It came close to doing what few topics are able to do, unite the forum in its opposition. At the same time it revealed the inability and unwillingness of theists and anti-theists alike to be self-reflective.

I wasn't aware that of what you describe as the thread having come to a close. I was about to write a couple more replies but fell asleep. Are you thinking the thread so poor that it should stop, and I don't think you have expressed your view on reality yet?

I am not opposed to physics. It is not a subject which I come to with much knowledge because it was a subject which I did not even choose when I took my options of what to study at age 14. However, I do see it as important in thinking about philosophical questions relating to reality. But, I probably have to try to look to the books which I am more able to understand, but also allow for a certain amount of guidance for those who have studied more. Nevertheless, I am don't think that it means that I should not take a certain interest in it, and do my best to develop some understanding of it.

You asked me whether I feel that I am information or energy. I would probably go for energy, because I am organic. I wonder if others wonder whether others feel that way or differently, but it may be a starting point for phenomenological approaches.

You say that 'it's impossible for human beings to realise realize actual reality.' I think part of the problem is even when we try to be objective we cannot really step outside of it. However, I think that this being part of is helpful rather a hindrance. This is because being it is so much easier to understand on the basis of experience as a starting point. For example, we have so much more understanding of the way human minds work than those of animals. But, I definitely believe that there are potential limits to knowledge about reality, even with the best methods and scientific approaches.

come to a close. — Jack Cummins

"Close to doing" not come to a close. This was another thread on another forum.

I imagine you've had a suntan, maybe even have been sunburned. Do you still question whether or not massless photons from the sun are real? :brow:

I tend to stay out for the strong sun because it hurts my eyes. I once developed severe vitamin D deficiency in the middle of a heatwave, but all this does depend on my own belief that the photons and the sun itself is real. I also presume my body is real, to the extent that I took my blood test results as being important. I expect that if we did not believe that the world was real at all we would end up with a belief that the universe is a simulacrum.

To be more precise that saying "reality is whatever there is", I would probably say that I'm a "rationalistic idealist", similar to the Neoplatonists of Cambridge or perhaps some strains of Kantianism.

What this means is essentially this: what is real is whatever happens to be in the world that interacts with our innate cognitive faculties. In this sense, reality is species-dependant. If something exists in the world, but it doesn't interact with us in some manner, then for intent and purposes it isn't part of our conception of reality. This means that there may be many aspects of reality we simple are ignorant about, but still exist for some other species to interact with.

This takes as a given that our mental images need not refer to any aspect of reality as seems to be the case with our thoughts. So we have the thoughts in our heads, which are infinite and whatever exists "out there" that we happen to interact it with by accident. There is no necessity in us being able to interact with the world the way we do, it just so happens that we are this way,

So ... you don't think massless photons or simulacra are real?

I suppose it comes back to the issue of qualia once again, especially in how we experience the weather, although it can be measured to some extent. Of course, it does go beyond qualia, because it varies in location, especially as it gets so much warmer in America than it does here in England. But, there is so much subjectivity in how we feel the weather personally. I know that I dislike any weather extremes whereas some people like snow or intense heat.

Alexander Dugin has a wonderful lecture completely devoted to "reality", he considers reality not as something material or metaphysical, but as a kind of human concept, a contract. There is no reality in the concept of "real". this is an absolutely redundant concept.
At the very beginning of the novel "Journey to the End of the Night"
Louis Ferdinand Celina has the following lines - "travel is useful, it makes the imagination work"
Man does not travel through reality, man imagines
the person gives the installation that he lives in the "real world".
This is one of, in my opinion, although not a lot of radical, but an applied position, although this question is 100% dependent on how you understand reality, but if you take reality as such, then this is tantamount to talking about truth, the meaning of life and other eternal questions

On subjectivity (i.e. qualia) aka "maya" ...

Heraclitus too did the senses an injustice. They lie neither in the way the Eleatics believed, nor as he believed — they do not lie at all. What we make of their testimony, that alone introduces lies; for example, the lie of unity, the lie of thinghood, of substance, of permanence. "Reason" is the reason we falsify the testimony of the senses. Insofar as the senses show becoming, passing away, and change, they do not lie. — Twilight of the Idols

(Emphasis is mine.)

I hope that my question is not too vague to be seen as worth exploring, because I see it as central to all philosophical exploration.

Edit: I have changed title, to make it more a topic for philosophy reflection, because I was a bit surprised by how the topic was being explored. Of course, it may not alter any answer because the objective idea of reality may be the way you see it anyway.

View Answer — Jack Cummins

I haven't come across this 'View Answer' feature before, nor the 'Accepted Answer' you get when you click on it.
I've asked about it here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/543805

But perhaps the answer would be clearer coming from you.
Where can I find the feature/function ? And why would you use it ?

Also, what was the original title ?

The accepted answer function is pretty wierd because, suddenly, it seems that I get the words showing up next to some answer. I imagine that it is a part of the software, either that or the site has its own mind and selects an answer. But, it is a bit annoying because, often, it makes at appear as if one post is the correct answer.

↪Fooloso4

I wasn't aware that of what you describe as the thread having come to a close. I was about to write a couple more replies but fell asleep. Are you thinking the thread so poor that it should stop, and I don't think you have expressed your view on reality yet? — Jack Cummins

Unfortunately, you misread @Fooloso4's post.
It was part of a follow-up to my response, which you might have missed:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/543678

it makes at appear as if one post is the correct answer. — Jack Cummins

Yes. That concerned me a little because I know you like to read all responses and respect people taking the time to offer up their thoughts.

Where is the function, anyway, and why did you use it ?

I forgot to answer your query about the original title. I believe it was, 'What is reality? Is it solid? ' I changed it because it seemed to be too focused on a science based understanding and not about reflection.

But, I realise that I probably fiddle around with my threads too much, but it is just the rut I have got into after months of lockdown blues. I am trying to rebuild my life, and I am hoping that in doing so I will engage with this site a bit differently...

In another life, I discussed 'secular spirituality' - it acknowledges that it is not an either/or reality.
— Amity

Indeed. Theism or belief in a spiritual reality does not bring with it ipso facto superior virtues or capacities. — Tom Storm

Have another :up: from me, as well as from @180 Proof :smile:

The way it works on my phone is that at the end of the post I created it says something it shows a black tab, saying, 'View Answer'. I usually don't press it but I think that I probably hit it accidentally when I am reading the replies. But, I do think it all may depend on what devices we use, and I think that it is likely that many people are using computers whereas I am writing on my phone.

Thanks.

The quote from Nietzsche is useful. I also think that the idea of maya, is interesting. It features strongly in Eastern thought, but I wonder how much is a literal or symbolic truth. I am sure that there are different interpretations of the idea. I think that the extent to which concepts in religious ideas are taken literally or symbolically arises when we look at certain texts.

It's a very ancient term and means both "illusion" and "appearance" (as well as "magic"). I use maya as a correlate to subjectivity, etc to punctuate Nietzsche's point in the quote. The subjective is, while indispensable, quite overrated and overly emphasized, which seems neurotic to me.

I realise your usage of the term and I like the way you use it, but your use of maya led me to wonder about the use of the term going back to the ancients.

Not relevant to the discussion at hand but, by all means, Jack, explore whatever interests you.

I don't think that reality is completely solid, — Jack Cummins

The table before us is mostly space, with a few particles scattered around it. Pop writers are apt to make the inference that since the table is mostly space, it is not solid.

I'm asking, in the light of the quote above from Austin, what you (or others watching) make of that. Ask yourself how you know that the table is solid; and what it would mean for it not to be so. Think about how that relates to the description of the table as being mostly space.

Three years ago, when you started to think that the table as not solid, did the table change?

I'm asking you to look a the way we use words like "solid", "hard", "rigid", "firm", and how we contrast them with "liquid", "gas"; and how the physical description of the table as "mostly space" might, or might not, change that.

There is agreement of consensus (we agree that we agree) and there is agreement of understanding. I think that latter is far more substantial, in the sense that it perhaps transcends the limitations of symbolic meaning. — Pantagruel

This reflects my experience in the trades. There is a lot of disagreement about the best approach to a problem but much agreement about what is kicking our ass. The ostensive gesture toward the present necessity.

I'm asking, in the light of the quote above from Austin, what you (or others watching) make of that. — Banno

Austin wants to evade the problems of philosophy, and he does so by trivialising them. The metaphorical 'table' or 'tree' or 'apple' is a stand-in for 'any object', so questioning the reality of 'the object' by making reference to physics is presented as sophistry. But to do so is forgetting why the philosophical question of the nature of reality has become an issue in the first place. As I said previously the question originates at the beginning of philosophy.

The wile of the metaphysician consists in asking 'Is it a real table?' (a kind of object which has no obvious way of being phoney) and not specifying or limiting what may be wrong with it, so that I feel at a loss 'how to prove' it is a real one. — Banno

Again. 'the table' is a stand-in for any object. But when 'the wiley metaphysician' asks this question, if asking it properly, it is not a parlour game nor a card trick. I suggest the conventional philosophy of today's culture begins with the presumption that the sensory domain, the physical world, is the real world. What does it mean to call that into question? Because that is what I think metaphysics does, but that it does this on the basis of reason.

With respect to physics, three of the reputable layman's books I have read about it are as follows: Manjit Kumar: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality; David Lindley, Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science; and Adam Becker, What Is Real?, The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics. Note well the concern in all these books with 'the nature of reality' and the 'battle' that it involves. Einstein was the staunch scientific realist, who as a matter of principle insisted on the 'mind-independent nature' of perceived reality. The 'Copenhagen school', on the other side - principally Bohr, Heisenberg and Pauli -challenged Einstein's views in this regard. Suffice to say that, since the performance of the famous Alain Aspect experiments, Einstein's realist views have been called further into question.

I don't want to divert this thread into arguments about that matter, other than to say that it should have real and profound implications for philosophy. One thing I think it obliges us to accept is the sense in which the observing intellect - that's you and I - construct or synthesise the world from the elements of experience, rather than simply encountering it wholly formed. Some analytic philosophers acknowledge that - Sellar's 'Myth of the Given' comes to mind - but very few, in my experience. Most of them just assume 'the reality of the chair', then challenge all comers to prove that it is not what it seems, while sitting in it. Thereby demonstrating that they're not really seeing the point of the question.

Exactly whatever we think as reality is based on our experiences. The amazing human mind the more it expands its abilities the more "reality" we understand. Human's reality in first stages of evolution is much more different than reality that humans realize nowadays. Imagine how much more of the reality we started to understand with the help of technology and scientific tools. The things that human's senses couldn't see or realize before (so it was an invisible non existing world for us) now with technology we can see things even if our eyes can't. That's all achievements of our mind. And I truly believe that human mind has much more abilities but we aren't capable to unlock them yet at least. Every scientific progress is an idea in someone's mind first. I have strong belief that there are much more things that our minds are capable of but maybe the way we are taught to use them since our birth limits them. Still I m not sure that we will ever be able to understand fully the actual one and only universal reality and how it works. But for sure our curiosity is so huge that we will never stop trying.

Thank you, Wayfarer, for a considered reply. I must disagree with

Austin wants to evade the problems of philosophy, — Wayfarer

Rather he would track down exactly what is going on when one indulges in philosophical speculation. If it is found wanting, then so much the worse for philosophy.

To that end, I think we ought pause at

...conventional philosophy of today's culture begins with the presumption that the sensory domain, the physical world, is the real world — Wayfarer

and notice that it is not obvious that the 'sensory domain' and the 'physical world' are somehow names for the very same thing; but more, it is not at all clear what the 'sensory domain' is, nor what the 'physical world' is. Indeed, if we are to take the claims of scientists as they stand, it is clear that what we sense is very different from what is described by physics. So if these are to be our guide as to what is the 'real' world', we had best put some effort into rendering the two consistent. So in this I think we are in agreement that there is a problem, but differ as to the way we ought proceed.

Did you perhaps note the discussion above about the solidity of tables?

There is an argument, rarely actually articulated, but often implied, that while the table might appear solid, it really mostly consists of space, and hence it is really not solid at all. When set out explicitly the argument is obviously false. The table is both solid and consists mostly of space. Our notion of solidity is found in everyday experience of books and cups not falling through the table, and tables, when pushed, not sliding through walls. These do not disappear when it is found that the table mostly consists of space. The apparent contradiction consists in conflating the every day use of "solid" and the physical description.

Looking at what is being done serves to show where things went wrong - putting books on tables compared with examining the table's atomic structure. The description in terms of the physical structure of the table does not deny the solidity of the table.

Notice that this was done by removing the word "really"? And that this word was removed because it was seen that what it means depends on the context in which it is used?

The apparent contradiction of a solid table that consist mostly of space is dissipated by understanding that neither description is more 'real' than the other.

This way of approaching metaphysics by examining in detail the use to which words are being put serves more generally, to dissipate other metaphysical questions.

What look to be profound metaphysical theories are often (always?) little more than knots in the way we use language.

I find this fascinating. Given the critical role of language and definitions in ordinary discourse, I am not surprised that the context and usage of words can play such a critical role in managing apparent contradictions and ambiguities in narratives involving metaphysics.

Can you recommend an easy to understand essay or paper exploring the process you used above? I tried reading Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations but it is beyond me.