The thread question states:
Objective reality: How do we know it exists?
The actual wording and it's implications is interesting. Most persons would read the question and ask themselves their own version of the question: How can we determine objective reality?
or
Does objective reality exist?
this I would assume would be the usual interpretation of the question..correct me if I am wrong please...
However when I read the question....after a while it dawned on me that it could be interpreted very differently. In that it presumes the knowledge of objective reality exists but we do not know why or how that knowledge exists.
This is very interesting to me because I agree entirely. We know it exists but we simply don't know why or how it exists.
Taking a quick tour of the history of this debate through the millenia one can see that philosophers have been struggling with the why and how it exists ever since it occurred to them that it did.
In some respects religious thought is used [ aka the need for GOD] to facilitate this rather remarkable ability we all seem to have...and that notion leads to other more interesting conniptions.
There must be an underpinning objective reality simply because this reality is in fact mostly orderly, and seen in similar terms, admittedly our interpretations of what we experience differ sometimes quite remarkably but on most occasions, by far the majority of experiences are so similar that they are almost exact.
i.e. how many people can walk though closed doors and windows without breaking themselves or the doors or windows... exactly zero.
So the question when re -uhm...implied can generate an entirely different approach that what is normally undertaken.
How does objective reality exist?
What makes it possible?
Can we accept for a moment that it indeed does exist but in variety of limited ways?
Can we determine the minimum objective state and allow subjective assessments to co-exist?
For surely this is what Science attempts to do is it not?
One could draw the folowing assessment:
- Objective reality - knowledge - perfection - God
- Subjective reality - belief - imperfection - man
and both co-exist until man becomes perfect as God through the use of ridding himself of imperfection [ science - knowledge rather than belief.]
After all we all suffer from the desire to strive for perfection [ God complex] do we not...
hmmmm.....
so if you wanted to create an objective reality for all within it how would you do it? Would be a worthwhile question I think.