Objective reality: How do we know it exists ?

[Mr. Hamtastic]

Obviously it did. I read the definition before using the word. Perhaps you should try the same.

Unless you object to the idea that the dictionary supplies an objective meaning. In which case, please give your subjective definition of the object that we might objectively consider it.

 

[glaucon]

Obviously it did. I read the definition before using the word. Perhaps you should try the same.

Mr. Ham.

It's fairly obvious to you, and most of the rest of us, that 'luke is a self-made solipsist. While it's true that a number of us have tried to reason with him, he seems to be impervious. It's sad to say, but the best policy when dealing with such pedants is to simply ignore them.

 

[lixluke]

LMAO. You clearly don't even know what solipsism means either. If you think that somebody claiming that objective reality exists is solipsist, it's likely you wouldn't be able to comprehend simple dictionary definitions.

 

[glaucon]

If you think that somebody claiming that objective reality exists is solipsist,
...

I never said that did I moron?

 

[Billy T]

We don't.

I searched this thread for “Berkeley” and Bishop Berkeley’s more than 300 year old POV has not been mentioned.
Hard to believe no one here knows how long ago and thoroughly the subject was discussed! Here is part of Wiki’s text on him and his POV:

“…Under his theory, the object a person perceives is the only object that the person knows and experiences. If individuals need to speak at all of the "real" or "material" object, the latter in particular being a confused term that Berkeley sought to dispose of, it is this perceived object to which all such names should exclusively refer.
This raises the question whether this perceived object is "objective" in the sense of being "the same" for fellow humans. In fact, is the concept of "other" human beings, beyond an individual's perception of them, valid? Berkeley argued that since an individual experiences other humans in the way they speak to him —something which is not originating from any activity of his own* —and since he learns that their view of the world is consistent with his, he can believe in their existence and in the world being identical or similar for everyone. …”

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley

I have read some of Berkley’s text. I think especially clever his reason why the possibly non-existent “real world” seems to follow physical laws:

God (who in the bishop’s view supplies all perceptions) makes us perceive it does as if it were not rule following, then God could not occasionally make a miracle. (A miracle is by definition a violation of the physical laws.) Berkeley was well aware that man’s laws of physics need not be correct but believed that nature was usually rule governed (So God could create perceived miracles occasionally.)
------------------
*That is a quite an assumption too. I do not know if Schizophrenia was well known back in his time, but even if not, God could also be giving the good Bishop the impression there were others. This problem still exist, but now the existence of other human bodies is rarely questioned - only whether or not other minds exist. (Everone else could just be an unconscious "zombee" - the term used in this discusssion, has nothing to do with Hatti's "living dead" but just means without mind or consciousness.)

 

[wise acre]

Sorry but the proof is completely clear. lmaolmaolmao!

I believe you, an individual, were being accused of being a solipsist.
You may in fact be someone who is claiming that objective reality exists, but I see nowhere where he is asserting that anyone who believes that is a solipsist.

I can only assume it was the way in which you communicate that brought on the label and not what you were communicating.

I hope the distinction is clear to you.

 

[wise acre]

Reality and all the objects in it exists completely independent of the mind.
I call this objective reality.
No observer can perceive objective reality directly. Perception is necessarily colored by interpretation, expectation, etc.
We make up our own version of reality in our mind which is based on (part) of objective reality, let's refer to it as subjective reality.

Some people here have argued that it is impossible to know whether objective reality exists because of it's own premises. I disagree.
We know the senses aren't perfect. For instance, the eye can only sense a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.
We also know that some animals can perceive more of the spectrum than we can.
The same goes for all the other senses: smell, hearing, touch and taste.
So we know, as an objective fact, that the senses can only sense a specific portion of objective reality.

When our brain is fed this data it interprets it based on:
- memory of previous experiences;
- character, which is the product of in part genetic but mostly environmental circumstances in our childhood;
- knowledge/believes;
- immediate environmental demands.
Then value is assigned to anything that is perceived according to above circumstances.
And so we end up with our own version of reality; subjective reality.

This is my view and I am convinced of it's correctness, but feel free to add or criticize.

Discuss

My problem with this is that it glides by an issue and I think a core one. It is not so much that perception is fallible and thus our image of objective reality is somehow partly correct, but rather that words like 'object' only have meaning to a perceiver - even this wording distresses me since it invokes the whole subject perception object model.

What we have is experience. Then to split this up and say 'this is me, the perceiver' and those parts of experience are shadows of a real world 'out there'
is an enormous philosophical creative enterprise.

But we are used to it.

 

[Mr. Hamtastic]

wise-That smacks of the concept of "cogito ergo sum", but perhaps I'm misinterpreting you.

The concept I look at is this: If I exist, but I am only someone else's hallucination, are my experiences valid? I mean, it could be argued that this unknown party's hallucination is-in effect-objective reality, but that seems to be a strong contradiction, suggesting that it is objective, subjective, even potentially non-existant.

Until one can prove their own existance, how can they believe their experience is valid? Is a mirage real? You experience it, do you not?

Let's not minimize the problem of perception, either. Being your own perception, and unsharable, it can't be truly verified as being real at all, not even based on comparison.

In conclusion-Do we know, truly, that thought requires a thinker or perception requires a perceiver? How do we know that thought, at least, could not exist on it's own. IE-you are who you are. How can you perceive yourself? Not your physical self, but your internal self, call it mental or spiritual. If you can't perceive yourself, why do you think your experience is your own?

 

[Enmos]

My problem with this is that it glides by an issue and I think a core one. It is not so much that perception is fallible and thus our image of objective reality is somehow partly correct, but rather that words like 'object' only have meaning to a perceiver - even this wording distresses me since it invokes the whole subject perception object model.

What we have is experience. Then to split this up and say 'this is me, the perceiver' and those parts of experience are shadows of a real world 'out there'
is an enormous philosophical creative enterprise.

But we are used to it.

Feel free to redo it

 

[Quantum Quack]

wise-That smacks of the concept of "cogito ergo sum", but perhaps I'm misinterpreting you.

The concept I look at is this: If I exist, but I am only someone else's hallucination, are my experiences valid? I mean, it could be argued that this unknown party's hallucination is-in effect-objective reality, but that seems to be a strong contradiction, suggesting that it is objective, subjective, even potentially non-existant.

Until one can prove their own existance, how can they believe their experience is valid? Is a mirage real? You experience it, do you not?

Let's not minimize the problem of perception, either. Being your own perception, and unsharable, it can't be truly verified as being real at all, not even based on comparison.

In conclusion-Do we know, truly, that thought requires a thinker or perception requires a perceiver? How do we know that thought, at least, could not exist on it's own. IE-you are who you are. How can you perceive yourself? Not your physical self, but your internal self, call it mental or spiritual. If you can't perceive yourself, why do you think your experience is your own?

my 2 cents ok...

Firstly, you are making a presumption that our personal experience is not shareable. Of course this is based on evidence to date that shows no interconnectivity between people other than that which is perceived existentially or externally. But none the less it is a presumption as this has yet to be proved to be NOT the case either.

Secondly, you have extended your point to a contradiction, deliberate I am sure to put forward counter argument, that we can not be sure the experience is our own individual or private experience therefore suggesting that an inner interconnectivity between individuals may exist.
In the robot or android analogy presented in the other thread, the robots can never step out of their universe and say that their experience is either subjective or objective, as every thought or observation is a part of that experience. To perceive their universe as objective they would actually have to form a subjective opinion that it is so for the premise of "looking" as it were from a different universe into their original one.
So unless stepping out of the universe is physically possible and not just in imagination the question of objectivity and subjectivity can never be fully answered even if interconnectivity of individuals by some psychic means is pr oven to exist.
The way I handle this issue personally is to state clearly: " It is either entirely false or it is entirely true as the anguish and philosophical sufferance lies somewhere in between."

I look at it as always being objective and true even if a fallacy exists because even that fallacy is a true fallacy. [ true lies] [ or a true illusion ]
So therefore everything experienced whether that be the lies you are told or the truths you feel is pure objectivity. The fact that most times we can not tell the difference between lies and truth is also a part of that objectivity.
This can be further clarified using the diagram below [I hope]

In principle this allows us humans to be able to determine the difference between truth and fallacy as we are looking from a perspective of objectivity to begin with and can make those comparisons [ true or false ] based on our own evolved insight into ourselves. [ The more you know yourself the more you can determine the distinction between truth and fallacy.]
As our personal centre of perception always perceives from an objective perspective. [ thus experience is always objectively true to the one doing or having the experience.]

just my 2 cents....

 

[Billy T]

...none the less it is a presumption as this has yet to be proved to be NOT the case either. ...

I EXPECT there will never be a proof that X does not exist.* (X can be unicorns, objective reality, God, or anything as one cannot prove any** "It does not exist." Claim.) Thus, the burden of proof is always on those affirming something does exist.
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*I could have said: “Proof of non-existence claims never exists.” (But I cannot prove it. )

**There may be exceptions in tautologies, such as math, assuming that logic is correct.

 

[wise acre]

Feel free to redo it

It would be more than a redoing. I think we have points of disagreement.

 

[wise acre]

wise-That smacks of the concept of "cogito ergo sum", but perhaps I'm misinterpreting you.

I think the cogito is really quite silly, so I don't think my post had that smack. Though the smack is hard to avoid when using English grammar, part of what is funny about the cogito.

The concept I look at is this: If I exist, but I am only someone else's hallucination, are my experiences valid?

Depends what you mean by 'valid'.

But you are focusing on identity. I was focusing more on what Enmos would consider the objects and what we know about them. The two are obviously related, in fact that is part of what I was getting at, indirectly, in relation to the OP, but I am not quite sure how you got to where you got in response to me.

Until one can prove their own existance, how can they believe their experience is valid?

Well, we do. I think proof is overrated. Some of the hardest things to prove are the most, hmm, present.

Is a mirage real? You experience it, do you not?

Sure, a mirage is real. It just might not be an oasis. In fact by definition it isn't.

Let's not minimize the problem of perception, either. Being your own perception, and unsharable, it can't be truly verified as being real at all, not even based on comparison.

so you think we are separate?

In conclusion-Do we know, truly, that thought requires a thinker or perception requires a perceiver?

How Buddhist!

How do we know that thought, at least, could not exist on it's own. IE-you are who you are. How can you perceive yourself? Not your physical self, but your internal self, call it mental or spiritual. If you can't perceive yourself, why do you think your experience is your own?

Perhaps that is the definition of the self. The one person you cannot wholly objectify.

 

[Quantum Quack]

I EXPECT there will never be a proof that X does not exist.* (X can be unicorns, objective reality, God, or anything as one cannot prove any** "It does not exist." Claim.) Thus, the burden of proof is always on those affirming something does exist.
--------
*I could have said: “Proof of non-existence claims never exists.” (But I cannot prove it. )

**There may be exceptions in tautologies, such as math, assuming that logic is correct.

ahh just for fun....

You can prove non-existance in one way...that I have found.
Given that we need always to deal with substance or material, if we apply the infinitesimal to the inner surface area of a hollow sphere. We can prove in mathematics at least, if not in practice, that the inner volume of that sphere is non-existant.... As no-thing [ the inner surface of the hollow sphere being something] can be less than infinitesimal. [that volume being less than infinitesimal.]

As the resultant volume exists only because of the infinitesimal inner surface area of the sphere the space that that volume contains is actually zero or non-existant in dimension yet retains three dimensions due to the infinitesimal inner surface area of that hollow sphere.

So if the inner surface of the hollow 3D sphere is infinitesimal in area then what must the inner volume of that same sphere be apart from nonexistant [ yet very present by default]?

ha...just for fun.... proving the non-existance of something....

 

[wise acre]

I EXPECT there will never be a proof that X does not exist.* (X can be unicorns, objective reality, God, or anything as one cannot prove any** "It does not exist." Claim.) Thus, the burden of proof is always on those affirming something does exist.

The burden of proof is always on anyone asserting anything. If one asserts x exists - and you expect others to be convinced - then the burden of proof is on you. If one asserts X does not exist - and you expect others to be convinced - then the burden of proof is on you.

 

[Enmos]

It would be more than a redoing. I think we have points of disagreement.

Wouldn't that be precisely the reason for redoing it ?

 

[lixluke]

I believe you, an individual, were being accused of being a solipsist.
You may in fact be someone who is claiming that objective reality exists, but I see nowhere where he is asserting that anyone who believes that is a solipsist.

I can only assume it was the way in which you communicate that brought on the label and not what you were communicating.

I hope the distinction is clear to you.

No. LMAO! What brought on the label is a clear case of psychotic subjectivism in which somebody reads the clear definition in the dictionary, and sees it as the exact opposite. LOL! We are dealing with people who don't believe that cannot comprehend the simple concept of objective reality as well as think that people cannot have knowledge.

HOW ABOUT THIS:
If objective reality exists.
If X is true in objective reality.
If Barfalamule believes that X is true.
Then Barfalamule has knowledge that X is true.

 

[Billy T]

...If one asserts X does not exist - and you expect others to be convinced - then the burden of proof is on you.

Possibly, but as it is impossible* to prove something does not exist, that burden is impossible to carry.
---------
*Again, Non existence statements made in logical tautologies, like math, excepted as they can be proved, within the tautology.

 

[Enmos]

HOW ABOUT THIS:
If objective reality exists.
If X is true in objective reality.
If Barfalamule believes that X is true.
Then Barfalamule has knowledge that X is true.

Complete nonsense.

 

[wise acre]

Wouldn't that be precisely the reason for redoing it ?

to quote myself

My problem with this is that it glides by an issue and I think a core one. It is not so much that perception is fallible and thus our image of objective reality is somehow partly correct, but rather that words like 'object' only have meaning to a perceiver - even this wording distresses me since it invokes the whole subject perception object model.

Another way to put this is you start with an assumption that there are explanations of reality that work independent of bodies/perceivers.