@Baden
Please, delete my account.

hint: maybe
...the one alternative to either believing or disbelieving, the path so seldom traveled unfortunately

I don't know.

It sounds like the ol' human cognitive trap of trying to explain an infinite reality using a finite brain, which is the very essence of the Big Bang Theory, I posit. I suggest that we simply cannot get there from here and that, while not completely abandoning the effort, we not pretend otherwise.

So, does anyone have any creative perspectives that don't involve illogical random subject-verb-object constructions?

reality & Reality >?<

Is that another false dichotomy?
Could we not add re-ality, real tea, your reality, my reality, pseudo-reality, artificial reality, junk reality, trippy reality, real reality, really real reality, sorta reality, almost reality, and lastly, REALLLLY phoquing dumb erality?

I apologize. I really don't get it.

Can we conclude, then, according to that line of reasoning, since an apple and a seed inside that apple occupy the same space, the descriptions of the space occupied by each would be identical?

Indeed, an assertion that an apple and its seed occupy the same space is easily demonstrated by describing the space that each occupies.

Further, can we not also conclude, therefore, that there is only one "space" in the entirety of the known universe?

It's starting to sound like this little intraversable [newly minted] rabbit hole is going to require a fair bit of camouflage to disguise the nature of its many contradictions.

I cannot believe that.
At the same time I cannot disbelieve that.

Does that make sense. Can one not believe and not disbelieve concurrently?

"What does Kant mean when he claims that:"

First of all that's one of those blatantly illogical, in its literal interpretation, state university questions that propelled me to grab my summa cum and flee their non-thesis masters fellowship for the mundane of Earth's forests. The only source in the Universe for Kant's meaning is Kant.
...a philosophy class .?. So, this is how we "educate" philosophers.?. It feels like programming to destroy literal thinking.

Otherwise, I have nothing, am no help, and am a nobody in that order of grammatical delirium.

Did anybody catch theirs yet?
And what's the great attraction to tail-chasing [your own in this case; i get it when it isn't].

I'm interpreting your meaning to be that you have a different set of opinions.

This is hardly the place to be offering up absolute declarations of fact and truth, especially with additional verbal abuse attached, would you say?

200 MILLION GB not counting onions
~ like ta piss my pants
Thanks! :blush:
two petabytes in its bland form

Having spent too much of my youth in the days of grand attempts to move mountains with our minds, I have a great affinity for stories that are not easily ridiculed for their ridiculousness.

I love the stories that capture the essence of an issue. We seem to be able to intimately appreciate only that which we can wrap our arms around.

I don't have any familiarity with your story as I understand it here, but it has the ring of possible plausibility to me.

appreciated

excellent but first i'll have to change my username to tokinoutmi-arse and you to popcorn.

Using that line of reasoning, could we not conclude that Earth is occupying the same space as the Milky Way or even that your head is occupying the same space as the entire known universe?

What point of logic are we attempting to advance here?

Why does the word "reality" need a modifier like "absolute"?
Why can't reality be simply "all that exists"?
Why can't personal reality simply be an interpretation of reality?
Why must me muddy a stream that when left alone runs clear and clean?

Thanks for your response.
I was curious because you expressed something about reality being perception-altered.
So, I still don't have a clear story of what you were trying to communicate. No worries.

Are you saying that information and energy are synonymous?
Information = mass * velocity^2 ~?~

Oh, no, now I see, I think. Are you saying that they are two distinct entities but they always exist together?

Could it be that information and energy are not actually channeled but rather are instantly and always present everywhere at once, briefly glowing intensely in particular spots which we perceive as thought?
Oh, never mind, that probably sounds totally implausible and possibly downright goofy and illogical.

How do you suppose "the great minds" of antiquity navigated before there were all of these later greats to mimic?

Hmmm, if your brain is over there and my brain is over here and if they are not hardwired together, then that kinda sounds like all of us are effectively cognitively isolated from one another. Never mind that you say green and I have a cognitive set of experiences associated with the sound of that word, your green is not my green.

To accept this isolation as a plausible story has the benefit, hopefully, of motivating one to prioritizing the need to overcome the insurmountable illusion of true communication [trained responses to sensory stimuli seem to be a special consideration].

Anything that is detectable in the Universe is, at the most fundamental level, merely but yet profoundly an exchange of energy ~ maybe.

Just as a point of interest and perhaps, an additional perspective on the notion that moderation is "necessary"...

Way back in the olden days, there existed a Yahoo Group entitled AlasBabylon. It was a bunch of peak oil theorists, baby boomers, doomers, and know-it-alls. :yum:

The creator, owner, and sole moderator was Scott Meredith.
One time over period of 5? or so years, I witnessed Scott impose some moderation. It was in a very extreme case.

Otherwise, the site was UNMODERATED.

It never burned down while Scott owned it. Apparently [?] the members felt a bit of personal ownership in the place.

It seems to me that the one of beautiful benefits of knowing a thing to be true is that you never have to expend any more precious effort or expense on research or investigation into it. It seems that when the "case is closed", it is CLOSED, Jack. The only thing that might remain is to inform all the ignorant souls who have been denied or otherwise deprived of this knowledge.

How do you discern in your mind whether any particular concept that you hold is false or unlikely or likely or true or otherwise plausibly indiscernible.? What metrics do you use? What is the nature of proof? In other words, what is the difference between your opinions and your knowledge?

What is your working definition of reality?

Are "things" observable?
If so, in what sense are they observable?

What is the nature of the information that the senses input?
How would you describe that information?
How does that information compare to the energies that stimulated the senses?

And finally, how does the brain's interpretation of the information that was input by the senses compare to the energies that stimulated the senses?

Oh, dear! do you not believe in solutions, absolutely settled for all times, truth of a matter?
Does your heretical self not believe in answers and a final score?
:lol:
Do you, I suppose, believe that you can run these white water rapids of life in a flimsy little "maybe" kayak?
I sincerely hope so.

To me, it would be unimaginably profound to encounter some physical evidence that would logically suggest that truth is knowable to the human creature. Likewise, it would be equally profound if some of the physical evidence for the impossibility of knowledge could be debunked. I have found neither over some many of these past years.

I'm stuck with a brain that is nearly completely isolated from the outside world [like a man in solitary confinement], only "hearing" about that world via biochemical neural impulses from sensory nerves and organs. So, what can this little man in solitary "know" about the outside world, being so completely blind to it? That is the fundamental notion behind my opinion that I KNOW NOTHING. That's where this story begins for me, as it finally jelled in the mountains of northern California in July, 2004.

And everybody else's mileage seems to vary which is more than okay, I guess, because it is the only way when all we have are opinions and no irrefutable truths, it seems. My lament is that it is so terribly difficult to grow a story, to mature a story when nobody can get right in and logically challenge the basic assumptions and perceived/conceived evidence.

As yet another stopover in my quest, I was hoping for more. I won't give up yet.

Amid the flurry of accusations, derogatory epithets, and dismissive banalities, I heard no a whisper of any interest in evidence or exploration of possibilities. I get that a lot. I'm okay with it. It's not my loss. My only loss is in finding solidly logical observations that I have not yet considered.

By the way, I have no solid clues about what Socrates actually "said". I merely have been apprised lately that he may have been of the opinion as I am that knowledge is an illusion. I find that to be an interesting prospect, another "maybe", a possible pixel for the internal world picture in the vast sea of maybe's that may be me.

One last offering and I'm done.
Rather than "what can we know?" start with something a little simpler, "what can we hear?" or more to the point, "what can or does the brain 'hear'?". There's a nice youtube video that illustrates it quite convincingly ["Auditory Transduction"] or so I would offer.

Good luck and fair sailing to you, sincerely.
But don't ever come at me with meanness in your heart again.

Simply because you have a nebulous feeling that you are at the center of the Universe, does not translate to the fact that you are at the center of the Universe. Indeed, I would give you odds on a small wager that your feelings of such are mostly in error. But that's just how we are, eh? - error prone. It's kinda part of the human condition, perhaps.
>?<

oops there.
I claim to know nothing.
I'm offering you an opinion and whole new way of looking at the world.
Do, PLEASE, notice that I admit and submit that "I could be wrong."

I suspect that there is no metric for making that determination.

I would offer that IT is not about where you are and what must be fixed at any cost. It's all about which direction your arrow is pointed, what you aspire to. Write it down and turn it over to that lady who receives ALL of the sensory input. She'll get you there eventually and remind you when you fall off the wagon along the way.

...or maybe not.

That's not a bypass.

That is a SOLUTION, a rational, logical explanation, a very plausible story to explain what might be real.

I could be wrong, but I have mountains of evidence to support my opinion that nobody wants to hear.

i'm going with "probability taken personally".

"Luck is probability taken personally. – Penn Jillette, who attributes this quote to Chip Denman"

Well, it's nice to be able to entertain some people in mirth.

I don't see a philosophical problem with "what can we know?"
Once one accepts the mundanely obvious evidence that we can know nothing, then the door is open to begin the real exploration of intellectual existence. Unfortunately, it is not an exploration that can be pursued alone. I've seen just of late that Socrates ventured there. We're patiently waiting for y'all.

I could be wrong.

It's possibly no more than extreme behaviors driven by genetic predispositions stimulated by pheromones.

I have nothing of any value to offer because I view all of politics and news as theatre, and I expend considerable effort to ignore as much of it as I can get away with.

How about a little redneck advice in my very best redneck voice...?.

Don't worry about it.
They got the numbers.
But we got space.
We own this place.

...until ALL of it is taken away.

Those woke folks have every right to think and say whatever they want. Their opinions have nothing to do with anything or anybody but themselves. Right on! As long as they keep their hands to themselves...

...but that's just me ...I grew up feral.

If it is not innate, genetic predisposition I would be shocked.

I've been banging around a few philosophy forums here and there over the last some weeks looking for some intellectually challenging concepts. I've read umpteen posts. I am amazed by what appears to me to be people's overwhelming tendency to posit their notions in tremendously ethereal wisps of fancy.

Humans are just creatures with an amazing voice box and a brain complex enough to formulate speech. For the most part it seems that we overlook the fundamentally mundane nature of our existence, even our wonderfully complex cognitive existence. It is simply a physical manifestation in the Universe, this human creature. Much of its cognitive relationship with the all else that exists can be explained in physical terms.

Why do we persevere? Hard wired.
What is the meaning of life? Staying alive.

I could be wrong.

It honestly sounds like a rigged system going from bad to worse.

My notion goes something like this.
[for the USA] Public schools and state universities are designed to produce durable cogs for the wheels of industry. Perhaps, most private schools and Ivy League universities are designed to produce precious-metal cogs for the wheels of industry. Only the most elite schools are designed to educate.

These notions are based in part on my view that training is about learning the answers [fetch, boy] and education is about exploring the possibilities.

So, if the university system is suffering a unique misandry moment, it does not strike me as alarming given the insidious nature of the beast as I see it.

I don't have any evaluation of "important". But to my way of thinking, your question gets at a core human quality, that being the nature of our opinions as they relate to reality.

Ultimately, jumping way ahead, the entire issue is a wash intellectually [not emotionally necessarily] when one comes to embrace, "I could be wrong." That is, when one holds that reality, truth is not knowable, that all that can be had are protoplasmic interpretations of reality and the opinions that are generated from those interpretations, then being right or wrong in one's beliefs is illogical.

I could be wrong.

Does chaos imply that there are forces in the Universe that are independent and are unaffected by other forces in the Universe?