we might have such warrant. I think we need to introduce Davidson here. If it can’t be said by a human, then what reason could you have to think that it could be said?

Well, two thoughts: First, to establish my point, I don't need a reason to think it could be said by a non-human, I only have to note that there is no reason why not. But, second, I think there is a pretty good reason to imagine sayable things that humans can't grasp. Consider the ant. Are there thoughts and experiences it cannot, in principle, have? Yes. And the badger? Yes. And the chimp? Yes. So why would this chain stop with humans? What makes us think we have access to all thinkable or sayable thoughts?

[R]eality is what there is. To posit something "beyond reality" is to posit more [than] what there is. "Beyond reality" is not a region; it is a grammatical error. — Banno

:fire:

somewhat off the track here. I’ll try again. If an alien says something that is utterly incomprehensible, what grounds could you have to think it had said something rather than just grunted?

Consider the ant. Are there thoughts and experiences it cannot, in principle, have? Yes. And the badger? Yes. And the chimp? Yes. So why would this chain stop with humans? What makes us think we have access to all thinkable or sayable thoughts? — J

somewhat off the track here. I’ll try again. If an alien says something that is utterly incomprehensible, what grounds could you have to think it had said something rather than just grunted? — Banno

Assuming the alien got here by traveling faster than the speed of light in some contraption (an impossibility given the physics we know of) there’s some good reason to presume some form of communication might be attempted. In line with how we teach dogs and, to lesser extents, cats to understand us via the things we say. Yes, all they hear are meaningful grunts, but they’re still meaningful to them as far as communication goes.

Then again, what idiot believes him/herself capable of linguistically communicating complex thoughts to lesser beings of comparatively minuscule intelligence? Like, anyone earnestly trying to communicate the laws of physics or the aesthetics of a Rembrandt to an ant, dog, etc., is bound to be missing some marbles (and not the non-human animal for not understanding). Given the greater intelligence of the alien, they might want to communicate complex thoughts to us telepathically, or via some other weird manner, but not in the language they themselves speak. Otherwise, they’d be missing marbles (yes, this is conceivable: we all know that the greater the intelligence, the greater the likelihood and intensities of possible insanity).

Yup, my deep thought of the day.

------

“The smiles you’ll give/and the tears you’ll cry/and all you touch/and all you see/is all your life will ever be” -- lyrics from “Breathe” by Pink Floyd

Because we can only experience what we experience. We can discover only what is availble to us via experience-- because that is all there is for us.

We cannot even speculate about what we cannot ever comprehend. This is basically Kantian Noumena (a term which defies itself!). Obvious, but confusing if you get hold of the wrong end of it.

Because reality is what there is.

To posit something "beyond reality" is to posit more of what there is. It is to extend reality. — Banno

"Beyond reality" is not a region; it is a grammatical error. — Banno

Are we to understand you reject the Big Bang hypothesis, then? What theory as to the origins of this universe might you favor, pray tell? :smile:

Assuming the alien got here by traveling faster than the speed of light... — javra

...and this and the rest is comprehensible - since you are here comprehending it.

Are we to understand you reject the Big Bang hypothesis, then? — Outlander

What?

Why would you suppose that? Do you think the big bang is beyond comprehension?

:angry:

Why would you suppose that? Do you think the big bang is beyond comprehension? — Banno

My implication was, based on said theory, there was a point before what is commonly referred to as "the universe." A point (no pun intended) where "reality" or "all there is" was substantially different than what it is currently. So much so it can barely even be discussed and remains but a humble, albeit generally-accepted theorem.

If, hypothetically, one could place themself, as they are, prior to the "Big Bang", everything we know now, the entire Universe as we know it, would, in theory, be "outside" or "beyond" reality. Wouldn't it? It didn't exist at that point. Not in any conceivable or fathomable form. Not really. No different than saying consciousness existed before intelligent beings came about.

The current universe would be "beyond reality" at the time prior to the Big Bang. Just as consciousness would be "beyond reality" prior to the first intelligent being. Is this not correct?

The big bang is as an explanation for, and from, what we see around us; the very opposite of what you are suggesting.

I wasn't really trying to imagine an alien encounter. I agree that would certainly pose all sorts of conceptual problems. It's more a logical or intuitive idea: Why should we think that humans represent some sort of pinnacle of what can be thought or said? The only way to get that, it seems to me, would be by defining "what can be thought or said" in human terms. But is that realistic?

Because we can only experience what we experience. We can discover only what is availble to us via experience-- because that is all there is for us.

We cannot even speculate about what we cannot ever comprehend. — I like sushi

Even if that's (more or less) true, how do these follow?:

We can only experience what we experience; therefore there is nothing else.

We can discover only what is available to us via experience; therefore there is nothing else to discover.

That is all there is for us; therefore that is all there is.

We cannot even speculate about what we cannot ever comprehend; therefore, there is nothing we cannot speculate about or comprehend.

We cannot even speculate about what we cannot ever comprehend; therefore, there is nothing we cannot speculate about or comprehend. — J

I think you made a mistake there.

I think you made a mistake there. — I like sushi

I meant all of the "therefores" to be mistakes, trying to show that they don't follow from the initial statements. For this one, the idea is that we can't speculate about anything we can't comprehend, which is quite true. But why would that mean that what we can speculate about and comprehend is all there is?

...and this and the rest is comprehensible - since you are here comprehending it. — Banno

Thanks. I’m glad to hear that what I said was comprehensible, if only to me. :grin: :wink: But then, so too is comprehensible the notion that there is yet more to discover and understand than humanity, and any individual within. has to date discovered and understood. And that some of these yet to be made discoveries and understandings might require new terminology so as to be properly linguistically communicated between us humans. (I’m with on this one.)

That said, what you mentioned about it only being an extension of reality, rather than it being outside of reality, I find very valid.

Why should we think that humans represent some sort of pinnacle of what can be thought or said? — J

Indeed - notice that my objection is to the way the issue is phrased. As "there is stuff beyond our reality" when it should be "there is stuff that is true but unknown". (It's actually positing realism, or at least showing up some of the limitations of idealism.)

what you mentioned about it only being an extension of reality, rather than it being outside of reality, I find very valid. — javra

Indeed - notice that my objection is to the way the issue is phrased. As "there is stuff beyond our reality" when it should be "there is stuff that is true but unknown" — Banno

Yes, I think we're all in accord that the culprit here is the word "reality," no surprise. "Stuff we can know as humans" and "all the stuff that can be known" are fine with me instead, as long as the two aren't supposed to mean the same thing.

An analogy. Any integer can be named in a finite number of words. Yet a list of all the integers is not finite. Analogicaly, perhaps anything true can be said, but not everything that is true.

(All sorts of implications here, making it an interesting area of logic. Like that we can write down the set of all the integers in a finite set of words - I just did; but by stepping outside the rules for writing down the integers and using sets instead.)

Again, the payoff is that there is always more to be said.

I think any useful metaphysic has to be able to disinguish reality, being and existence. These terms all have overlapping meanings, but they’re not exactly synonymous.

Peirce distinguishes reality and existence. For Peirce the real is that which is what it is independent of what any one person or definite group of people may think it is. It is the object of the final opinion of the indefinite community of investigators. But note this does not refer to material objects as such, as for example the law of conservation of energy is real, because its action is independent of what any one person or group thinks about it. It would hold true even if all humans vanished. It is a stable, general pattern or "habit" of the universe (although personally, I believe that the fact that human intelligence is alone capable of grasping such principles is itself metaphysically significant.)

Existence (or Actuality) refers to the primitive dyadic fact of an object reacting against or related to something else. It corresponds to Peirce's category of Secondness (Action/Fact/Brute Force).

Scope: Existence is limited to particular, individual, spatio-temporal facts, occurrences, and things that are actually here and now, having a brute impact on us or on other things. What is real extends far beyond that.

For Peirce, something can be real without existing (e.g., a universal law or a potential quality), but anything that exists is also real. The existing things are just the particular instances where the real generalities (laws and habits) are manifested in brute, immediate interaction.

I find the reality of potentialities or possibilities are particularly interesting in this respect. There are real possibilities, such as the fact that one out of 12 horses will win a race tomorrow, and impossibilities, such as that it might be won by some animal other than a horse. Some possibilities or potentialities are real, but others are not. A range of possibilities may be impossible to determine. The Schrodinger equation in physics is basically a strictly-formulated range of possible outcomes.

Being is not something specifically addressed in Peirce's lexicon in the same sense that it is in (for example) philosophical theology or 20thc existentialism. A large topic in its own right, but I would just observe the fact that we ourselves are beings (rather than existents or objects) is a clue to the nature of any enquiry into the nature of being, insofar as we ourselves are part of what we are seeking to understand.

Yes, I think we're all in accord that the culprit here is the word "reality," no surprise. "Stuff we can know as humans" and "all the stuff that can be known" are fine with me instead, as long as the two aren't supposed to mean the same thing. — J

Right. Presuming that the human species doesn’t bring about its own extinction (the pressing of a few red buttons could be sufficient for this to occur), then there’s bound to someday be a future species of life that evolves from that of the human species (no transhumanism required). Such that as regards intelligence relative to this future species we might be just as modern day chimps are relative to us. Their more refined conceptualizations and understandings then being out of reach to the human species not only in practice but also in principle.

Otherwise, there will always be something of reality which dwells beyond our own individually unique umwelt, this just as much as our collectively shared umwelt(s). This since no one individual umwelt can of itself be omniscient as regards all aspects of reality in general.

An analogy. Any integer can be named in a finite number of words. Yet a list of all the integers is not finite. Analogicaly, perhaps anything true can be said, but not everything that is true.

(All sorts of implications here, making it an interesting area of logic. Like that we can write down the set of all the integers in a finite set of words - I just did; but by stepping outside the rules for writing down the integers and using sets instead.)

Again, the payoff is that there is always more to be said. — Banno

If I read you right, I can only address the issue by pointing back to newly coined English terms that express complex enough concepts in manners that typically would otherwise require, at minimum, an entire sentence to properly express, and some requiring vast bodies of English language to so do: a meme (noun), copesetic (adjective), and words imported into English from other languages, such as the Germanic “umwelt” and “zeitgeist”. Devoid of at least some of these newly minted English terms, the concepts they convey could not be succinctly conveyed and manipulated within thoughts.

Then, so too will occur for concepts that are out of reach for the human species, as per my most recent reply to J on this thread. Language is reducible to semantics and the signs used to convey and manipulate these. So, I via reasons such as these find grounds to uphold that not everything which is an aspect of “that which is” can be currently said by us humans. Here’s but one example:

Suppose that in ontological fact time is neither linear nor recurring (i.e., circular, as in Nietzsche’s and other’s eternal return) but, instead, is a conflux of both that thereby amounts to neither. Not only would this require volumes to properly express in validly justified coherent manners (philosophically to not mention empirically) but, furthermore, the entire notion could not be pragmatically, succinctly, communicated and manipulated in thoughts devoid of an accordant term for this metaphysical understanding of time … a term which currently cannot be said for it does not yet (to the best of my knowledge) exist.

Now consider a vast spectrum of terms we've never heard of each with its own deep enough conceptual meanings all being stringed together in grammatically correct sentences so as to convey and manipulate concepts. These thoughts we, at the very least at present, have no access to and cannot express in words that we ourselves have at our disposal.

Existence (or Actuality) refers to the primitive dyadic fact of an object reacting against or related to something else. It corresponds to Peirce's category of Secondness (Action/Fact/Brute Force). — Wayfarer

I grant that reality, existence, and being overlap while having different referents. But, finding little to no use for Pierce’s tripartite system of firstness/secondness/thirdness myself, I don’t subscribe to the definitions you’ve provided.

Following common speech and understandings, I deem reality to consist of what is real, with real being synonymous to actual (and with real and actual sharing a common Latin root). And you’re right: when so conceived, actual/real potentials (in contrast to unreal and hence impossible potentials) and the like get very interesting, and at times frustrating, to further enquire into.

Existence, as per its etymology, I then find consists of those aspects of reality which in any way, manner, or form stand out to us as conscious observers: thoughts thereby exist, just as much as rocks do. We as conscious observes, though an aspect of reality at large (for we as conscious observers are indeed actual, hence real), however do not exist, not in this formal means of understanding the term, for we don’t stand out to ourselves, not even conceptually via the concepts that do exist for us. As another example of common speech, think of Tillich's notions regarding the existence of God, such that to affirm the existence of God is to deny the actuality/reality of God. Were existence to be synonymous to actuality, this notion could not be properly conveyed via the terms used.

Being, on the other hand, at core to me specifies all that in any conceivable way “in fact is (and is hence real)” –this to include was and will be, though how so will be contingent on metaphysics adopted. Being, though, gets tricky in certain metaphysics wherein it is not synonymous to reality, this on account of a division between “what in fact is real in an ultimate sense” and “what in fact is illusory in an ultimate sense of reality (e.g., the maya of Indian religions ). Which then chimes with the English understanding of beings being sentience-endowed, unlike anything else which is within reality at large (reality at large consisting of both maya and that which is not maya).

I am curious if you find substantial reason to prefer Peirce's account of "real" and "existing" over those I've just presented, this given common speech understandings of the two terms.

I’ve noticed Peirce’s distinctions, mainly through interactions with @apokrisis over the years, and have read up on them a little. I find them useful precisely because he maintains a distinction between the real and the existent—a distinction I think is crucial, but which has largely dropped out of contemporary philosophical discourse. It survives, in a thinner form, in modern modal metaphysics, but typically only along strictly semantic lines (as in possible-worlds semantics), rather than with anything like Peirce’s richer, ontologically structured metaphysics.

In addition to 'res potentia', we also have to consider the reality of abstractions, such as the natural numbers. Here my sympathies lie with Platonism, although much of the debate around 'platonism in philosophy of math' is abstruse. But I take the point in the SEP article on same, that:

Mathematical platonism has considerable philosophical significance. If the view is true, it will put great pressure on the physicalist idea that reality is exhausted by the physical. For platonism entails that reality extends far beyond the physical world and includes objects that aren’t part of the causal and spatiotemporal order studied by the physical sciences. Mathematical platonism, if true, will also put great pressure on many naturalistic theories of knowledge. For there is little doubt that we possess mathematical knowledge. The truth of mathematical platonism would therefore establish that we have knowledge of abstract (and thus causally inefficacious) objects. This would be an important discovery, which many naturalistic theories of knowledge would struggle to accommodate.

I find the 'this would be an important discovery' unintentially ironic, as according to many, this was already evident to the ancient Greeks and probably the ancient Egyptians. But, in any case, the whole reason that this is such a controversial topic is straightforward: if number is real but not material, then it undercuts philosophical materialism and a lot of empiricist philosophy:

...scholars—especially those working in other branches of science—view Platonism with skepticism. Scientists tend to be empiricists; they imagine the universe to be made up of things we can touch and taste and so on; things we can learn about through observation and experiment. The idea of something existing “outside of space and time” makes empiricists nervous: It sounds embarrassingly like the way religious believers talk about God, and God was banished from respectable scientific discourse a long time ago.

Platonism, as mathematician Brian Davies has put it, “has more in common with mystical religions than it does with modern science.” The fear is that if mathematicians give Plato an inch, he’ll take a mile. If the truth of mathematical statements can be confirmed just by thinking about them, then why not ethical problems, or even religious questions? Why bother with empiricism at all?

Me, I'd take the mile.

Yes, but then a platonic number or form (e.g., the perfect circle, devoid of which there is no pi, devoid of which there is no QM) will all "stand out" to us. Whereas consciousness (via which we apprehend objects of awareness such as the, I'll here say, universal of a perfect circle) does not. Were existence to be synonymous to actuality, as per what you've said of Peirce's interpretation, this discrepancy would not be accounted for.

Do you disagree?

Yes, I think we're all in accord that the culprit here is the word "reality," no surprise. — J

Yes. But the challenge is to explain exactly what the word "reality" is guilty of - or, better, what we are guilty of when we misuse the word "reality", if it is possible to misuse something that we have created. (I mean the word. not the reality.)
"Reality" is an example of the common philosophical mistake of over-generalizing, or perhaps better, of decontextualizing a perfectly useful word, which then becomes virtually useless. What counts as "real" and "unreal" depends on the context, which is specified when you complete a sentence and specify what the context is. The idea that you can lump everything real into one group and everything unreal into another group is just wrong. Things are often unreal under one description and perfectly real under another. Similarly, what existence depends on what kind of thing you are thinking of. Superman exists - as a character in comic books, but not as someone you might meet at a bus stop.

we can write down the set of all the integers in a finite set of words - I just did; but by stepping outside the rules for writing down the integers and using sets instead. — Banno

Yes. It is often possible to do something impossible by changing the rules. I'm not sure that proves anything - except that we wrote the rules in the first place. So we can change the rules or invent new ones any time we want to. Even mathematicians have been known to indulge in that - especially where infinity is concerned. But I don't think that really undermines the point you originally made.

For Peirce, something can be real without existing (e.g., a universal law or a potential quality), but anything that exists is also real. The existing things are just the particular instances where the real generalities (laws and habits) are manifested in brute, immediate interaction. — Wayfarer

That's all very neat and tidy. But I don't think it reflects the complexity of the relationship between reality and existence. On the contrary, it looks like reading in a real distinction - between laws and generalities on one hand and the particular and individual on the other - into the difference between real things and things that exist. I think it is perfectly reasonable to say that there is a natural law about conservation of energy. If that's true, the law exists. Superman is a well-known comic-book character, but everyone knows that he is a fictional character and so not a real person.

This since no one individual umwelt can of itself be omniscient as regards all aspects of reality in general. — javra

Perhaps so. But each umwelt is a part of the same reality in general, isn't it?

These thoughts we, at the very least at present, have no access to and cannot express in words that we ourselves have at our disposal. — javra

Fair enough. Our languages, natural and artificial, are not closed. There is plenty of room for new concepts. I don't see a problem.
BTW - isn't the existing theory of quantum physics an example of what you are talking about? Something that is both a wave and a particle?

We as conscious observes, though an aspect of reality at large (for we as conscious observers are indeed actual, hence real), however do not exist, not in this formal means of understanding the term, for we don’t stand out to ourselves, not even conceptually via the concepts that do exist for us. — javra

Well, you are welcome to define a new use for "exists", but if it means that we, - you and I - do not exist, I think you might find it rather difficult to sell.

I find them useful precisely because he maintains a distinction between the real and the existent—a distinction I think is crucial, but which has largely dropped out of contemporary philosophical discourse. — Wayfarer

I agree that there is a neglected distinction between "real" and "existent". But I don't think Peirce remotely captures it.

In addition to 'res potentia', we also have to consider the reality of abstractions, such as the natural numbers. Here my sympathies lie with Platonism, although much of the debate around 'platonism in philosophy of math' is abstruse. — Wayfarer

I agree with that. The problem with platonism is not so much about the reality of abstract numbers and shapes but the denial of the reality of physical objects. Both exist and are real; but they are different knds of object, that's all.
`

This since no one individual umwelt can of itself be omniscient as regards all aspects of reality in general. — javra

Perhaps so. But each umwelt is a part of the same reality in general, isn't it? — Ludwig V

Of course.

These thoughts we, at the very least at present, have no access to and cannot express in words that we ourselves have at our disposal. — javra

Fair enough. Our languages, natural and artificial, are not closed. There is plenty of room for new concepts. I don't see a problem. — Ludwig V

Yea, neither do I.

BTW - isn't the existing theory of quantum physics an example of what you are talking about? Something that is both a wave and a particle? — Ludwig V

No. Just keeping things philosophical.

We as conscious observes, though an aspect of reality at large (for we as conscious observers are indeed actual, hence real), however do not exist, not in this formal means of understanding the term, for we don’t stand out to ourselves, not even conceptually via the concepts that do exist for us. — javra

Well, you are welcome to define a new use for "exists", but if it means that we, - you and I - do not exist, I think you might find it rather difficult to sell. — Ludwig V

That's not what I said, is it? You and I are selves, and selves do stand out ... this to the consciousness embedded in each which, as consciousness, does not. One does not see "consciousness" in the mirror but only one's own physiological self.

"Reality" is an example of the common philosophical mistake of over-generalizing, or perhaps better, of decontextualizing a perfectly useful word, which then becomes virtually useless. What counts as "real" and "unreal" depends on the context, which is specified when you complete a sentence and specify what the context is. The idea that you can lump everything real into one group and everything unreal into another group is just wrong. Things are often unreal under one description and perfectly real under another. Similarly, what existence depends on what kind of thing you are thinking of. Superman exists - as a character in comic books, but not as someone you might meet at a bus stop. — Ludwig V

Nicely summarized. I might question whether the word was ever "perfectly useful," but other than that, you've said it well.

Nabokov said, "'Reality' is the one word that should always appear in quotation marks." He meant pretty much what you mean here. We could, for instance, create "Peirce-marks" to indicate when the word is being used as Peirce defined it.

Superman is a well-known comic-book character, but everyone knows that he is a fictional character and so not a real person. — Ludwig V

Curious if you disagree with this: In commonsense language, then, Superman, the comic-book character, exists (in our culture) but is not real.

If that's true, the law exists — Ludwig V

There’s actually a vast literature on whether or in what sense scientific laws exist, whether they’re laws etc.

The big bang is as an explanation for, and from, what we see around us; the very opposite of what you are suggesting. — Banno

If you were to somehow—right now—go back in time to a few moments before the Big Bang—with no idea that it was about to create what we call "the known Universe"—yet retain your knowledge of the known Universe, such knowledge would technically be "beyond reality" since the known Universe hasn't been created at that point.

The "known Universe" doesn't exist in reality at that point in time, other than in your head. Yet a few moments later—unbeknownst to you—it would. This is an explicit example (albeit hypothetical and per current scientific knowledge, currently impossible) of not only a valid posit of something "beyond reality" but a (theoretically) factual occurrence of reality being extended to something it was not previously.

Trivially, maybe "Big Bangs" happen all the time (in an "eternal" sense or context of frequency/occurrence) and another might happen in the future, removing all traces of the current Universe (this one) in favor of a new Universe that currently does not exist in any form (which technically, may have been what happened and may very well be the origins of this Universe, one simply does not know). Run it through ChatGPT if for whatever reason I'm not communicating to you sufficiently.

I'm basically saying there was a time this Universe (rather everything that we consider part of this Universe) didn't exist in any sort of recognizable form like it is now (ie. "pre-Big Bang" reality). At that time, talking about the Universe would be referring to something "beyond reality", yet would eventually become reality. It's the only example I got, but one example is all it takes to turn something from "100% absolute every single time" to "well, in most cases..." Which is a crucial distinction in philosophy (and basically anything else).

I mention consciousness arising from simplex organisms in case you say something like "but this Universe DID always exist, it was just all inside of the Singularity!", which I would respond by saying "that would be like saying consciousness always existed inside the first single-celled organism it just 'became active' once organisms evolved highly-functioning brains and resulting intelligence", which would be patently false.

...go back in time to a few moments before the Big Bang — Outlander

There's no such time. Time came into existence along with the universe; the Big Bang is not an event in time but a boundary of time.

This sort of speculative physics makes for poor threads.

But time is a conceptual scheme embedded in our total belief network, hence asking about “time before time” is a misuse of those concepts, a confusion generated by stretching the scheme beyond its application to the world’s causal structure. The physics describes causal structure; those structures fix what makes sense to call “earlier” or “later.” If the causal structure doesn’t extend, neither does the temporal vocabulary.

What's south of the South Pole?