What if? A sort of philosophical question.

[chic]

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.

Is there any such thing as "misinformation" if you don't believe in it because all rumors have a grain of truth in them so then nothing is misinformation it's just what YOU choose to accept as truth or falsehood in the reality you construct for yourself.

 

[JustDave]

We use language to point out that Inuits have 57 words for snow, but the claim is sometimes made as much as 100 words for snow, but the language itself states a false reality. But whatever the correct number is, the claim is still controversial. Wikipedia explains the origins and controversy around the the subject.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_words_for_snow

My guess is that claim gains it's popularity on little more than it is a clever and fun idea.

A subsequent influential and humorous, and polemical, essay by Geoff Pullum repeated Martin's critique, calling the process by which the so-called "myth" was created the "Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax". Pullum argued that the fact that the number of word roots for snow is about equally large in Eskimoan languages and English indicates that there exists no difference in the size of their respective vocabularies to define snow.

 

[JustDave]

Is there any such thing as "misinformation" if you don't believe in it because all rumors have a grain of truth in them so then nothing is misinformation it's just what YOU choose to accept as truth or falsehood in the reality you construct for yourself.

If you claim that misinformation is only what you believe to be false, then the same can be said about information... It is only information because you believe it is true. However, this debate is entirely irrelevant to reality. Whether you believe something is true, while I believe it is false has no bearing on reality. Neither of us has that much control over the universe.

 

[Medusa]

If you claim that misinformation is only what you believe to be false, then the same can be said about information... It is only information because you believe it is true. However, this debate is entirely irrelevant to reality. Whether you believe something is true, while I believe it is false has no bearing on reality. Neither of us has that much control over the universe.

Whether a person believes something to be true or false has no bearing on objective reality (if it exists), however I believe what @chic is saying is that what we believe about the validity of an idea informs how we perceive reality.

 

[JustDave]

Whether a person believes something to be true or false has no bearing on objective reality (if it exists), however I believe what @chic saying is that what we believe about the validity of an idea informs how we perceive reality.

If that is the case, I strongly agree. It would be a corollary of what I have been saying. We can perceive reality differently, and we do this all the time, but that does not shape it.

 

[oldlongwalker]

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?

As to the bit about QM. I've been listening an audiobook by Roger Penrose called The Emperor's New Mind. He talks about the Schrodinger equations which seem to suggest that "observation" affects the state of a particle that is being measured. That isn't strictly the case. Since the equations measure probability of a wave/particle, if you collapse the wave to get a location measurement, the speed measurement drops to zero. If you don't collapse it, the probabilities for both measurements are again equal... or something like that, I'm not a physicist.

 

[oldlongwalker]

Whether a person believes something to be true or false has no bearing on objective reality (if it exists), however I believe what @chic is saying is that what we believe about the validity of an idea informs how we perceive reality.

If you mean confirmation bias, then yes. You "see" what you want to see. Anything stronger than that is very doubtful.

 

[Medusa]

If that is the case, I strongly agree. It would be a corollary of what I have been saying. We can perceive reality differently, and we do this all the time, but that does not shape it.

See, it's the it that causes a glitch in playback in that it is a reference to an objective reality which not everyone believes exists. The origin of this thread is about this question; whether reality exists outside our perception as individuals or a collective agreement.

This, of course, is ultimately a dead argument as it cannot be proven nor disproven.

I simply could not stop myself from pressing the point.

 

[rbtvgo]

Whether a person believes something to be true or false has no bearing on objective reality (if it exists), however I believe what @chic is saying is that what we believe about the validity of an idea informs how we perceive reality.

what we believe is simply a matter of our experiences coupled with the knowledge we have gained thru our upbringing, education and relationships. We take it all and try to find answers, direction and understanding about life. Objective needs clarification. The sky is blue..yes.
It's raining, yes. I failed the test, therefore I am stupid............subjective. Therefore we are not being objective. Reality is overrated.
rbtvgo

 

[JustDave]

As to the bit about QM. I've been listening an audiobook by Roger Penrose called The Emperor's New Mind. He talks about the Schrodinger equations which seem to suggest that "observation" affects the state of a particle that is being measured. That isn't strictly the case. Since the equations measure probability of a wave/particle, if you collapse the wave to get a location measurement, the speed measurement drops to zero. If you don't collapse it, the probabilities for both measurements are again equal... or something like that, I'm not a physicist.

QM is probably in it's infancy. If so, we have a lot yet to learn or maybe just be even more confounded. But I understand it actually has some practical applications already (in computing for one if I recall correctly). It seems worth the time and effort. But it has also been hijacked by pseudoscience, and lends itself to those who perceive its mysteries as supporting a hodgepodge of odd claims.

 

[Medusa]

what we believe is simply a matter of our experiences coupled with the knowledge we have gained thru our upbringing, education and relationships. We take it all and try to find answers, direction and understanding about life. Objective needs clarification. The sky is blue..yes.
It's raining, yes. I failed the test, therefore I am stupid............subjective. Therefore we are not being objective. Reality is overrated.
rbtvgo

You're talking here about what we believe, not what we perceive, which is the question at hand, in this case "reality."
What you've done here is list what you see as objective facts and then concluded by saying that reality is overrated.
I'm not sure I see your point.

 

[oldlongwalker]

See, it's the it that causes a glitch in playback in that it is a reference to an objective reality which not everyone believes exists. The origin of this thread is about this question; whether reality exists outside our perception as individuals or a collective agreement.

This, of course, is ultimately a dead argument as it cannot be proven nor disproven.

I simply could not stop myself from pressing the point.

About whether it can proven or not. There are two ways to go on this. One is to press arguments for and against and proceed as usual. The other way, which I tend to favor, is to show that claims made one way or the other do not make enough sense linguistically to even make arguments possible. I'm working on a thought experiment to illustrate this if anyone is interested.

 

[JustDave]

See, it's the it that causes a glitch in playback in that it is a reference to an objective reality which not everyone believes exists. The origin of this thread is about this question; whether reality exists outside our perception as individuals or a collective agreement.

This, of course, is ultimately a dead argument as it cannot be proven nor disproven.

I simply could not stop myself from pressing the point.

I agree. But I believe it exists outside of perception and collective agreement. Does reality not exist at all? I don't have much reason to care about that, at least not at this time.

 

[oldlongwalker]

QM is probably in it's infancy. If so, we have a lot yet to learn or maybe just be even more confounded. But I understand it actually has some practical applications already (in computing for one if I recall correctly). It seems worth the time and effort. But it has also been hijacked by pseudoscience, and lends itself to those who perceive its mysteries as supporting a hodgepodge of odd claims.

Penrose thinks QM needs to be either replaced or greatly enhanced. Currently it is astonishingly accurate, but incomplete, especially about gravity and unification with relativity.

String Theory, depending on who you ask, is either a disaster or our best hope for the next big thing.

 

[Medusa]

About whether it can proven or not. There are two ways to go on this. One is to press arguments for and against and proceed as usual. The other way, which I tend to favor, is to show that claims made one way or the other do not make enough sense linguistically to even make arguments possible. I'm working on a thought experiment to illustrate this if anyone is interested.

Clarify for me, when you reference linguistics is your finer meaning branches of semantics?

 

[Medusa]

I agree. But I believe it exists outside of perception and collective agreement. Does reality not exist at all? I don't have much reason to care about that, at least not at this time.

I would agree, none of have us reason to care over-much about the existence of reality outside our perception; it is simply a fun thought experiment. Unless, of course, this is The Matrix.

 

[oldlongwalker]

Clarify for me, when you reference linguistics is your finer meaning branches of semantics?

Pretty much. I tend to side with philosophers who have made the "linguistic turn." I think many of the traditional problems of philosophy are best dealt with by analyzing language, broadly speaking. That includes semantics and pragmatics, and sometimes even grammar in the way Chomsky means.

 

[rbtvgo]

You're talking here about what we believe, not what we perceive, which is the question at hand, in this case "reality."
What you've done here is list what you see as objective facts and then concluded by saying that reality is overrated.
I'm not sure I see your point.

Reality is what you believe it to be, based on hard facts coupled with perceptions. The original question posed was an attempt to find a universal truth. There is no answer to this that any human can provide.
rbtvgo

 

[Magna-Carta]

If I could throw something else into the pot. You may have to read this a couple of times. I had to, and I wrote it! I think what I have written her is as good as I can give. Or as bad as I can give, depending on your point of view, or your sense of ‘reality’.

Imagine you are looking at the moon tonight, and it appears high up in the sky. You look at it and you get a sense of its size. Not its true size, but the size of it how it looks in the sky. Then tomorrow you look at the moon again, but this time it appears lower and closer to the horizon. You then get a sense that it looks significantly bigger, as it often does look bigger in those circumstances. The moon hasn’t got any bigger, and it isn’t significantly closer, so why does it look bigger. Has the reality of it changed or just our perception of it? What we believe to be correct might just be an illusion with no basis in reality. Even I it does look real.

I believe there is no ‘optical illusion’, as such, when viewing the moon in these different circumstances. I’ve not been able to find anything that describes this phenomenon, scientifically, as an optical illusion. Or at least one specifically as something to do with how the atmosphere might distort how the moon looks in the sky when it’s lower. So again, why does it look bigger when it is seen closer to the horizon? Or at least it does when I look at it!

So here we go! I’m often thinking about human evolution; I don’t know why I do that, I just do it.

So could it be a ‘human evolutionally illusion’? (I’ve just made that phrase up, and I’m not entirely sure what it means, yet) An illusion not based on reality or distortion due the atmosphere… but… an illusion… based on human evolution? Are we just kidding ourselves into believing a particular ‘reality’? Bear with me; I’m still trying to get this out.

Has evolution ‘taught us’ that things that look high up are further away than when they look closer to the ground, but at the same distance from you? Has our evolution and our mind just simply tricked us of the reality?

You know when we are on a tall building and we are looking down at the ground. It seems to look like a greater distance than when we are on the ground looking up at the very top of the same building. Is this a ‘human evolutionally illusion’, to give a greater sense of danger perhaps. Survival – step away from the edge of the building!? Our minds playing a trick on us, giving us an altered ‘sense’ of ‘reality’?

Back to the moon. When we look at the moon when it’s closer to the horizon. Does it look closer to us due to visual cues? Trees, buildings and other things. Things in our somewhat peripheral vision when looking at the moon. Is this closer to the ‘reality’? Is that what the moons true size looks like to us when we look at it? Is the illusion that it looks further away when it’s higher in the sky because we have no visual reference when it’s high up? Are our eyes, our brain, visually pushing the moon further away? When in reality nothing has changed. Try it for yourself. Look at the moon, it’s a wonderful thing.

Knowledge can help us understand what we see when we look at the moon, and how we see or precise it when it’s in different positions in the sky. Could knowledge set us free from our own constraints on how we see reality, perceived constraints or otherwise? Or, if you are not careful, could knowledge and ‘facts’ constrain you as a free thinker.

I think it’s hmmm…? Well, I think sometimes we need to step outside of ourselves to see something has it might be in ‘reality’. But even that could have its dangers and traps, if we are not carful.

Anyway, its bed for me now. I’m going to be dreaming about moons. I just know it!

 

[JustDave]

I would agree, none of have us reason to care over-much about the existence of reality outside our perception; it is simply a fun thought experiment. Unless, of course, this is The Matrix.

If reality doesn't exist, it wouldn't change anything about my life. I wouldn't join a cult or subscribe to a Flat Earth Society publication. Unfortunately, if reality doesn't exist, I doubt that I would exist. Not that I hadn't contemplated something similar to the Matrix, even before the movie came out, but I passed on the idea rather quickly.

One thing I've thought about at some length is whether something came from nothing. This is also a dead argument, but if something did come from nothing, could it be possible that everything around us is just a different manifestation of nothing. After all, protons seem to be 99+% nothing, and sub atomic particles appear and disappear as if half their life is a nothing state.

But again, none of this has any practical application on how I go about my life.

 

[oldlongwalker]

If I could throw something else into the pot. You may have to read this a couple of times. I had to, and I wrote it! I think what I have written her is as good as I can give. Or as bad as I can give, depending on your point of view, or your sense of ‘reality’.

Imagine you are looking at the moon tonight, and it appears high up in the sky. You look at it and you get a sense of its size. Not its true size, but the size of it how it looks in the sky. Then tomorrow you look at the moon again, but this time it appears lower and closer to the horizon. You then get a sense that it looks significantly bigger, as it often does look bigger in those circumstances. The moon hasn’t got any bigger, and it isn’t significantly closer, so why does it look bigger. Has the reality of it changed or just our perception of it? What we believe to be correct might just be an illusion with no basis in reality. Even I it does look real.

I believe there is no ‘optical illusion’, as such, when viewing the moon in these different circumstances. I’ve not been able to find anything that describes this phenomenon, scientifically, as an optical illusion. Or at least one specifically as something to do with how the atmosphere might distort how the moon looks in the sky when it’s lower. So again, why does it look bigger when it is seen closer to the horizon? Or at least it does when I look at it!

So here we go! I’m often thinking about human evolution; I don’t know why I do that, I just do it.

So could it be a ‘human evolutionally illusion’? (I’ve just made that phrase up, and I’m not entirely sure what it means, yet) An illusion not based on reality or distortion due the atmosphere… but… an illusion… based on human evolution? Are we just kidding ourselves into believing a particular ‘reality’? Bear with me; I’m still trying to get this out.

Has evolution ‘taught us’ that things that look high up are further away than when they look closer to the ground, but at the same distance from you? Has our evolution and our mind just simply tricked us of the reality?

You know when we are on a tall building and we are looking down at the ground. It seems to look like a greater distance than when we are on the ground looking up at the very top of the same building. Is this a ‘human evolutionally illusion’, to give a greater sense of danger perhaps. Survival – step away from the edge of the building!? Our minds playing a trick on us, giving us an altered ‘sense’ of ‘reality’?

Back to the moon. When we look at the moon when it’s closer to the horizon. Does it look closer to us due to visual cues? Trees, buildings and other things. Things in our somewhat peripheral vision when looking at the moon. Is this closer to the ‘reality’? Is that what the moons true size looks like to us when we look at it? Is the illusion that it looks further away when it’s higher in the sky because we have no visual reference when it’s high up? Are our eyes, our brain, visually pushing the moon further away? When in reality nothing has changed. Try it for yourself. Look at the moon, it’s a wonderful thing.

Knowledge can help us understand what we see when we look at the moon, and how we see or precise it when it’s in different positions in the sky. Could knowledge set us free from our own constraints on how we see reality, perceived constraints or otherwise? Or, if you are not careful, could knowledge and ‘facts’ constrain you as a free thinker.

I think it’s hmmm…? Well, I think sometimes we need to step outside of ourselves to see something has it might be in ‘reality’. But even that could have its dangers and traps, if we are not carful.

Anyway, its bed for me now. I’m going to be dreaming about moons. I just know it!

Take a look at this.

Why the moon looks bigger in different locations.

 

[oldlongwalker]

If reality doesn't exist, it wouldn't change anything about my life. I wouldn't join a cult or subscribe to a Flat Earth Society publication. Unfortunately, if reality doesn't exist, I doubt that I would exist. Not that I hadn't contemplated something similar to the Matrix, even before the movie came out, but I passed on the idea rather quickly.

One thing I've thought about at some length is whether something came from nothing. This is also a dead argument, but if something did come from nothing, could it be possible that everything around us is just a different manifestation of nothing. After all, protons seem to be 99+% nothing, and sub atomic particles appear and disappear as if half their life is a nothing state.

But again, none of this has any practical application on how I go about my life.

On the something from nothing bit. What scientists mean by nothing is quite different than what philosophers mean.

For scientists there is no such thing as the absolute nothing that philosophers mean. For the scientists, what might appear to be nothing is actually still governed by the laws of physics, which includes the various fields as specified by quantum mechanics. It is from these fields that the universe as we know it came from. So in a sense, something does come from nothing.

 

[JustDave]

On the something from nothing bit. What scientists mean by nothing is quite different than what philosophers mean.

For scientists there is no such thing as the absolute nothing that philosophers mean. For the scientists, what might appear to be nothing is actually still governed by the laws of physics, which includes the various fields as specified by quantum mechanics. It is from these fields that the universe as we know it came from. So in a sense, something does come from nothing.

I've surmised something like this, even that quantum physics enters into it in some way. When push comes to shove, I just can't believe something comes from nothing. I've kind of wondered if before matter all that existed was energy (E = mc2). Of course, energy is not nothing unless "nothing" is defined as only an absence of matter. Does energy take up space? I don't think so, but I don't really know. Waves seem to require space. It's a problem isn't it?

 

[oldlongwalker]

I've surmised something like this, even that quantum physics enters into it in some way. When push comes to shove, I just can't believe something comes from nothing. I've kind of wondered if before matter all that existed was energy (E = mc2). Of course, energy is not nothing unless "nothing" is defined as only an absence of matter. Does energy take up space? I don't think so, but I don't really know. Waves seem to require space. It's a problem isn't it?

Space itself was created along with everything else. But from what I understand, the total amount of positive energy is zero because it is balanced by gravity, which is like negative energy. So the big bang didn't create energy and the laws of thermodynamics are preserved. The universe resulted from a statistical field fluctuation.

 

[JustDave]

Space itself was created along with everything else. But from what I understand, the total amount of positive energy is zero because it is balanced by gravity, which is like negative energy. So the big bang didn't create energy and the laws of thermodynamics are preserved. The universe resulted from a statistical field fluctuation.

I can understand that until it comes to statistical field fluctuations, which I googled on Wikipedia and promptly got lost in the first 3 sentences.