Objective reality: How do we know it exists ?

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Enmos, Mar 21, 2008.

  1. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Like most of the remainder of your post this is not anything I said, nor is the bold even correct. I.e.

    water is NOT what is tasted Water is a chemical compound. Taste of water or peanuts etc is an experience. Water and the taste of water are entirely different things. Just as "sound waves" are a form of energy and "sound" is an experience, again entirely different things.

    I have told you this before and that you should “distinguish between sound waves and sound” but you replied in post 475 that: "I clearly see no need to."

    So I will not try to get you to understand that they are entirely different things anymore, but let you persist in your confusion and let you continue treating them as if they were the same thing.

    If you reply, I will not. I .e. I am giving up on trying to get your to distinguish between “sound” and “sound waves.”
     
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  3. thinking Banned Banned

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    of course and extremely limited to touch only



    which had to taught from the experiences from the without , nothing came Natural
     
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  5. thinking Banned Banned

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    what " law " ?
     
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  7. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

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    Exactly.
    Which is more than enough for most organisms..


    Thank you for proving my point.
    There is no 'Natural'.


    Whatever law is applicable to the situation in question.
    The most classic example is that of the 'bent straw': a straw, placed in a clear glass which is half full of water will appear to be bent. Despite this incontrovertible sensation, we nonetheless know that the straw is in fact, not bent....
     
  8. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

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    Not that I want to speak for swarm here but you're failing to attend to an important distinction:

    You maintain that there are two notions here: 'water' and 'the taste of water'.
    You assert that they are different things, yet, our only empirical basis for the former, is the latter.......
     
  9. swarm Registered Senior Member

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    Well shuck my drawers! What on earth am I tasting? Is dirt what is tasted? Curiouser and Curiouser!


    Ooo, is it a molecule too?

    of tasting water or peanuts etc.

    No. Water is a thing. The taste of water is your experience of that thing, but it is a pattern in your mind, not a thing qua thing. If you open your head little water tastes will not fall out so no worries!

    Sound, or sound waves, are energy which is thingy enough for this discussion.

    The hearing of the sound is your experience of the sound. It again is a pattern in your mind and not a thingy qua thingy.

    Oh! Tell me again PLLLLLLEASE!!!

    Should I distinguish between oz and gal? Does an oz of water taste less watery than a gal? Will I hear something different if I hear a sound or hear a sound wave?

    If you are quiet, do you not make a sound wave? Should you wave back???
     
  10. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Last sentence is not true. (Thus your arguement falls apart.) Experiences in dreams, like fear, red fire, taste of cake, etc. are a quick counter examples showing this is false but more interesting experiences in wide awake persons also refute this statement.

    Normally people only experience the taste of water when there is water in their mouth, but this is not always the case. Some people have abnormal experience that even cross senses. This malady is called "synaesthesia." For examples etc. See: http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/synaesthesia_smelling_a_sound_or_hearing_a_color. Also wiki has a reasonably good article on synaesthesia.
    More common (at least a few percent of humans, perhaps >10%) is abnormal sensory experience within one sense via transferences. For example tomato and orange juice may produce the same taste or after a stroke these once different taste experiences (of tomatoes and orange) are indistinguishable.

    The most typical cross senses experiences are between smell and tastes (This is no doubt due to fact in our evolutionary history smell and taste were one sense.) For example, when a snake is waving his tongue around in the air a cm from his lips he is having experiences with it related to the rare molecules in the air with one integrated "smell/taste" sense. It makes more sense in most primitive organisms to call this single sense the "chemical sense" and that is often done.

    The really interesting cases are the crossed sense experiences. There are people for whom a narrow range of sound waves will make then experience "blue color" and some other narrow range of sound waves will make them experience green color.

    Technically water (pure H2O) has no taste. There are some other chemical compounds that are without tastes for a significant fraction of humans and yet have a very distinct and strong taste for the remainder.* One is often used in taste research studies, to initially sort these people into two groups, but I forget its name and chemical formula.

    Sound, color, taste are all experiences and in most individuals provoked by the same stimuli, but not all. This is another reason for clearly distinguishing between the agent which provokes an experience and the experience itself.

    Also note that specific experiences can occur without any agent provoking it. Unfortunately many people hear a buzzing or some other sound all the time. This unfortunately common malady is called "Tinnitus." (No agent is provoking the sounds heard.) Again: in dreams ALL of the sensory experiences can occur in normal people without any provoking agent.

    Quite a few people have a taste experience without having the corresponding agent in their mouth.

    Summary:
    Sound, color, taste are all experiences and can occur in the absence of any provoking agent. Only ignorance of these facts allows one to make an identity between the experience and the provoking agent. I.e. it is pure ignorance that allows one to call the taste of water, "water," especially or "doubly ignorant" in this case as pure water is tasteless.

    An experience and its normally associated provoking agent are not the same thing.


    To make this all more "thread related", note that we only know the world via out sensory experience it provokes and every one of the sense can be shown to miss-inform us at times. I.e. all senses can make us believe that the agent normally provoking the experience we are having exists with the characteristic we sense. A common example is to place hand, which has been a few minutes in ice water, into a bucket of room temperature water. (Experiencing that water as "warm.") The other hand, which has been in hot water, will experience that same room temperature water as "cold." Another "false experience" is of a yellow spot on a uniformly white wall after looking at a well illuminate blue spot for a few minutes. Again all of the senses can give false reports about conditions in the "real world." Grom this alone, it should be clear that one of our sensory experiences can be identical with the agent normally associated with the experience.

    Read large type bold text above again and note that no agent may even exist to provoke the experience or the experience that is provoked by an agent is very different than what is normally associated with the experience. (White wall provoking yellow spot, blue color by an audio frequency band, etc.)

    --------------------
    *Humans also divide into two distinct groups in their color sense. (I am not speaking of the "color blind" who lack one of the three wavelength selective cells in their retina, but of people with "normal color sense.") It is only a small difference, never noticed without careful measurements. There are two different forms of "green rodopsine" molecule with slightly different peaks in the absorption curves. I.e. some people have DNA which codes for one and others have DNA which codes for the other. The difference has such little functional effect that evoluion has not selected one form only.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 4, 2009
  11. Bishadi Banned Banned

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    Bishadi Hat:

    your wrong glaucon and tell Oli to go fly a kite

    remember; you can tell me what and who 'x' thinks, but don't tell me i am wrong unless you can back it up;

    "EXPERIENCING"..... life is what confirms YOUR existence; it has nothing to do with defining it in any subjective matter;

    so shut up!

    i am getting sick of you fools telling me what is true on anything, unless you can back it up with something besides your comments; none of them mean anything. (have ZERO BACKBONE)

    Mod Hat:

    p.s. Let's all keep the personal insults to a zero.

    [/QUOTE]

    you insult me, whenever you take a side without any depth to back up your claims

    either post something socratically capable or

    shut up!
     
  12. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    Unfortunately Bishadi most people in the field of philosophy are stuck with old and obsolete thinking and when something new and differing approach arrives on the scene they say "nice to see some innovative thinking but so and so said this and so and so said that". If the issue had been resolved as most posters seem to think it has we would not have any need for discussion forums like this one.

    I posted a thread ages ago called:
    How objective reality can be achieved. I had diagrams and a solid arguement that transends nearly every contemporary philosopher we humans have.
    Yet it has been totally ignored as being of any value here at this forum. Of course the thinking and reasoning is not isolated to just this forum nor the internet only, any ways, so it is often perplexing why something that is deemed worth while and significant elsewhere can receive such ignomy here.
    The thread in question gave a clear and concise way that objective reality CAN be acheived as long as one views this reality form with in and not from with out.
    It will when fully thrashed out and published blow away just about all arguements and vexation about this issue.

    As yet I have seen no arguement to say that this reasoning is in any way invalid, merely being ignored instead probably due to ego eccentric issue.
    This is one of the reasons why I have chosen not to bother posting lately to this forum as it appears to be an exercise in futility.

    the thread in quetsion is:
    http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=89885
    And it clearly sets out a premise using a mechanical universe how objective reality is achieved using an information /experience feedback loop.
    But Descartes says this and Hume says this and whats his name said that and you know all of them are wrong because if they were right well..we wouldn't be having this chat..
    So when someone throws an arguement about what another philosopher says they are applying ego pressure derived from poor self esteem. Instead of argueing from their own take on a particular philosopher they subscribe to authority instead.
    Again this thread is about "How do we know objectivity exists" and a very sound possible solution to this vexation has been provided at this thread:
    http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=89885
    Ignoring the value of what has been put doesn't make the value any less..
    We do indeed know that objective reality exists we just don't know why or how we know..... what we know.
    And I do not care about your ego concerns as it is the ball and not the man that is in question. The "ball" in this case regardless of your [the boards] fears of ego centric behaviour is in fact "how do we know objective reality exists" dump the self esteem issues and play the ball...and you know we all might actually get somewhere.
     
    Last edited: Jul 5, 2009
  13. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    There are typically two types of players in most games. One is "the man player" and the other is the "ball " player..it is usually only the "Ball player " that actually acheives anything worth while...
    So is this thread about playing the man or the ball?
     
  14. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    and who drinks pure water?

    Billy T, with all due respect, your statement is totally falacious in logic because it fails to recognise that it is premised on ignorance or a lack of adequate science.
    You presume all knowingness with your statement which renders it effectively useless.
    All sensory experience can indeed be argued as valid, interpretation may be subjective but sensory experiences may very well be valid and can be argued to be objective as it is only the interpretation that may be subjectively derived from conditioning.

    The limitations of knowledge about how the universe works needs to be realised before making such grandeous statements.
    A bit like stating that Gravity doesn't have any reality because we the scientists don't know what that reality is.
    Absurd yes?
     
  15. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Essentially no one. If for example one is drinking a mix that is mainly H20 but has a little NaCl in it then one is tasting salt, not water.
    One NEVER TASTES WATER as water is tasteless.

    Specifically what was based on ignorance or lack of "adequate science"? I.e. is there some statement I made that is false?
    I have long held exactly this position. Namely that the most valid things we know are our experiences. For example, here is a quote from post I made back on 11 November 2005:
    “… we infer (I think correctly) that the physical world does exist, but as Bishop George Berkeley noted, the existence of a physical world may be only an erroneous belief, commonly deduced from our direct experiences. That is, the directly experienced … has a stronger claim to “reality” than the INFERRED physical world! …”
    FROM: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=905778&postcount=66 (near the end of my post)

    I never said that experiences were not “valid” (Do you have a reading problem?) – As you can see from the above, just the opposite is my long-held POV. Experiences are more assuredly true and valid than the presumption that they were caused by some external agent.

    What I object to is making an identity relationship between an experience and the agent which normally causes it.

    The experience is a mental process and certainly exists. We know that sometimes there is no external causing agent. (I gave several examples in prior post.) We think we know (assuming there is an external world) that sometimes the experience is caused but NOT by the normal agent. (For example in cases.) Either of these is proof that there is not an identity relationship between the experience and some particular external agent, even if some particular external agent does often provoke that experience. My ONLY point was that is a conceptual error to equate the experience with the normally causal external agent. A philosopher of all people should not dispute this! Do you dispute this?

    What “grandiose statement” do your refer to and think is wrong?
    In most areas, I am an agnostic. For example, currently I am raising serious questions about the widely accepted Big Bang model and pointing out that the CBR fits equally well into the older and now essentially discarded Steady State model, which I also doubt, but bring it up in that thread to show an alternative that has less internal conflicts and fewer false predictions than the Big Bang model. See all this at:
    http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2291828&postcount=79
    and my preceding post 69 and several posts later than 79.

    Let me conclude with a direct question:
    Do you agree with me that “An experience and its normally associated provoking agent are not the same thing.” Or not?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 5, 2009
  16. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    Apologies Billy T......
    The issue is more to do with defining the detail in your post rather than it's general thrust.

    For example let me put one of your suggested ["frauds"] to a test.
    Lets look at the hand hot and cold issue.

    It is true that my hand may give a false impression of room temperature however this is based on a deluded state of knowledge as to what has transpired with both the hand and the room.

    The experience is still valid [ objective - in a not so typical sense I might add ] but the belief about that experience is not necessarilly so. The belief in causation is but a belief based on either limited knowledge or pure speculation. Either way the inyterpretation of the belief is based on ignorance.
    The same applies to other issues such as color tricks.
    Those with profound knowledge would be able to objectively describe the perceptive interpretation error just as you have already done so there for a yellow dot that should be blue etc etc is still an objective experience, subject to belief,
    "AHH that is not a yellow dot it is in fact blue due to blah blah blah....."the yellow dot is experienced as a true fraud. or true lie thus the lie is in fact a truth that has been exposed.

    Are lies objective or subjective?
    If every one believes the same lie then we have an objective belief... even though it is a lie. But always note that a belief is always a lie and not a knowledge.
    And belief is the premise of the intellect where as experience is the premise or the "being"

    Is a self deluded state an objective state of delusion or a subjective state of delusion for sure if the delusion can be proved as such then it is an objective state of delusion. Subjectivity therefore can be relegated only to those lies that have not been unconvered or revealed. [ therefore a false belief is present.]

    This way all experience is objective regardless of belief in causation. It is only how we view it intellectually that may render that interpretation as subjective or false. IMO.
     
  17. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    assuming I understand what you are proposing I would say that they are indeed the same thing or should I say directly associated but as to whether they can be interpreted the same by all people with their various degrees of ignorance of what they are actually experiencing is another issue completely.

    Ignorance is therefore the key to subjectivity....in this case.

    IMO
     
  18. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    in reference to the above questions i will use the following snip as an example:





    You have stated with out any provoking agent for dreams and the condition "Tinnitus".
    I have taken issue with the fact that you have not included the word "with out any known provoking agent"
    I have found for example that indeed dreams are generated by both internal and external agents.... [try placing a warm cloth on a person wrist whilst they are a sleep and ask them about their dreams when they wake up a really trite example]

    Also try sleeping with the windows open instead of closed and keep a journal on the difference in your dreaming.

    or try sleeping a room full of Jasmin Flower heads or Rose petals and see what happens....
    more than enough anecdotal evidence to suggest more research is needed before this area can be quantified as you have done so.

    Sleeping with an old full garbage bag under you bed does wonders too I might add...ha

    The same argument applies with the condition Tinnitus.

    We simply do not have the ability to close of possibility of causation internal , external or both and to say we can is an error in ego.
     
  19. thinking Banned Banned

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    and what is being touched is from the without , the objective reality
     
  20. thinking Banned Banned

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    no there isn't a Natural , in the sense that we know what a chair , table , wall , tree , concrete is , Naturally , until we experience the form of which a word refers too from the without

    and thats my point of bringing in the Helen Keller perspective

    there is a objective reality

    it is the basis of all experience , experienced and really our very existence

    without the fundamental existence of the Universe , there is no being of any living thing
     
  21. thinking Banned Banned

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  22. swarm Registered Senior Member

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    Pure water isn't terribly tasty and it oddly enough leaves you feeling thirsty or even thirstier. Apparently the "quenched" sensation keys off the trace elements in the water.

    Oh wait, I bet that was a rhetorical question.
     
  23. swarm Registered Senior Member

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    Actually it is not tasteless as simply drinking some distilled or deionized water will show. Such water as a very distinct flavor to it which is hard to miss once you've tried it. Personally I don't care for it.




    That's an interesting claim. I don't see how the truth and validity of an experience can be greater than the object upon which the experience is based, be it internal or external.

    You may be using a looser understanding of what qualifies as an experience. I would say the defining characteristin of an experience is that is an experience of ___, be that of something internal or external. I would not qualify objectless experiences as actual experiences.

    Then I would say you object to the notion of experience itself.

    You are confusing our personal understanding and capacity for analysis of the experience with the actual experience itself.

    That we misunderstand what we saw doesn't mean that there was no object, it only means we are mistaken about the nature of the object. Experience is experience of something, figuring out what that something is, is another thing altogether.

    Ah, so you agree hearing is not the sound heard. Good. Now can we agree that experience of hearing can come from hearing a sound?
     

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