I’m here to serve.

Some aid in distinguishing the real from reality, then? — Mww

Clarity for the questions maybe?

We can talk about "the smallest real number greater than 0" but there isn't one, despite our lovely predicate. We get into a muddle if we make that thing and then say it doesn't exist, because non-referring expressions are annoying. But we don't have to do that. We can show that the set determined by such a predicate must be empty. Or we can skip to how we do that, by showing that there is a positive real number smaller than any given positive real number. No non-referring expression needed.

Right, that's the point. We consider whether or not the thing being measured (through sensation) is real, and we naturally conclude that if we are measuring it, it must be real. But prior to coming to this conclusion, isn't it necessary to do our due diligence toward understanding the thing which is doing the measuring? If the thing doing the measuring isn't real, then what validity does "if we are measuring it, it must be real" have? — Metaphysician Undercover

Good question and one we never quite get past even if we ignore it or sweep it aside.

There are two definitions:
* Belief Independent
* Authentic

Conflating them will only lead to confusion

Just 4 real ingredients.

This marketing of the 'real' is to me related to authenticity culture which for some years has been a defining quality in marketing lifestyle options, especially the 'hipsters' who, when they were more of a thing, pontificated about the authenticity of products like beer, music or clothing. Perhaps the vestigial traces of 1970's 'be real' imprecations.

Andrew Potter wrote an interesting book on this:

https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-authenticity-hoax-andrew-potter/book/9780061251351.html

, Isn't the contrast here real against artificial?

As with other replies here, applying Austin's approach clears things markedly. Notably notions of reality being just ideas or just sensations... There's a marked tendency to confuse their supposed indubitability with reality. But if you would understand a real idea, with what woudl you contrast it? What is an unreal idea - one from the sixties? If you would understand a real sensation, then you would also understand an unreal sensation... but what would that be? In asking such questions one comes to see that the notion of "real" is misapplied to sensations and ideas. Whole volumes of bad philosophy are removed by such considerations.

Isn't the contrast here real against artificial? — Banno

Probably right. I suspect part of this strand is even less defined - 'real' as somehow pure or good; it's opposite being not just artificial, but insalubrious, less moral.

non-referring expressions are annoying. — Srap Tasmaner

As in....infinities with respect to mathematicians, and universals to philosophers? Can we say that which refers to every single thing of a kind is non-referring?

Muddle indeed, circumvented to some extend by modifying the domain of the conception. Limiting existence to the empirical, being to the non-empirical. That way, a thing can be, without the necessity of existence, its being conditioned only by time.

The real in real numbers was originated by a mathematician, equally well-known....if not more so....as the father of modern, or at least post-Scholastic, philosophy. Odd, innit?

There are two definitions:
* Belief Independent
* Authentic

Conflating them will only lead to confusion — hypericin

Just 4 real ingredients. — Tom Storm

Isn't the contrast here real against artificial? — Banno

Yes, I know the difference between real and real. I posted the photo because I thought it was amusing.

Yes, I know the difference between real and real. I posted the photo because I thought it was amusing. — T Clark

I agree.

I was simply showing again how Austin's approach might be helpful.

Yes, I know the difference between real and real. — T Clark

Never thought you didn't, I was pointing to a consistent use of real/authentic as a hallmark of superiority in many contemporary sub-cultures. Something this thread keeps reminding me of. :wink:

Both real/artificial and real/inauthentic work to show how "real" is being used in . The strategy of looking for the contrasted term works in both cases.

:up:

Were you thinking that we can't see the effects of quantum weirdness with our own eyes?

t's a pretty standard thought, at least in eastern philosophies, that the self is an illusion. — T Clark

Then how would you even begin to talk about sensations like hearing, seeing, etc., if there is not something doing the sensing? If you have an aversion to the term "self", that's one thing, but isn't it still necessary to assume something which is sensing, in order to make sense of sensation?

Sometimes people confuse their ideas with reality, as with the Ketamine use I was describing. A person thought he was a character in a video game.

Sure. So here an unreal idea would be an hallucination? A dissociation? Again other words set the issue out with greater clarity.

Then how would you even begin to talk about sensations like hearing, seeing, etc., if there is not something doing the sensing? If you have an aversion to the term "self", that's one thing, but isn't it still necessary to assume something which is sensing, in order to make sense of sensation? — Metaphysician Undercover

I wasn't disagreeing with what you wrote. My intention was to expand on this part of your post:

But prior to coming to this conclusion, isn't it necessary to do our due diligence toward understanding the thing which is doing the measuring? If the thing doing the measuring isn't real, then what validity does "if we are measuring it, it must be real" have? — Metaphysician Undercover

The eastern philosophical skepticism about the self does exactly what you said. It undermines our confidence in our understanding of reality.

Sure. So here an unreal idea would be an hallucination? A dissociation? Again other words set the issue out with greater clarity. — Banno

I don't know what an unreal idea is. They guy thought he was a character in a video game. That was an idea which he took for reality.

Since you have no criteria for determining if you're presently on Ketamine, you don't know if the world you think of as real is just an idea.

I first noticed that when I was about 16. It's not bad philosophy. It's just part of being human.

Since you have no criteria for determining if you're presently on Ketamine, you don't know if the world you think of as real is just an idea. — frank

Indeed and so we might arrive back at idealism - what criteria do we use to demonstrate that the physical world is real other than intersubjective agreement? Not sure kicking a rock Dr Johnson style will cut it. Do you have an approach to this?

I don't know what an unreal idea is. — frank

...and that's the point made by Austin's strategy. Until you have a term with which to contrast it, "real" has no meaning, does nothing except perhaps misguide.

Until you have a term with which to contrast it, "real" has no meaning, does nothing except perhaps misguide. — Banno

So a useful example of this in action might be a 'real' 5th century BCE attic vase versus a fake one. How would this fare - the real god versus the false gods? Can real meaningfully refer to an abstraction, or must it be demonstrable?

I guess we have real characters in a Dickens novel.

non-referring expressions are annoying.
— Srap Tasmaner

As in....infinities with respect to mathematicians, and universals to philosophers? Can we say that which refers to every single thing of a kind is non-referring? — Mww

Kinda. In "This ball is red," "... is red" is a function not an object, the characteristic function of the set of all red things. Of course we also want to quantify over functions, so that means taking them as objects, as in "Red is an easy concept to learn."

That functions don't refer when used as functions shouldn't bother anyone; they're not supposed to refer.

The annoying cases are "Santa Claus", "Sherlock Holmes," that stuff.

Indeed and so we might arrive back at idealism - what criteria do we use to demonstrate that the physical world is real other than intersubjective agreement? Not sure kicking a rock Dr Johnson style will cut it. Do you have an approach to this? — Tom Storm

At one time, my greatest fear was of not being able to tell reality from fiction. When I began to realize there is no criteria for that, I headed into a crisis.

I decided that my explanations for what I experience will always be in flux. My anchor is the content of my experience. It's kind of like a deal I made with myself. It works. Plus I'm no longer afraid of being insane. That helps.

and that's the point made by Austin's strategy. Until you have a term with which to contrast it, "real" has no meaning, does nothing except perhaps misguide. — Banno

I see.

Sorry, I'm not following this..?

I hear you.

Probably because I'm failing to make sense. I was just saying something superfluous about the use of the word real in certain contexts. When I worked in the area of antiquities briefly in the 1980's, the big question about items offered to us was always 'Is it real?' Forgeries being very common. After a while, that question seemed to become metaphysical as it was down to experts who had an almost mystical way of determining if something was real or not by signs no one else could discern. The subsequent cost of an item and its aesthetic satisfaction being based entirely upon it being judged real or not. A digression, sorry.

This marketing of the 'real' is to me related to authenticity culture which for some years has been a defining quality in marketing lifestyle options, especially the 'hipsters' who, when they were more of a thing, pontificated about the authenticity of products like beer, music or clothing. Perhaps the vestigial traces of 1970's 'be real' imprecations. — Tom Storm

Probably right. I suspect part of this strand is even less defined - 'real' as somehow pure or good; it's opposite being not just artificial, but insalubrious, less moral. — Tom Storm

As you've acknowledged; real, meaning authentic; is not the main subject of this thread. Even so, your dyspeptic take on authenticity reminded me of an article by Stephen Jay Gould, probably my favorite writer. It's called "Counters and Cable Cars,” included in his book “Eight Little Piggies.” Here’s an excerpt:

Authenticity comes in many guises, each contributing something essential to our calm satisfaction with the truly genuine. Authenticity of object fascinates me most deeply because its pull is entirely abstract and conceptual. The art of replica making has reached such sophistication that only the most astute professional can now tell the difference between, say, a genuine dinosaur skeleton and a well-made cast. The real and the replica are effectively alike in all but our abstract knowledge of authenticity, yet we feel awe in the presence of bone once truly clothed in dinosaur flesh and mere interest in fiberglass of identical appearance.

If I may repeat, because it touched me so deeply, a story on this subject told once before in these volumes (Essay 12 in The Flamingo's Smile): A group of blind visitors met with the director of the Air and Space Museum in Washington to discuss greater accessibility, especially for the large objects hanging from the ceiling of the great atrium and perceptible only by sight. The director asked his guests whether a scale model of Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis, mounted and fully touchable, might alleviate the frustration of nonaccess to the real McCoy. The visitors replied that such a solution would be most welcome, but only if the model were placed directly beneath the invisible original. Simple knowledge of the imperceptible presence of authenticity can move us to tears. — Stephen J Gould - Counters to Cable Cars

Here’s a link to the article on the Internet Archive. You’ll have to sign in, but there’s no cost. You can use your Google account.

https://archive.org/details/eightlittlepiggi0000goul/page/238/mode/2up