What I mean is, language itself, the symbols, contain no reality. The symbols are little works of art. On their own they are just curvy lines. But in the fertile soil of our brain they cause a flood of ideas, feelings, bodily stuff, etc. Call it enactivation. — Hillary

So long as you keep this in the plural, yes. Language functions within a community. It's usually called collective intentionality, not enactivation.

There you go! (And here I come!) And considering the fact that there is a broad assortment of communities, languages convey a broad variety of realities, and dependent on the kinds of realities might or might not contain common syntax.

and dependent on the kinds of realities might or might not contain common syntax. — Hillary

Differing languages have different grammars? Or did you mean semantics?

Different languages tend to agree as to the hardness of rocks and such like. Social reality differs in this regard from physical reality. Physical reality secures agreement.

Differing languages have different grammars? Or did you mean semantics? — Banno

Different semantics seems obvious. The Swahili word for house might have a different meaning than the American word (and even the American house might differ from the American). Likewise for things like rocks. The grammar of language might also differ (contrary to Chomsky's rigidity).

It's usually called collective intentionality — Banno

Take the following passage and replace "intersubjective" with "collective intentionality", and tell me how is "collective intentionality" supposed to resolve the problem you said "intersubjective" has.

"Intersubjective" is one of those oxymoronic terms that folk use to avoid thinking. If the subjective is private, then the notion of the "inter" subjective makes no sense. If the subjective is not private, then adding "inter" to it is superfluous.

Nothing is solved by waving such a word around. — Banno

All you have done is replaced one oxymoronic term with another. Nothing is solved by waving "collective intentionality" around.

So we are back to your recalcitrant reluctance to read.

"Intersubjective" is one of those oxymoronic terms that folk use to avoid thinking. If the subjective is private, then the notion of the "inter" subjective makes no sense. If the subjective is not private, then adding "inter" to it is superfluous.

Nothing is solved by waving such a word around.

And you should have learned by now that Meta has no idea. — Banno

:grin:

Good point. There's a thin line between intersubjectivity and objectivity, the two in my mind are identical twins (indistinguishable). However, I was told, the difference is subtle. One example is that money is intersubjective but the Eiffel Tower in Paris is objective. Language is social said Wittgenstein and something tells me that's relevant to our conversation.

See Language of thought.

You might have to do some reading, I'm afraid. Unless you can find a short youtube video that will allow you to think you have understood a complex issue without the discomfort of putting some effort into it. — Banno

Noted! Gracias!

“Psychological underpinnings” sounds like you think it is not a rational (analytical) claim or argument. As to learning about our motives, philosophy began as a search for self-knowledge, to better ourselves by being aware of what is right and true. I’m not claiming our thought is shaped by our psychology (though what is Plato “remembering” but what we call unconscious). Our doubt, and fear, and desire for certainty are situational, part of being human. — Antony Nickles

I wuz simply trying to make sense of your post, that's all. You see, I'm not familiar with the particular brand of philosophy you seem to be championing. My bad!

Arigato gozaimus for your valuable input. I'll get back to you when and if I have anything wortwhile to say G'day mate!

Update

1. A,simulation can't be distinguished from reality.

There's an obvious difference between The Matrix and the Real World. It's just that when in The Matrix, there's no way of knowing that. This is just like being in a dream state. Lucid dreams? Is nirvana one?

2. Leibniz's 2^nd law of identity: The identity of indiscernibles; according to Wikipedia, a controversial claim. Identical twins!

I'm not familiar with the particular brand of philosophy you seem to be championing. — Agent Smith

I would suggest not worrying so much about boxing things into a "philosophy" that we just defend or attack. It seems to get in the way of even starting. Good luck.

I would suggest not worrying so much about boxing things into a "philosophy" that we just defend or attack. It seems to get in the way of even starting. Good luck. — Antony Nickles

Muchas gracias!

Noted! Gracias! — Agent Smith

But will you actually start to read?

The term "intersubjective" was first needed when Husserl had to backtrack after his exploration of subjectivity ran into solipsism. He needed empathy in order to bring other people into exist. An approach that seems inordinately, convolutely silly.

Other people talk about sharing.

Collective intent is simply doing things together for a common purpose.

But will you actually start to read? — Banno

Ummmm....I'll think about it! :grin:

The term "intersubjective" was first needed when Husserl had to backtrack after his exploration of subjectivity ran into solipsism. He needed empathy in order to bring other people into exist. An approach that seems inordinately, convolutely silly. — Banno

See, in my universe, what Husserl did is what philosophers worth their salt do/should do! Ideas seem to be always, well, pregnant so to speak - new ideas are gestating in them and at the right moment i.e. as and when necessary, they're taken to the maternity ward and delivered into the Ideaverse. In the wild they mature and memetically speaking they must be fit to survive what is essentially an assault from all directions (chakravyu re the Mahabharata).

But I digress (I think).

Ummmm....I'll think about it! :grin: — Agent Smith

:lol:
:smirk:

See, in my universe, what Husserl did is what philosophers worth their salt do/should do! Ideas seem to be always, well, pregnant so to speak - new ideas are gestating in them and at the right moment i.e. as and when necessary, they're taken to the maternity ward and delivered into the Ideaverse. In the wild they mature and memetically speaking they must be fit to survive what is essentially an assault from all directions (chakravyu re the Mahabharata). — Agent Smith

Not just any idea will do; and intersubjectivity serves to hide what is going on here by dragging it into the mire of subject/object...

Pseudo-intellectual fashion.

Not just any idea will do; and intersubjectivity serves to hide what is going on here by dragging it into the mire of subject/object...

Pseudo-intellectual fashion. — Banno

:ok:

From a Wittgensteinian standpoint there's no essence to either illusions/simulations or reality that could aid us in telling them apart. — Agent Smith

Actually, there is an "essence" underlying perceived reality : I call it "Information". Unfortunately, materialist scientists have ruthlessly dissected reality looking for its fundamental substance. The problem is that they imagined that substance as tiny balls of hard stuff. But eventually, Quantum researchers have been mystified to find that the foundation of material reality is mushy Mathematics (Fields of intangible potential ; invisible WaveForms ; mind-stuff). Their "substance" is essentially the Information necessary to describe the statistical probability of their physical existence at a particular place & time. So, it seems that Reality is based on illusory gambler's odds.

The current issue of Philosophy Now magazine (149) has an article that mentions Bostrom's "simulation hypothesis". His issue is to know whether there is "a mind-independent reality". And Nozick's similar Experience Machine thought-experiment concluded that a convincing simulation of Reality would "prevent us from grasping any deeper reality". So it seems that, for all practical purposes, Reality is what you experience : the information you take-into your mind, from which to build a model of the source of those incoming bits of experience. However, speaking for most of us, Nozick said, "we want to have a genuine relationship with reality, not live a fictional life that only feels real. (a la Matrix). "This means that for many people there must be something --- perhaps reality itself -- that is valuable in addition to the feels of experience".

I suppose it's that feeling of incompleteness & imperfection in the perceived world, that caused ancient philosophers (e.g. Plato) to propose an Ideal World, of which our mundane Reality is merely a simulation. Perhaps, the felt need for "something more" is what allows the majority of people to imagine (and believe) in super-gods & heavenly homes, where Reality is closer to Ideality. So, how can we tell them apart : the mind-model of Reality from the unknown real-Reality? Does it really make any difference? Obviously, some people feel strongly that it does. Which is why Morpheus, and his crew, chose to live in a hadean underworld, instead of the "normal" matrix simulation. If only we-in-the-normal-world had magic pills, so we could tell them apart. :cool:

Actually, there is an "essence" underlying perceived reality : I call it "Information". Unfortunately, materialist scientists have ruthlessly dissected reality looking for its fundamental substance. The problem is that they imagined that substance as tiny balls of hard stuff. But eventually, Quantum researchers have been mystified to find that the foundation of material reality is mushy Mathematics (Fields of intangible potential ; invisible WaveForms ; mind-stuff). Their "substance" is essentially the Information necessary to describe the statistical probability of their physical existence at a particular place & time. So, it seems that Reality is based on illusory gambler's odds. — Gnomon

A small defensive word in favor of the scientist... Quantum mechanics is the same small hard ball approach. Even worse, as it treats particles as geometrical points that move according to the laws of chance within the confines of a wavefunction, thereby probing space. Scientists have done a fairly good job figuring this out, and any attempt to use quantum mechanics and it's big brother quantum field theory, in some great scheme of consciousness, or an underlying informational computation leads us nowhere.

It could even be argued that the wavefunction constitutes space. It's the notion of the particle being a point that is problematic. The notion robs the particle of its true identity. An identity which entails more than a lifeless, dead point particle.

True, scientists tend to dissect material reality, thereby stripping it from complicated interaction effects between parts. It are the naturally occurring interactions and patterns and forms and shapes emerging from them that molds the magical particle contents into life and it's magical, quasi-divine content.

So, if mind is part of matter, can there even be a reality independent of mind?

Awesome! Indeed, I'm looking for a red pill. In most films on the simulation theory the real is depicted as less glamorous, more drab than the simulation itself. Perhaps dullness can be used as a reliable indicator of how real a world is. That has some disturbing implications such as hell is probably real and heaven just a figment of our imagination, a mere fantasy.

We don't want to live in the real world, it's too depressing (re suicide & melancholia). :chin: Antinatalism?

A,simulation can't be distinguished from reality. — Agent Smith

Only to a simulated agent (within it's native simulation) which, in that case, makes the question itself moot since "real" – ineluctable – to the agent is what matters ontologically independent of epistemology.
("By Crom!" )

Only to a simulated agent (within it's native simulation) which, in that case, makes the question itself moot since "real" – ineluctable – to the agent is what matters ontologically independent of epistemology.
("By Crom!" ↪180 Proof) — 180 Proof

Good point

1. Ontological: Either true that the world is real or the world is unreal.

2. Epistemological: We don't know.

Remember our discussion in the other thread (God & Existence). It looks this thread is about the same issue: Real (nonphysical) vs. Unreal (nonexistence). Can tell them apart!

The reality of the first pig heart transplant was heralded with an overload of bells and gigaphones. When the beating stopped shortly after, a minor article on the last page mentioned it. Two realities. One fabricated to be more real than the other.

How do we know reality, and even our simulating brains themselves, are not a simulation? Can a simulation be simulated? When I dream, I see a simulated world. Can you dream in your dream? Wake up from a dream and thank god it was a dream, after which the nightmare continues. Will we finally wake up from the nightmare of life when we die? Or will we enter the next nightmare instead.

Basically, there are two versions of a simulated world, which I call the weak and the strong simulation hypothesis. The weak simulation hypothesis assumes our simulation device, the brain, already there, in a vat, as you wish, or in our body, while being unconscious, for the sake of keeping it alive. We then stimulate the senses to let us experience the world we would have experienced in the case we were truly walking around in the world. We need to be made conscious again, and the senses should be stimulated in a coherent way, as if they came from our sensory devices of our body actually walking around in the real world. We effectively need a real world to accomplish this fate, and stimulating the senses as presented by a computer, needs a computer simulation of the real world, and the simulation appropriately reacting to our mental reactions to it. This is the kind of simulation as pictured in The Matrix. Neo is stimulated by means of a fat plug and play device on his nerval spine on his back, which makes the visual stimulation questionable. You can put a VR helmet on, but then you stimulate the brain by real means. No virtual reality is presented in VR helmets. The hearing illusion or the skin sensations and smell sensations idem dito, although the skin sensations might be presented by the spinal tap (phantom limbs!). All in all, a technically quite difficult feat to achieve, and in our dreams, the brain actually does it for us!

Then we arrive at the strong version. Even the brain is simulated here What can I say? Megalomaniac visions of the computer addict? Can the dream be simulated?

A small defensive word in favor of the scientist... Quantum mechanics is the same small hard ball approach. — Hillary

I wasn't denigrating quantum scientists. They're doing the best they can with the counter-intuitive feedback they get from sub-atomic experiments. Since such concepts as "Superposition" and "Wave-Particle Duality" don't make sense to our classically-trained brains, the pioneers of Weird Science were forced to resort to conventional physical metaphors, that made them seem somewhat less meta-physical, but still quite strange. In my thesis, I encapsulate those paradoxical dualities in the coined term "BothAnd", as illustrated in the Yin-Yang symbol.

"This picture of quantum mechanics is said to be ontic, from 'ontology' . . . . the alternative view is that the wavefunction is epistemic . . . . our state of knowledge".
____Phillip Ball, Beyond Weird

It could even be argued that the wavefunction constitutes space. It's the notion of the particle being a point that is problematic. — Hillary

I don't know if the wavefunction "constitutes space", but it potentially fills all of space, until forced to "collapse" to a specific location. Even the math of Schrodinger's Equation is weird, in that it requires "imaginary numbers, which is not something that has a physical meaning". (ibid) Since the physical foundation of our reality can only be described in mathematical terms, it fits neatly into my thesis that everything in the world is a form of Information (the potential to enform, both physically and mentally). :smile:

So, if mind is part of matter, can there even be a reality independent of mind? — Hillary

The "correct" answer to that question depends on how you look at it. Just as Einstein was forced by the facts to conclude that macro (space-time) reality is relative, it now seems that quantum reality is also relative to the observer. If you look within, your world-model is integral with your-self, but it you look without, it seems independent of your mind. :nerd:

In most films on the simulation theory the real is depicted as less glamorous, more drab than the simulation itself. — Agent Smith

That may be why humans have always imagined that there must be something better, something more, than this "vale of tears". Our advanced animal brains are not limited to the here & now, but can create alternative possible worlds, such as Plato's Ideal, and the Christian Heaven, or somewhat more mundane, a Garden of Eden, where grass-fed lions lay-down with their fellow vegetarian lambs. :joke:

That may be why humans have always imagined that there must be something better, something more, than this "vale of tears". Our advanced animal brains are not limited to the here & now, but can create alternative possible worlds, such as Plato's Ideal, and the Christian Heaven, or somewhat more mundane, a Garden of Eden, where grass-fed lions lay-down with their fellow vegetarian lambs. — Gnomon

Something's not quite right, ja?

The world, as it is, is dukkha (unsatisfactory), oui?

Yet, the attitude which I recommend is one that's common knowledge: If life gives ya lemons, make lemonade!

Make the best of what you have, si señor?

There's (probably) more...there always is, but that's all (for now).

Au revoir!

That may be why humans have always imagined that there must be something better, something more, than this "vale of tears". Our advanced animal brains are not limited to the here & now, but can create alternative possible worlds, such as Plato's Ideal, and the Christian Heaven, or somewhat more mundane, a Garden of Eden, where grass-fed lions lay-down with their fellow vegetarian lambs — Gnomon

What is the ‘this’, the ‘here’, the ‘now ‘ , the ‘ it is’ which is being assumed as Reality. Heidegger began Being and Time telling us that we need to put into question the simple copula ‘is’. His conclusion? The ‘is’ supposedly points to a static state of affairs , ‘here and now’ that traps us, but in fact the ‘is’ points to transformation and temporalization.
The something better, more, different is already ‘in’ the state of affairs , the ‘here and now’ that we assume as confining and locking us in.

I don't know if the wavefunction "constitutes space", but it potentially fills all of space — Gnomon

The hidden variables are the constitutes of space. Even with no real particles present, the hidden variables make them move reversibly, constituting primordial non-directional time structure, in a higher dimensional reality on which two mirror universes are pulled, emerge into real particle existence. Real thermodynamic time, real particles accompanied by hidden variables (the emergent space) moving irreversibly in the emergent space. Space offers a means for the particles to explore. Empty quantum space offers a means for interaction. The real particles couple to the virtual field and the hidden variables let them explore space (the hidden variables). Now, how can point particles couple? They can't. Only by making them spatially extended, a small Planck sized curled up volume in a higher dimensional space, they can interact.

If life gives ya lemons, make lemonade! — Agent Smith

That's the best philosophy I have encountered! :grin:

That's the best philosophy I have encountered! — Hillary

I know right? Talk is cheap though! Translating words into deeds, that's the hard part. Too bad, just when I was beginning to feel better! Oh well, sic vita est!

Translating words into deeds, that's the hard part — Agent Smith

But not the best part. Though fresh lemonata with crushed ice and pure honey or ahorn syrup is pretty good. Limoncello after it, and some pure high quality opium as dessert...

But not the best part. Though fresh lemonata with crushed ice and pure honey or ahorn syrup is pretty good. Limoncello after it, and some pure high quality opium as dessert... — Hillary

I need to get out more.