What if? A sort of philosophical question.

[Mr. Ed]

The world is world perfect as each moment unfolds there are no similar comparison to measure differences. Therefore by comparison each moment is perfect.

You say what about sickness, death, disasters, corruption etc, regardless the hardships of humanity, the world does as it is designed to do without a single flaw. If there is an earthquake, or other natural disaster that seems out of the ordinary it is the world in a state of perfection.

 

[oldlongwalker]

As a philosophy professional, what do you think of Robert Greene's philosophies? He keeps showing up in my YouTube feed and I don't care much for what he has to say.

I've never heard of him and he doesn't do academic philosophy, so I couldn't say.

 

[oldlongwalker]

The world is world perfect as each moment unfolds there are no similar comparison to measure differences. Therefore by comparison each moment is perfect.

Sounds like Dr. Pangloss: all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

 

[Magna-Carta]

Interesting how this topic exploded. "Reality " what is real............? we can all agree that we differ in what is real, simply because we experience different things in our life. So the question seems to be what is common to all of us. What reality can we all agree upon?
I don't really know.
I can feel personal pain for a friend who dies. That's real. Doesn't affect my life but I feel it. The loss is painful to me. This is my reality. I know that losing people you care hurts.
That's my reality.
Seeing an animal abused pains me. It hurts. That is my reality. The person who abused the animal has a different reality. What it is, I don't know but I'm sure that inflicting pain on others is a sign that the person inflicting the abuse has a different "reality".
What is real? Seems to me it all is. So finding peace in reality is a waste of time.
just my opinion.
rbtvgo

I suppose ‘reality’ refers to things as they actually exist, separate from an individual’s perceptions or interpretations. And as I see it, especially from a person’s beliefs. I think I understand how 'reality' varies when applied to another person's perspective, but only as illustrated by the types of examples you give.

The idea of reality can be viewed from different perspectives, including philosophical, scientific, or cultural. Ultimately, what is considered to be reality may vary depending on an individual's perception, interpretation, and understanding of the world around them? But is that a different thing. Are we constrained by our language when discussing what ‘reality’ is or means? Maybe bringing science into it can help, but does it always.

 

[Magna-Carta]

Some food for thought.

Two photos of the earth, yet the colours are different. Which is the ‘reality.’ The top photo is a pretty well known photo. The bottom photo showing a red Amazon rain forest? Are they both the reality, or are neither of them the reality. Our eyes and brains don’t, or can’t process all wave lengths. Do we truly know what is real, in everything that we see around us?

Our perception of reality might be limited by our senses and cognitive abilities. Is it possible that there are aspects of the world / universe that we cannot perceive or understand fully? Maybe our science as it stands at the moment can’t give us the answerers, yet.

 

[Magna-Carta]

Well, it could be anything. After all, we log out for hours every night. When asleep we are as good as dead, we know nothing of anyone. We dream of things we can't usually remember.

I think I might have to start a thread on this. Dreams that is. I have some of the most bizarre and funny dreams. Sometimes I can't wait to get to sleeep, so I can have more dreams. I think they can be really entertaining.

 

[oldlongwalker]

Remember the old story about how the Inuit language has 50 words for snow? This was taken as showing that speakers of Inuit have a different experience of reality than speakers of English.

The problem is that, first, it doesn't take much work to translate all those words into English. And second, an English speaker can easily learn to identify all the 50 types of actual snow with some help from a speaker of Inuit.

The upshot is, the evidence doesn't support anything significant.

 

[grahamg]

 

[JustDave]

Some food for thought.

Two photos of the earth, yet the colours are different. Which is the ‘reality.’ The top photo is a pretty well known photo. The bottom photo showing a red Amazon rain forest? Are they both the reality, or are neither of them the reality. Our eyes and brains don’t, or can’t process all wave lengths. Do we truly know what is real, in everything that we see around us?

Our perception of reality might be limited by our senses and cognitive abilities. Is it possible that there are aspects of the world / universe that we cannot perceive or understand fully? Maybe our science as it stands at the moment can’t give us the answerers, yet.

View attachment 278594

View attachment 278595

What we perceive at any given time is not necessarily reality, and when a photographic image is inserted between reality and what we perceive, the correlation between reality and what we see gets even worse. Photos do not duplicate reality. In my teens a friend of my fathers, a professional photographer, was looking at a magazine with one page of two identical photos. One was shot with Kodachrome, and the other with Ektachrome, and the headline of the article posed the question, "Which film was better." I of course said Kodachrome, because the colors were much more vivid and intense, which was one of Kodachrome's signature features. But the photographer pointed out that it depends on what the actual colors of the subject matter were.

Digital images are even worse, and every hard ass review done of cameras by the folks at Buydig.com spends no shortage of time discussing each camera's accuracy in reproducing colors.

The article posed a trick question which should have been, "What do you like better?" And that is one of the reasons few people see reality as it is. Our judgements are overridden by our biases. Reality exists completely independent of human perception. I know we are supposed to be all philosophical about it here, but reality doesn't care about our mundane genetic flaws or heady philosophical musings.

 

[MarkD]

What exactly is reality? Would we recognise it if we saw it.

We always see reality but we always see it “as a something”. What the something may be can have a cultural cause or reflect individual lived experience, but almost always it will be both. But however the categories got set, what we experience going forward is part of the preprocessing that goes on below the level of conscious awareness to make our conscious experience possible. It is better this way.

Reality is alive and well but our access to it is always filtered. There is no way to avoid reality but also no way to know it apart from our sensory/cognitive capacities. We should avoid statements of the form “reality is nothing but …” because they are above our pay grade.

 

[MarkD]

I think in order determine what is reality is, we need way more scientific investigation and facts.

Agree that science, though that is not a trivial thing to get right, is the best hope for determining what reality is like empirically. It is the gold standard for debating consensual reality. But it isn’t enough. The nature of human reality also requires insights from philosophy, linguistics and psychology. In other words we require insight into who/what we are, how we work and a sense of what we are here to do. More controversially, human reality can also be enhanced or pauperized by how we respond to awe and wonder. All of this goes into forging our worldview and our disposition to the world colors everything we experience.

 

[JustDave]

We evolved to survive, and evolution is a hit or miss proposition. We just need to survive. Evolution does not lead to perfection or perfect sensory responses. See a lion? Run! Don't need to identify it's gender, color, teeth, or the size of it's feet. We don't need to know if it going to be friendly or not. All species, including humans lack the ability to be precise in what they observe, because we don't need that. We do not have god-like knowledge. I like the comment that determining reality is beyond our pay grade. Science is our best option, but it changes as we advance and doesn't always get it right, but unlike us local yokels, it knows that.

 

[Magna-Carta]

What we perceive at any given time is not necessarily reality, and when a photographic image is inserted between reality and what we perceive, the correlation between reality and what we see gets even worse. Photos do not duplicate reality. In my teens a friend of my fathers, a professional photographer, was looking at a magazine with one page of two identical photos. One was shot with Kodacrome, and the other with Ektacrome, and the headline of the article posed the question, "Which film was better." I of course said Kodacrome, because the colors were much more vivid and intense, which was one of Kodacrome's signature features. But the photographer pointed out that it depends on what the actual colors of the subject matter were.

Digital images are even worse, and every hard ass review done of cameras by the folks at Buydig.com spends no shortage of time discussing each camera's accuracy in reproducing colors.

The article posed a trick question which should have been, "What do you like better?" And that is one of the reasons few people see reality as it is. Our judgements are overridden by our biases. Reality exists completely independent of human perception. I know we are supposed to be all philosophical about it here, but reality doesn't care about our mundane genetic flaws or heady philosophical musings.

I used to buy Kodachrome, and for the same reasons you mention. Even back then, because of the differences in film, I started to wonder what are the ’true’ colours out there. If we can’t see all wavelengths, then could that also mean some of the wavelengths we do see aren’t interpreted correctly by our brains.

As for photographic film and photographic devises, are they just designed to replicate what we as humans see. If we were to take a photo of earth with a device using all wavelengths, what exactly might we see. What is the reality here.

 

[JustDave]

I used to buy Kodachrome, and for the same reasons you mention. Even back then, because of the differences in film, I started to wonder what are the ’true’ colours out there. If we can’t see all wavelengths, then could that also mean some of the wavelengths we do see aren’t interpreted correctly by our brains.

As for photographic film and photographic devises, are they just designed to replicate what we as humans see. If we were to take a photo of earth with a device using all wavelengths, what exactly might we see. What is the reality here.

On almost all of my "keeper" photos, I jimmy the colors, often intensifying the greens and the blues with my PrintShop Pro. It has nothing to do with reality, but the photos are better, at least to my eye. "But it's not real!" Yeah, so? Even my digital camera isn't producing what is real.

 

[Magna-Carta]

On almost all of my "keeper" photos, I jimmy the colors, often intensifying the greens and the blues with my PrintShop Pro. It has nothing to do with reality, but the photos are better, at least to my eye. "But it's not real!" Yeah, so? Even my digital camera isn't producing what is real.

and maybe the ’reality’ is that there is no such thing as colour, just wavelengths. And our evolution, our eyes and brains just interprets those wavelengths as colour?

 

[JustDave]

and maybe the ’reality’ is that there is no such thing as colour, just wavelengths. And our evolution, our eyes and brains just interprets those wavelengths as colour?

Yes wavelengths are just waves of energy, all of which make up the electromagnetic spectrum. We have evolved in such a way that we can see a minute segment of the spectrum, which we interpret as various colors. Some predatory birds can see more of that spectrum than we can, but what that extra color looks like to them is beyond our imagination.

Click to expand the graph

 

[Medusa]

We always see reality but we always see it “as a something”. What the something may be can have a cultural cause or reflect individual lived experience, but almost always it will be both. But however the categories got set, what we experience going forward is part of the preprocessing that goes on below the level of conscious awareness to make our conscious experience possible. It is better this way.

Reality is alive and well but our access to it is always filtered. There is no way to avoid reality but also no way to know it apart from our sensory/cognitive capacities. We should avoid statements of the form “reality is nothing but …” because they are above our pay grade.

I was saying that while he is asserting that reality exists whether people believe it does or not, he is conceding its malleability as perceived by individuals. -- Then I was saying that I might simply say that, but I'm not sure there's a point in clarifying his point.

Oh, which (the above) is what I said to a friend who mentioned this post to me. I'm leaving it because it's one of those funny life mistakes I kind of like.

Here's my actual response to this post, which I'm still not sure is necessary, but wth.

By "alive and well," I understand you to be saying that reality exists whether people believe it to or not, but also taking into account the malleability of reality as perceived by individuals influenced by their life experiences, nature, nuture, etc.

 

[Magna-Carta]

Yes wavelengths are just waves of energy, all of which make up the electromagnetic spectrum. We have evolved in such a way that we can see a minute segment of the spectrum, which we interpret as various colors. Some predatory birds can see more of that spectrum than we can, but what that extra color looks like to them is beyond our imagination.

Click to expand the graph

I clicked on the attached image you gave. I knew the wavelengths we see are narrow, but I didn’t realise they are that narrow!

A friend of mine sent away an older DSLR camera of his to be converted to infrared. I’m sure you are aware of these type of camera conversions, and other conversions and the images they produce. That camera now takes some really interesting images. If there is life out there in this universe of ours, then what wavelengths might they see. Do they see a different kind of ‘reality’?

Below, an infrared camera image. There is now snow in these images:

 

[oldlongwalker]

We always see reality but we always see it “as a something”. What the something may be can have a cultural cause or reflect individual lived experience, but almost always it will be both.

How about this. The "as a something," is either innate and in the mind at birth, or it is acquired by experience. The former view seems unlikely as there is no evidence of anything like this. Chomsky used to think something like this was going on, but he no longer holds this view to this degree. So it must be acquired. So what do we acquire by experience that can serve this purpose?

The best answer based on observing infants is language. Now either language shapes reality, or reality shapes language. When we observe how infants learn language it doesn't look like anything like the former is happening. The first words spoken don't even have any meaning for an infant. They are just repeating sounds--mama--just like a parrot. Eventually they connect "mama" with seeing mama and a meaning starts to form.

This is the way it works if reality shapes language. But if language shapes reality/experience, it couldn't happen this way. But it does happen this way as best we can tell. It is hard to even imagine how it could happen any other way. That is why the example I gave earlier about Inuit doesn't do anything interesting.

 

[JustDave]

I clicked on the attached image you gave. I knew the wavelengths we see are narrow, but I didn’t realise they are that narrow!

We evolved to see what we identify as the visible spectrum. Wouldn't it be something if we could see radar, or AM waves? If we could see infrared wave lengths would it just look like those interesting camera photos, and what would become of red, green, blue, and yellow?

However, I don't think having any such abilities changes reality. It only changes how we see it.

 

[JustDave]

This is the way it works if reality shapes language. But if language shapes reality/experience, it couldn't happen this way. But it does happen this way as best we can tell. It is hard to even imagine how it could happen any other way. That is why the example I gave earlier about Inuit doesn't do anything interesting.

I don't believe language shapes reality either. Language is a flawed human construct anyway. It does allow us to communicate, but poorly. I think it also enhances our ability to misrepresent reality with logical fallacies. I'm not sure we could come up with as much misinformation and nonsense as we do without language.

 

[oldlongwalker]

We evolved to see what we identify as the visible spectrum. Wouldn't it be something if we could see radar, or AM waves? If we could see infrared wave lengths would it just look like those interesting camera photos, and what would become of red, green, blue, and yellow?

However, I don't think having any such abilities changes reality. It only changes how we see it.

We could see more if we had the hardware for it. Birds have an additional cone for UV. Since we don't, we have no possibility of seeing what they see.

On the other hand, color itself is not real--it is only in your head.

 

[Magna-Carta]

How about this. The "as a something," is either innate and in the mind at birth, or it is acquired by experience. The former view seems unlikely as there is no evidence of anything like this. Chomsky used to think something like this was going on, but he no longer holds this view to this degree. So it must be acquired. So what do we acquire by experience that can serve this purpose?

The best answer based on observing infants is language. Now either language shapes reality, or reality shapes language. When we observe how infants learn language it doesn't look like anything like the former is happening. The first words spoken don't even have any meaning for an infant. They are just repeating sounds--mama--just like a parrot. Eventually they connect "mama" with seeing mama and a meaning starts to form.

This is the way it works if reality shapes language. But if language shapes reality/experience, it couldn't happen this way. But it does happen this way as best we can tell. It is hard to even imagine how it could happen any other way. That is why the example I gave earlier about Inuit doesn't do anything interesting.

As I was reading through this, I saw your point about language shaping reality vs reality shaping languages. I couldn’t see language shaping reality; that makes little sense to me. But I thought I could see how reality shapes language.

As for infants, and the points I think you are making. The way that infants seem to learn language suggests they are responding to the world around them and developing an understanding of it. An infant cannot impose their own language based reality onto it. So… I suppose then, language is a tool for describing and interpreting reality. That language tool can’t be used to ‘shape’ ‘reality’. Neither can cultural background; there is no ‘shaping’ going on, or there shouldn’t be.

The…? How shall I put this...?... I’ve not studied this, I suppose I’m still thinking this through as I type: The laws of physics, and maybe laws yet to be discovered, don’t change based on our applied language, knowledge and senses. We can, and do, if were not careful, form a ‘perception’ of reality based on languages (language can be a constraint sometimes), knowledge or lack of, and cultural & ‘belief’ factors. And maybe even emotions for that matter.

But then again, are there some laws of physics that change depending on how we observe them. If so, then is that a law in itself? Quantum mechanics perhaps? Shaped by observation, or not?

 

[Magna-Carta]

If I could just momentarily stop everyone and just say, @chic , thank you for starting this thread!

 

[Medusa]

As I was reading through this, I saw your point about language shaping reality vs reality shaping languages. I couldn’t see language shaping reality; that makes little sense to me. But I thought I could see how reality shapes language.

As for infants, and the points I think you are making. The way that infants seem to learn language suggests they are responding to the world around them and developing an understanding of it. An infant cannot impose their own language based reality onto it. So… I suppose then, language is a tool for describing and interpreting reality. That language tool can’t be used to ‘shape’ ‘reality’. Neither can cultural background; there is no ‘shaping’ going on, or there shouldn’t be.

The…? How shall I put this...?... I’ve not studied this, I suppose I’m still thinking this through as I type: The laws of physics, and maybe laws yet to be discovered, don’t change based on our applied language, knowledge and senses. We can, and do, if were not careful, form a ‘perception’ of reality based on languages (language can be a constraint sometimes), knowledge or lack of, and cultural & ‘belief’ factors. And maybe even emotions for that matter.

But then again, are there some laws of physics that change depending on how we observe them. If so, then is that a law in itself? Quantum mechanics perhaps? Shaped by observation, or not?

I love this post and what I love most about it is that it contains mainly original thought; pure inquisitive thinking.