you were not aware of this normal usage in context.
It's not a normal use in this context. This is an internet forum not a philosophy class.

There can be no normal usage of any word outside of the context of the discussion. You, I believe are a Kiwi (Correct me if I am wrong, or if you are insulted by the term) If I say to you "I spent the day watching cricket", you would make sense of this. If I said it to a literate American, they would correct me and tell me that it should be either "crickets" or "a cricket"
The same type of thing is happening here. Perception, in philosophical discussion has a much morte specific meaning than you realised.
Ha! Actually I can never make sense out of why anyone would spend an entire day watching cricket.... ;)

As I said above. I don't insist. I can no more avoid doing so than you can.
Well that doesnt prove a lot, since I can avoid doing so..

Two points.
1. Why No? What I said your position was is what you state here. Logically because can be interpreted as either material implication or conjunction.
Fact = "I beleive it" & "It is absolutely true" is an analysis of your statement here. It can also be expressed as ("I believe A" & "A is absolutely true")-> A is a fact for me.
No, because I dont believe that when people use the word fact that they necessarily intend to directly comment on their beliefs.

2. How do they know it is true? (Herein lies the crux of the disagreement)
How do they know anything is true? I dont see how this question is relevent.

The first sentence simply implies that the set "is a fact" is an empty set. The word is meaningless if this is the case.
No it doesnt. The set 'fact' is no more empty than the set 'truth'.

In the second paragraph we have simply transfered the belief term outside of the concept of fact. So instead of fact meaning ("I believe A" & "I believe A to be true") we get fact as meaning (I believe that ("I believe A" and "A is true"))
This is not what I am arguing. I am arguing that the belief stays inside the analysis. I believe it to be true, rather than I believe it.
My point is that when people use the word fact, they are not necessarily intending any reference to their beliefs.

Truth, remember I have defined as being correlated with reality. If you believe something to be real, then this is a fact for you.
No, it doesnt because to me fact doesnt mean what you are asserting it means. So to me, my belief doesnt make something a fact.

This does not however make it true. Facts can be false. Religious belief is factual for the believer. Go ask Keruvalia, or (dare I suggest this) Jesussaves if their beliefs are based on fact.
The same argument could be made about truth. Can truth be false. Go ask Jesussaves if their beliefs are the truth... ;)

Yes, it was. It was not true, but it was a fact.
Only if you define fact so that something not true can be a fact, which I dont....

Fact = true. Why do we need the word fact then? Just say it is true.
That wouldnt be fair to those who rely on the production of a theasuarus in order to make their living....I dont need to explain why there is more than symbol for some things in English, so long as that is the case (and it clearly is), your objection is baseless.

Rephrasing to clarify in my mind. It is real is a fact only if that thing denoted by the word it in this sentance is real. If that thing denoted by the word it is not real, despite our believing it to be real implies that the sentance is not factual.
I disagree. Again this is simply defining fact = real. My objection still stands.
Which objection? The one that would imply that that a theasaurus would be a book of blank pages?

I am not the one that frequently argues on the basis of the common usage of words. Either this is valid argumentation, and you have insisted that it is, or it is not. It can not be valid for one and not for the other. You have used words as facts throughout this discussion, so of course I can use words as facts.
I'm not referring to common usage. (Assuming for the sake of discussion that all the following assertions are assertions that are facts). Can you say that cats have fur in Spanish? Is this communicating the same fact as when you say it in English? Is the fact communicated by 'this is a green house' a different fact to the fact communicated by 'this house is green'? I say not, because I say the words are means of communicating that believed to be a fact, they are not the fact itself.

Sorry, my slip. However replying "Is that reality" does not work either, which is what I should have put there
Of course it doesnt. Anymore than pointing to an engine and saying 'is this the car'. I have not said every real thing is reality, I dont believe that any one thing is the entirety of all that exists and has ever existed. A thing that is real is a part of reality. It (any particular discrete real thing) is no more 'reality' than my leg is me.

OK. in good Portuguese. Chega. Let us get rid of this thing about the "legitimacy" of the use of a word. Any usage whatsoever of a word is legitimate. The law does not define the usage or meaning of words. If I said that for me, fact means a red pillowcase, this would be a legitimate usage.
"If I accord the word "fact" with the <insert meaningless rhetorical adjective here> meaning that I am according the word"
Either you are unaware of at least one definition of the word legitimate, or you are ignoring that definition, specifically conforming to standard type.

I do not ignore your usage, I simply inform you that your usage is not universal and definite.
They are correct definitions. That not everyone is aware of the convention isnt relevent. That enough people are aware of it that it is a shared convention that is described in the dictionary, meets my standards for correct usage in a conversation conducted in standard English (standard meaning 'non-jargonese').

About the transference of concepts, I have commented above concerning the problem of connotation.
Aha, I guess it's something I struggle to understand since the problem doesnt effect me in quite the way that you describe it as effecting you.

No pretence involved whatsoever.
For me facts do vary from truth, for you they do not. These are our positions. Where is the pretension that your position is not possible.
The pretension comes from taking a sentence that means one thing if you interpret the words in it according to one definition, and then asserting that other equally correct interpretations cannot apply. Either you are ignorant that the words referred to can be correctly interpreted otherwise, or you are pretending that this isnt so. I for instance know that 'head' can be interpreted so that 'give me that head of cabbage; makes sense, I would be engaged in pretense if I tried to pick holes in the 'request/demand' based on an insistence that heads are things that belong on necks.

I deny its validity, I disagree with it, but you hold it so it is possible.
Actually you are not primarily engaged in denying the validity of the concept I have tried to communicate, but rather are engaged for the most part in denying the validity of my word usage.

Your comments are not true, in my opinion.
How can you know that unless you know what my comments are actually saying? How can you know what my comments are saying when you deny that they can mean what they do mean? Remembering that the symbols are arbitary and have no meaning except that attached to them as a matter of shared convention, if the convention is widely enough shared to be described in the dictionary, how can you deny that no such shared convention exists?

You would have to show their correlation with reality to make them necessarily true, and this can not be done.
So if I cant demonstrate the correlation between a statement and reality, that statement isnt true even if the statement (despite my inability to prove so) does correlate to reality? I disagree. A true statement is true whether or not the truth of it can be demonstrated.

The same aplies to my position. However I simply believe that I am expounding the truth, I do not claim categorical truth as you are doing.
I'm not certain what exactly you are saying here. Do you mean there is no categorical truth.

Please try and open your mind to the possibility that your inerpretations are just that, your interpretations.
I dont believe it is possible that I wrote the dictionary I checked my interpretations in...sorry, but hard as I might try, I keep right on believing that the interpretations I read in the dictionary did not stem from me personally...

This does restrict somewhat their claim to be true, but it does not deny the possibility of their being true.
I have not said that any concept of yours does not exist, I have simply said that my concepts are different.
I'm not convinced that I have communicated the concepts referred to, to you. That being the case I'm not convinced that you can know whether or not the concepts I am referring to, are not materially the same as concepts you yourself hold.

Which is the reason I reject common usage as being a useful criteria.
Common usage generally reflects common ignorance. Not a criticism of the people of the world a statement of fact (Something I believe and that I believe to be true ;) )
Hang on you are now implying that words have some definite and absolute attachment to their definitions, that they derive their meaning from something other than 'shared convention'. How do arbitary symbols have any other attachment to what they symbolise than that arising from the sharing of the convention that they are attached? How can 'common usage' of words not be the correct usage of them?

Let us rewinfd a fraction:

A fact is a temporal entity. It exists now for me. I appreciate that with your definition this is not the case, a fact is outside of time for you. A fact we do not know, is one that is not yet known, from my interpetation. From yours, it is the same. There is no conflict here.
I dont understand that a fact can be known by absolutely no one and still be a fact consistent with your definition of the word.

So facts are unknowable? Not very useful as I learnt a lot of them in my life. Waste of time really. This by the way just reinforces that fact=reality, an unnecessary linguistic complication.
Whether or not facts are unknowable according to my definition depends on whether or not one considers that truth is knowable. Is the word truth unuseful and a waste of time really?

We all learn useless facts every day.
Perhaps....

It is deeper than that. They had no conceptual difference between blue and green, they could see no difference apparently. A cultural colour blindness. This is the most extreme case of this that I know of. Usually these things tend to refer to internal unverifiable concepts such as emotional states.
I'm confused as to how we could possibly know this.

As I noted before then, facts are unknowable by this definition, but I definitely know some facts. The Eifel tower is in Paris, France would be a fact. (of course someone could have moved it without my being aware of it, but it still remains a fact to me. Until I have evidence to the contrary)
Why do you think that 'The Eifel tower is in Paris, France' is a fact? Because you believe that it is true? Can you know what is true? If so then you can know facts, if not then you can't. If you can know anything true then you can know facts.

The convention is what I am trying to establish. A linguisitc convention is not universal, it is negotiated by the participants in the communication. In this case you and I, and Willamena.
This is how language functions.
What's the point of deciding a convention amongst us if you cannot use it? If regardless of our agreement you're comprehension of words is subserviant to all the connotations they normally convey to you? Either such negotiation is a pointless waste of time, or it isnt true that you can ignore you're usual definition in favour of a negotiated definition for the purpose of a specific discussion (as you appear to claim earlier in your post).

We have to agree on some terms if we wish to move forward. To agree on terms we have to decide which term best fits what concept.To do this the concepts have to be clear. Now here it gets difficult because the circle closes. To clarify the concept, we have to use the very terms that we are trying to negotiate. To insist beforehand that one term is correct for any concept is to deny this negotiation. There are other terms that may apply, and that term may apply to a different concept.
But if your comments about not being able to comprehend a word without having to comprehend it with all the connotations you would usually apply is true, then such clarification and forward movement isnt even possible for you. The only solution would be for everyone else in the discussion to only employ your meanings, but if we like you, not being computers cannot divorce the symbol from connotations we may normally attach to that symbol, then that wont be possible for us either. I dont see how you can believe that you cant apprehend a word as though it means X1 in a conversation even though you usually believe it means X2, and yet can believe that you can do exactly that...either you can apprehend X to mean X1 (when it usually means X2 to you) for the purposes of a particular conversation, or you cant.

I have, as clearly as possible stated my understanding of the terms
existence, reality, and fact. You likewise have stated your understanding of these terms. We are now in the negotiation phase.
A phase that according to your earlier assertions is a waste of time since according to your earlier assertions we cannot not associate the symbols with the connotations that we usually associate with them.

This means that I argue whay your conception of these terms is unsatisfactory, and why mine is more usable. You argue the other way. This does not mean that I am denying any pre established convention, because there was no such convention to which I was party.
It isnt relevent that you are not a party to such a convention. It either exists and is widespread enough that usage of a word consistent with the convention is correct (whether or not you are aware it is correct) or not. I believe if it says so in the dictionary, then the convention is widespread enough that using a word in accordance with the convention is a correct usage of the word.

I am, in general, attacking your definition, or had you not noticed.
Well yes I had, which is why I have taken pains to point out that although you have offered other definitions they dont actually negate the definitions I have employed.

You may defend it, by justifyingg the definition. Attacking my attack is not defending your position, it is implying that your position is undefendable by other means.
I am entitled to defend against an attack on my position with an explanation of how my position meets the challenge.
(if this looks familiar it's because I plaguarised it from someone you probably know quite well....)

Show me the straw man if I am using a straw man argument.
Stating that I cannot percieve Queen Liz/Betty on the basis of perception have another meaning than the valid meaning I was using the word to convey. In using the word to convey concept A, I dont consider that I was conveying concept B which you interpeted the word to mean, and which you then argued was incorrect. Since I never actually asserted what would be asserted if 'perception/percieve/ was being used to convey concept B, your arguing that an assertion made about concept B is irrelevent to my argument about concept A. I was making no assertion about concept B so arguments about the rightness or wrongness of concept are not relevent. You were arguing against something I never actually asserted, that I believe is referred to as a straw man argument.

The facts are unknown is a meaningful statement. My statement about this explains how this is possible with my definitions. I am entitled to defend against an attack on my position with an explanation of how my position meets the challenge.

I am attacking your definitions (or hadnt you noticed). You may defend it, by justifyingg the definition. Attacking my attack is not defending your position, it is implying that your position is undefendable by other means.
(if this looks familiar it's because I plagurised it from someone you are probably quite familiar with)
I think you may be making contrary assertions. One cannot justify their position by fending off objections to their position, and yet one can....can you clarify how exactly this works?
It seems to me that you are saying that if I defend against an objection then I am proving that I have no other means of justifying my position, but that if you are doing exactly the same thing it means something entirely else...I'm not convinced it works like that...

No, but for such a total to be known there has to be one consciousness that has this knowledge. The total certainly exists, but is in general unknown.
Not relevent. It is still true that people use the word as I suggest they do, to an extent where it is a shared convention for the purposes of rendering the use of the word in such a manner, correct.

Once morewe encounter the same type of problem. Knowledge to me is something one has, not something that is. To know something is an internal fact, it is a belief about yourself. You can say that others know how to build a TV, true. But this is part of your knowledge. You know that others know how to build a TV. If you did not know this then you could not say it. Now you have a knowledge bank, the facts (by whatever definition) that you have learned. This includes knowledge that others have knowledge that you do not. You can not however say that how to build a TV is known to you. You are restricted to knowing only what you yourself, an individual knows. There is no possibility of communal knowledge.
None of this contradicts anything that I have asserted.

It appears that we are not going to make any progress on this subject. You, rightly so, keep to your definitions, and I do likewise. Both sets are potentially plausable.
Actually I really dont care about which symbol I use to convey a concept, only that I can convey it. If a particular word doesnt do it in a particular discussion, I'll point out that I wasnt wrong to use the word if told it was wrong and I know that it isnt, but I'm just as happy to use some other word. My concern in this case is not knowing which word/s would convey the concept to you in particular. I really dont care if what word/s I use, so long as they function effectively. At the base of things I'm not even trying to convey that 'fact can mean X', I'm trying to convey 'X'. Let's assume I was incorrect to believe that fact can be a symbol for X, does that make X incorrect? No, it would make 'fact can be a symbol for X' incorrect, but not 'X'. I'm concerned with X more than I am concerned with whether or not fact is a correct symbol for X. I believe that fact is a correct symbol for X, but to be honest whether or not that is true is a distraction at this point, rather than being the point. That is why I brought up shared convention and the dictionary, I was hoping that acceptance that fact can have more than one meaning, would enable us to get on with looking at the concept I happened to use the fact to refer to....apparently it didnt quite work out as I had hoped.... ;)

What I suggest is that we apply our definitions to Willanena's classic tree problem and see how they compare.

OK
For me:
The Tree
Exists - Yes
Is Real - Yes
Is a fact - No
Aha..

The Sound
Exists - Yes
Is Real - Depends on the meaning of sound. see below
Is a fact - No.
Aha.

Sound has two interpretations that make a difference to it's reality in my scheme.
Sound = Sound wave, a physical event. In this case Yes it is real
Aha.
Sound = What we perceive with our minds, In this case No it is not real.'
I dont agree with this as you have phrased it.


Oh, sorry I'll stop beating you round the head with my definitions. That might help. :D
I think it would help, because the symbols are a means to an end, not the intended end, I'm interested in conveying, apprehending and discussing concepts, more so than semantics.

I have taken to copying and pasting my posts into open office to avoid this risk. I lost a few before I started doing this, but since, I have had no problem.

I sympathise. :fluffle:
(only my second ever fluffle)
I usually highlight the text with my mouse and then 'right click' copy before clicking the 'submit reply' link, so if anything goes wrong I can open up another reply box and then 'right click' paste to get the text back....of course every now and then I forget to do so, that is of course exactly when something does go wrong.... :headbang:

Existence for me divides in two distinctly different ways: Known and unknown, real and imaginary.
This results in the following propositions:
Non existence is nothing. (me: check!)
Known existence can be real or imaginary. (me: check!)
Unknown existence can only be real. (me: uh... how do we determine that again?)
Real existance can be known or unknown. (me: check!)
Imaginary existance can only be known. (me: check! and I'd add "by an individual consciousness")
I do not determine reality by awareness, this would be the solipsism that you claim to avoid by assuming existence. If existence includes ideas and imagination etc. then existence exists does not preclude that all that exists is in the mind of the one individual. The denial of this possibility results in the need to have unknown reality.
I checked "Real existence can be known or unknown," but I neglected to qualify that. Even as I read it, my mind interpreted unknown existence as having potential reality (potentially real, it will be real when it becomes known).

I should not have checked it, but I am an eternal optimist.

One thing this discussion has given me is an understanding that the world beyond the scope of my perception (and that includes perceived through television and other media) being only possibly real does not matter to me in the least. This is A Good Thing. If it's not real, then anything is possible. The discussion has given me a new appreciation for the phrase "infinite potential" (as symbolized in the Sun in astrology).

The same doesnt apply to me. Frankly I'm surprised it does apply to you. What do you do when for instance you learn that a word has a specialised convention in philosophy? Do you ignore the convention or do are you suddenly unable to understand what the word means when applied in circumstances where philosophical conventions dont apply?
The words for which I have clearly separated philosophical meanings, normative being an example of such, are not words that are in particularly wide common usage. Where there is a confusion between a common usage and a technical usage I avoid the term, and if I find it necessary to use it in its technical sense, I qualify it as such at the time. As far as I know I have never found it necessary to use such a term in its common usage, there has always been an alternative available.

I do find it frustrating however that you seem to feel that you can not possibly be misinterpreting my words. Of course you can be, anyone can be.
Your statement that "this does not apply to me" means either that your interpretations are always correct, or that you are inhumanly capable of dropping the connotations of the words. Sorry. I do not believe either.
You have shown no sign to date that you even consider that the meaning I place on the token "fact" is in anyway relevant to the discussion. It is relevant, as relevant as the meaning you place on it.

Whether or not the word is a noun isn't relevent. What is relevent is that words can and often do have more than one definition and to suggest what a person says is wrong or makes no sense because there is an alternative meaning, would render a great deal of the English language non-functional.
Well it appears that a great deal of the language is non functional at the moment as you missed the point here completely. The point I was making was the difference between explicit definition, which can only be done with concrete nouns and referential definition, descriptive definition, which is all that is available for abstract nouns. Being nouns, as you say is irrelevant, or would be, were the discusion not about the noun "fact" and the noun "head" at this point.
What I said was:
Not quite. Head is a concrete noun. You can point to heads. Fact is an abstract noun, you can not point to a fact. This makes it very difficult indeed to be sure that the term has any common referrent at all.

Where did the idea "wrong" enter here? All I implied was that abstract nouns are difficult to define in a non confusing and decisive manner.

No, I'm not. I have not challenged your definition of the word, I have simply attempted to defended the accuracy of a concept which I tried to communicate.
You have implicitly denied my definition of the word, whether you think so or not. The concept that you are trying to convey, is one that is incompatible with my concept of the word fact. If you defend your concept, which you have the right to do, then I have the right to defend my understanding of the word. If I do not do this, then I simply have to change the, for me and many others, established meaning. I am not willing to do this simply to agree that a fact is necessarily true. The concept you are pushing is actually an exclusive definitional concept of the term fact. One that I deny. You can use the term that way if you wish, I will remain using it according to my understanding of it.
As you say, words have many meanings. I accept this, and explain that I have a meaning for the term that is thoroughly enmeshed in my entire concewptual structure of the world, reality, existence and all that jazz. Then you insist that fact has to have the meaning, and only the meaning that you understand by it. No it doesn't.
As it apears that this is a total impasse, and we could argue forever, you giving examples of your usage, me giving examples of mine, I suggest that we both give a little ground and we drop the word "fact" altogether. I will use the term "justified belief" to reflect what I mean by fact, and as I understand it you could use the term "true" in its place. If the term true does not fulfill this role, then please feel free to substitute any other word that succinctly captures your intended meaning. (Except "fact")

I am going to cut a big chunk here as it is all the same argument. If you want me to address any particular point, then ask me to, and I will be happy to oblige.


This is a strawman, my comment said that I consider the mind to be in the brain, I dont consider that a box is inside of itself. How can I say the mind is in the brain and mean that the mind is exactly equivalent to the brain in every way? I couldnt. By saying the mind is in the brain, I am by implication excluding the thing you are objecting to. I dont see how you got from 'the mind is in the brain' to 'the mind is the same as the brain physically and in every respect'. If I said the engine was in the car, would you argue that this couldnt be so because the engine weighs less than the car? I doubt that you would.
As I do not consider the mind to be physical, then none of these arguments apply. Non physical things simply do not have locations. Point to "truth", tell me where it is. This makes no sense. To me saying that the mind is in the brain makes no more sense than saying that blue is in the sky.
How I got to the mind is the brain is simply that to be attributed a location something has to be physical. The only normal candidate for this is the brain. Sorry if I misunderstood. Which part of the brain do you say the mind is, if it is in it? Where in the brain does it reside?



I dont agree that we have no causal relationship with reality. How can we be part of reality and have no causal relationship thereof? Cars are part of reality, if humans didnt do their necessary part in causing cars to be, reality wouldnt be exactly as it is, so clearly humans are a cause of reality being as it is.
This is where I need you to think a little bit deeper about the terms cause and reality.
Firstly cause. Yes it is possible to look at a narrow tiny slice of reality and say that we have caused that as humans. But this is not necesary to anything that we caused it. We are the material cause of some parts of reality, but we are not the necessary cause of any of it. It is not that any part of reality actualy depends us to exist, it could have existed without us. Cars could be built by aliens, etc.
Secondly, and more importantly, reality. What in reality is a car. It is a collection of metal, rubber, hydrocarbons etc. What of this did we cause, in any sense, to be real. Nothing. All we have done is moulded reality, not caused it. We have organised what was there, real, to serve a purpose. We have created nothing.
Reality is independent of us. It does not depend upon us in any way.


Actually it has to be. Jargon (such as specialised definitions being attached to words by trained philosophers) has two primary uses, one of which I reject on a public message board (exclusion of the uninitiated), the other, is to make words more effective mediators of people's ideas and thoughts. In this case I dont know the philosophical conventions to which you refer, so employing them cannot serve the purpose of more effective mediation of ideas, I cant employ conventions I have no knowledge of, and there is little point in you employing them unless you explicitly explain them as you go, which would be no more efficient than simply not using them in the first place. So in this context there is no good reason to employ philosophical jargon.
I agree with your assessment of jargon, when used to hide behind and obscure arguments it has no place at all. Let alone on a forum such as this. The second use is to clarify. I have made a mistake, i recognise in not being clear in my use of perception from the start, this being compounded by the discussion with Willamena that was running parallel in which perception was being contrasted with conception. I apologise for any confusion that this unexpalined specific usage may have caused. I was trying, in my last post to clarify this usage. It appears that I failed. I will try once more.
Perception, understanding and conception are all different things. I can understand how to create the inner product of two vectors without having any perception or even conception of what this is. I can perceive a text written in Arabic with no possibility of understanding or conceiving it. I can conceive that a God may exist, without any possibility of understanding or perceiving this. These are all common usages. Nothing difficult or complex involved. What the technical usage does is to make perception and understanding, for example, mutually exclusive activities. To understand is not to perceive, to perceive is not to understand. Of course one may perceive something and then understand this perception. I see a text in English. I perceive the letters, and from this I understand the meaning.
The understanding takes perceptions as its raw material. This it processes to generate meaning. Working the other way, starting from meaning, the understanding generates conceptions.
So, with this what we have for Queen Elizebeth Ist is-
You or I perceive texts, sounds and images. The understanding processes these perceptions and you or I arrive at a conception, from these meanings, derived from the perceptions, of the existence of Queen Elizabeth Ist.
There are perceptions in the chain, but you do not perceive the Queen.

This seperation is made to make it possible to discuss how we know anything. If perception were to include understanding, then there would be no difference in the description of the theories of knowledge of empiricists and idealists. This is relevant to the discussion on existence and reality, so I made the distinction without considering that others would not.
My apologies for any confusion.



Internal to what? External to what? Either the mind has location or it doesnt, I contend it is in the brain, but if you contend that it isnt in the brain, then where is the mind that things can be internal or external to it?
Awareness. Imagination is contained wholy within the mind. Now this does not mean physically located within a physical object. The mind can be considered as a set of concepts, ideas, beliefs etc. Internal to this set. Internal and external do not imply physical existence nor location. Are you going to argue that an organisation such as the Commonwealth has a location. It can have internal affairs, and external policies, but this does not mean that the concept of the Commonwealth is a physical location.


It's not a normal use in this context. This is an internet forum not a philosophy class.
If the thread were about whteher Bush was right to convert ot Islam, I could agree, As the thread is specifically philosophical in nature, then surely the context here is a philosophical one.

How do they know anything is true? I dont see how this question is relevent.

As I understand you, facts are things that peole know, not believe.
Knowledge = facts
Now facts are necessarily the truth as you describe them.
Facts = truth
But now you say that we can not know the truth.
Truth =/= Knowledge
Now put these together and you get
Knowledge =/= Knowledge.

The question is relevant.

The same argument could be made about truth. Can truth be false. Go ask Jesussaves if their beliefs are the truth... ;)
You have to be joking here. Truth is the oposite of falsity. A truth can not, by any definition, be false. A belief that something is true can be false, but this is the belief, not the truth.


That wouldnt be fair to those who rely on the production of a theasuarus in order to make their living....I dont need to explain why there is more than symbol for some things in English, so long as that is the case (and it clearly is), your objection is baseless.
No, it is not necessary to explain why there is more than one word in English for most tersm, but such explanations are possible. If no such explanation is possible, then why complicate the language unnecessarily. This is nothing more than the KISS rule (Keep It Simple Stupid) which really should be aplied in everything that people do. However, if you want to clutter your conception of the world with duplicate terms for the same concept, then go ahead.


Which objection? The one that would imply that that a theasaurus would be a book of blank pages?
Yep, except for all the terms that are similar, but with connotational differences, oh and the terms that have different etymological origins, and the antonyms, and the different parts of speech. Not so empty, but never mind.


I'm not referring to common usage. (Assuming for the sake of discussion that all the following assertions are assertions that are facts). Can you say that cats have fur in Spanish? Is this communicating the same fact as when you say it in English? Is the fact communicated by 'this is a green house' a different fact to the fact communicated by 'this house is green'? I say not, because I say the words are means of communicating that believed to be a fact, they are not the fact itself.

You have just tried to drop half a ton of concrete on my head for suggesting that perception should not be taken as common usage. Read your own posts. Please.
Well actually, no. I speak Poruguese, not Spanish. Gatos têm pelo would be cats have fur in Portuguese, but only sort of. Pelo, does not describe that same set of existence that fur does. You can not go and buy a "pelo" like you can a fur. It is an adjectival noun only. It is not concrete, it describes but does not denote. The whole way the language works is different.
This house is green is no different to this is a green house, fine and your point is?
I did not mean to dey that words describe facts. The point was that in this description, they themselves become the facts. (This is however irrelevant here, I was a little sidetracked by a question from RL)


Of course it doesnt. Anymore than pointing to an engine and saying 'is this the car'. I have not said every real thing is reality, I dont believe that any one thing is the entirety of all that exists and has ever existed. A thing that is real is a part of reality. It (any particular discrete real thing) is no more 'reality' than my leg is me.
The point was to show that there are usages of the word fact where it can not be substituted by "real thing" or reality. I think that has been established as you are agreeing with me here.



Either you are unaware of at least one definition of the word legitimate, or you are ignoring that definition, specifically conforming to standard type.
I refuse to argue more definitions. Any word can be defined any way at any time. I understand legitimate to mean sanctioned by law. You understand something different, fine.


They are correct definitions. That not everyone is aware of the convention isnt relevent. That enough people are aware of it that it is a shared convention that is described in the dictionary, meets my standards for correct usage in a conversation conducted in standard English.

Go read your posts. This is not representative of your behaviour. Either a word can have many definitions, as we both agree it can, and which definition is being used has to be explicitly or implicitly agreed. Or confusion arises as has happened here.


Aha, I guess it's something I struggle to understand since the problem doesnt effect me in quite the way that you describe it as effecting you. Stop deceiving yourself is all I can say. Your posts show ample evidence of your being fixedly attached tpo the connotations of wordsa such as truth, real, fact, legitimate etc. And when this is challenged you argue that it is common usage so therefore alowable. When someone else claims this you deny that you argued for common usage. That is my final comment on this matter.


How can you know that unless you know what my comments are actually saying? How can you know what my comments are saying when you deny that they can mean what they do mean? Remembering that the symbols are arbitary and have no meaning except that attached to them as a matter of shared convention, if the convention is widely enough shared to be described in the dictionary, how can you deny that no such shared convention exists?
I said (emphasis added):
Your comments are not true, in my opinion.
Now would you like to retract your denial of any possibility of my knowing my own opinion?

I cut a chunk here, as it is simply more of the same old argument (from both sides)


Why do you think that 'The Eifel tower is in Paris, France' is a fact? Because you believe that it is true? Can you know what is true? If so then you can know facts, if not then you can't. If you can know anything true then you can know facts.
You recognised above that the truth can not be known. I know facts, but not truths.

But if your comments about not being able to comprehend a word without having to comprehend it with all the connotations you would usually apply is true, then such clarification and forward movement isnt even possible for you. The only solution would be for everyone else in the discussion to only employ your meanings, but if we like you, not being computers cannot divorce the symbol from connotations we may normally attach to that symbol, then that wont be possible for us either.
No, I suggest above a solution for this. That we are explicit in what we mean, that is all, when the connotations of a word get in the way.

I dont see how you can believe that you cant apprehend a word as though it means X1 in a conversation even though you usually believe it means X2, and yet can believe that you can do exactly that...either you can apprehend X to mean X1 (when it usually means X2 to you) for the purposes of a particular conversation, or you cant.
If I say the word happy to you, this brings connotations. If I say it is a happy day. What do you think of. If I tell you that I mean happy, in one of its normal meanings only, that of fortunate. Then what does a happy day mean. You can not simply free yourself from all the other connotations. Your understanding is coloured by them. You, and I do mean you specifically, can no more do this than any other human can. The solution, Drop the contested term and be explicit. It is a little more long winded sometimes, but the only way around the problem. A happy day becomes a very lucky day as opposed to a very chherful day. No connotational problems reamain with the word happy as it is not there any more.


It isnt relevent that you are not a party to such a convention. It either exists and is widespread enough that usage of a word consistent with the convention is correct (whether or not you are aware it is correct) or not. I believe if it says so in the dictionary, then the convention is widespread enough that using a word in accordance with the convention is a correct usage of the word.
Irrelevant. The discussion is with me, not with the rest of the world, nor with the dictionary :headbang:

I am entitled to defend against an attack on my position with an explanation of how my position meets the challenge.
(if this looks familiar it's because I plaguarised it from someone you probably know quite well....)
True. I am only commenting that defence of an argument by attacking the attack is no defence. You are entitled to defend, you are entitled to attack, but when you accuse me of straw man arguments you really are not justified in using them yourself.


Stating that I cannot percieve Queen Liz/Betty on the basis of perception have another meaning than the valid meaning I was using the word to convey. In using the word to convey concept A, I dont consider that I was conveying concept B which you interpeted the word to mean, and which you then argued was incorrect. Since I never actually asserted what would be asserted if 'perception/percieve/ was being used to convey concept B, your arguing that an assertion made about concept B is irrelevent to my argument about concept A. I was making no assertion about concept B so arguments about the rightness or wrongness of concept are not relevent. You were arguing against something I never actually asserted, that I believe is referred to as a straw man argument.

You stated that you knew of Queen Betty (I reserve Liz for the current one)
as a fact because you perceived her. I simply denied this possibility. How is that a straw man argument. It became apparent that our usage of the word perception was different, so I clarified my position, only to be attacked for using the context of the discussion to justify this.
I denied that you had any access to the reality or not of queen betty in the original discussion on this and as such, on your basis of fact, you could not describe her as factual. This denial has never been addressed, you simply followed the discussion on perception, which was a side issue, not a straw man, as I did address the issue in question:
You do not perceive that reality includes the person of Queen Betty. You percieve that there are descriptions of such a person, that these descriptions are from sources that you believe to be reliable, and hence you believe that there was such a person in reality. This belief includes her in your set of facts about the world. It does not include her in your perception of reality. Reality, processed by perception can only give us facts. These facts can be true or false, reality can not be true or false, it simply is. (emphasis added)

I am attacking your definitions (or hadnt you noticed). You may defend it, by justifying the definition. Attacking my attack is not defending your position, it is implying that your position is undefendable by other means.
(if this looks familiar it's because I plagurised it from someone you are probably quite familiar with)
I think you may be making contrary assertions. One cannot justify their position by fending off objections to their position, and yet one can....can you clarify how exactly this works?
It seems to me that you are saying that if I defend against an objection then I am proving that I have no other means of justifying my position, but that if you are doing exactly the same thing it means something entirely else...I'm not convinced it works like that...
I explained how, my definitions of fact and reality worked when faced wwith the attack. I did not say that the attack was not valid, that the attack used words outside the conventions that you want to impose or anything like that. I simply showed that the attack on my position failed. I did not try to attack the attack itself.
Fending off objections is fine. Saying that objection is not valid, because... when this because is a straw man is not fine. There was no contradiction or inconsistency here.


None of this contradicts anything that I have asserted.
Read your assertion, then re read what I said. I am not going to repeat it all. Your turn to do that.


.apparently it didnt quite work out as I had hoped.... ;)
Yor techique for achieving this was far too much of a "You are wrong, look in the dictionary" style to work. The ideal is excellent, the approach too confrontational. I almost certainly have the same fault though.


Aha..
Aha.
Aha.
'I dont agree with this as you have phrased it.
So how would you phrase : Sound = What we perceive with our minds, In this case No it is not real.


I reiterate that I have severely mutilated your post :eek: , cut out whole chunks of vital organs and stuff. Anything that you feel I should have addressed thaen please ask me to do so. :)

Alien Born,
ok lets cut this short

imagine you said something and someone said, no that is not possible because I think the word you used means X. You know that whether or not the word can mean X it certainly does mean what you used it to mean, other people use it like that all the time, it's in the dictionary, and you certainly know what you meant when you used the word. Then imagine being told that because you insist that your use of the word doesnt make the concept you were trying to explain wrong, that you are misinterpreting the person challenging your use of the word their reasoning appearing to be they wont accept any meaning other than their own, not even meanings listed in the dictionary...

Does your interpreting my comments according to one definition when I intended another definition (a definition that is consistent with that found in the dictionary) make me wrong? I dont accept that it does. Can you explain why your refusing to apply definitions that virtually everyone else would accept makes me wrong?

It's ironic that you appear to think that proving your definition disproves mine, and yet you also appear to think that I am the one employing strawmen. Your objection to my comments accuracy seems to entirely be 'I dont want the word to mean that, so it doesnt'...I'm sorry but it'd take a much better argument than you have offered to get me to believe that you're not being aware of or choosing to ignore a definition that is in the dictionary, makes me wrong...

As for specifics left out in your reply....
Is there such a thing as categorical truth? Is truth such that what is true is so even if people think otherwise? Even if every person on the earth thinks otherwise?

Alien Born,
ok lets cut this short

*snip*

As for specifics left out in your reply....
Is there such a thing as categorical truth? Is truth such that what is true is so even if people think otherwise? Even if every person on the earth thinks otherwise?

I decline to discuss semantics any further. You have your opinions as to my being unfair, I have mine as to your being unfair. Thus, as I see it, we are about even there, and there is no sign of progress being possible.

Yes there is categorical truth. i.e. there is a reality in my opinion. This reality is unaccesable by us, but is there all the same.
The flat world scenario describes fairly well my opinions here. All of known humanity believed the world to be flat, they were wrong, the world was not flat. This justified belief that the people had did not fit with the state of affairs of the world. It was justified as all the evidence they had was the world was flat. It was a belief as that is all that can be known, the truth being inaccesable. But it was not true. reality did not fit the belief.

This is my understanding of reality. Independent of our knowledge and awareness. Categorical truth.

I checked "Real existence can be known or unknown," but I neglected to qualify that. Even as I read it, my mind interpreted unknown existence as having potential reality (potentially real, it will be real when it becomes known).

I should not have checked it, but I am an eternal optimist.

One thing this discussion has given me is an understanding that the world beyond the scope of my perception (and that includes perceived through television and other media) being only possibly real does not matter to me in the least. This is A Good Thing. If it's not real, then anything is possible. The discussion has given me a new appreciation for the phrase "infinite potential" (as symbolized in the Sun in astrology).

Reality certainly holds the potential to be any logical possibility. If you look at some of the multiverse theories, they imply that reality is the sum of all logical possibilities. We just have to explore this reality to be surprised and amazed.

I think that your term potential reality is equivalent to what I mean by reality. It is there, but as yet not discovered (for me)/ realized (for you). Thus your check against reality can be known or unknown becomes potential reality may be known (realized) or unknown (potential).

I decline to discuss semantics any further.
Actually I figured that, it's why I didnt bother to address you point by point, I dont mind you refusing to discuss something but I very well might if I had gone to the trouble of typing out an essay length post...

You have your opinions as to my being unfair,
Unfair?! I hadnt considered it a fairness issue...

I have mine as to your being unfair.
I'm always fair....although I was a chubby child...

Thus, as I see it, we are about even there, and there is no sign of progress being possible.
I dont agree, unless you are specifically referring to progress via semantic discussion.

Yes there is categorical truth. i.e. there is a reality in my opinion. This reality is unaccesable by us, but is there all the same.
Well there we go, you dont disagree with the concept I was attempting to communicate after all...just with the certain linking of the concept to symbols...

The flat world scenario describes fairly well my opinions here. All of known humanity believed the world to be flat, they were wrong, the world was not flat. This justified belief that the people had did not fit with the state of affairs of the world. It was justified as all the evidence they had was the world was flat. It was a belief as that is all that can be known, the truth being inaccesable. But it was not true. reality did not fit the belief.
Aha...

This is my understanding of reality. Independent of our knowledge and awareness. Categorical truth.
Well no change on the disagreement here, but at least it has been established to my satisfaction that aside from the semantics employed, the main concept you claimed that I had wrong, actually is the same concept you appear to have, only linked to different labels...

Actually I figured that, it's why I didnt bother to address you point by point, I dont mind you refusing to discuss something but I very well might if I had gone to the trouble of typing out an essay length post...
Unfair?! I hadnt considered it a fairness issue...
Arguments nearly always are. However we did have to cut things short to break out of the loop. Either you or I would have felt cheated, I think, if we had posted at length only to have it mostly ignored. I know I would have.

I'm always fair....although I was a chubby child...

I dont agree, unless you are specifically referring to progress via semantic discussion.

We were going in circles, if that is progress, then fine.



Well there we go, you dont disagree with the concept I was attempting to communicate after all...just with the certain linking of the concept to symbols...
The concept was the following then ?
Fact describes truths even that we dont know, even truths contrary to what we know.

To which I objected to the use of fact for this. That was all. I never disputed the existence of absolute truth. These I denominate reality as we say things like Is life really possible on other planets.

Well no change on the disagreement here, but at least it has been established to my satisfaction that aside from the semantics employed, the main concept you claimed that I had wrong, actually is the same concept you appear to have, only linked to different labels...
Where did I claim that the concept was wrong? I only claimed that your use of the term fact to describe absolute truth might be suspect.