On The Contrast Between Appearance And Reality

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;133386 wrote:

The question, "What is real?" is ambiguous. It may mean either:

1. What is reality?
2. What things are real?

Which of these do you mean?

The answer to the first is, what is independent of mind.
The answer to the second would go, oases, chairs, stars, etc.

I wrote the following in another thread, but it is applicable here. It is also very much in keeping with what Longknowledge wrote above.

Science shows us that conscious perception, while subjectively appearing to exist as a steady continuum, is actually composed of a hierarchical matrix of millions of interacting cellular transactions, commencing at the most basic level with the parasympathetic system which controls one's respiration, digestion, and so on, up through various levels to culminate in that peculiarly human ability of 'conscious thought' (and perhaps beyond, although super-conscious states are beyond the scope of current science.)

Our consciousness plays a central role in co-ordinating these diverse activities so as to give rise to the sense of continuity which we call 'ourselves' - and also the apparent coherence and reality of the 'external world'. Yet it is important to realise that the na?ve sense in which we understand ourselves, and the objects of our perception, to 'exist', is in fact totally dependent upon the constructive activities of our consciousness, the bulk of which are completely unknown to us.

When you perceive something - large, small, alive or inanimate, local or remote - there is a considerable amount of work involved in 'creating' an object from the raw material of perception. Your eyes receive the lightwaves reflected or emanated from it, your mind organises the image with regards to all of the other stimuli impacting your senses at that moment - either acknowledging it, or ignoring it, depending on how busy you are; your memory will then compare it to other objects you have seen, from whence you will (hopefully) recall its name, and perhaps know something about it ('star', 'tree', 'frog', etc).

And you will do all of this without you even noticing that you are doing it; it is largely unconscious.

In other words, your consciousness is not just the passive recipient of sensory objects which exist irrespective of your perception of them. Instead, your consciousness is an active agent which constructs reality on the basis of sensory input, but also on the basis of an enormous number of other processes, memories, and intentions.

One can ask 'but that is the perception, what of the object that this perception refers to?' Of course, in a common-sense way, objects and perception are separable - but only when you treat perception itself as an object, when you 'study' perception. In actual experience, we only ever know a perception-object. Pick up a rock, and you have the sensations of weight, shape, colour, size and so on. Examine it through a microscope and you have the sensations of vision of microscopic parts. In this sense I think Berkeley was correct although I do acknowledge many of his conclusions seem absurd.

prothero;133366 wrote:

'Surely you are not asserting that before humans the moon and the universe did not "exist" and were not "real".

In answer to the concerns about solipsism and the manner in which things are a function of perception: consciousness is collective. All humans see things the same way. At the basic levels of consciousness, we see things pretty much identically. So we are all participants in this reality, even while it is, in the sense we are discussing, mind-created. (There is a name for this idea in theory of consciousness, which escapes me at the moment.)

So it is not a matter of your mind or my mind or whose mind it is. It is Mind. We are used to thinking of mind as something 'inside' us. I don't know if this is really true. As we have discussed many times in the Forum, the rationality or the logos of the Universe seems to suggest that mind is fundamental to the manner in which the universe exists. After all, the panpsychic perspective, to which you often refer, is that mind is all pervading. This does not mean that it can be an object of perception but perhaps it can be understood as the universal instrument of perception. (Physicalists will say, well if mind is all pervading, then where is it? Show it to me! But it is not in any place. Hence physicalists wish to ban it altogether. This is 'eliminative mateiralism'.) So one implication of the panpsychic perspective, then, is pan-subjectivism. (This seems very much in keeping with idealist philosophies generally. I think it is also the meaning of the Hindu idea of 'Atman' as the universal self. Far out, I know. I am not expecting ANYONE to believe this. It is just speculation.)

---------- Post added 02-28-2010 at 04:15 PM ----------

what I mean by that last remark is, I am not trying to persuade anyone that this is the right viewpoint. It is where my reading and meditation is taking me, and I think it is at least consistent. But I know it is a bit far out, I really do acknowledge that.

---------- Post added 02-28-2010 at 04:39 PM ----------

A great quote from a great man that I knew, Professor Charles Birch, may he rest in peace, on the topic of pan-subjectivism:

Quote:

Birch says there are two kinds of reality, one being the objective world, where matter can be refined down to atoms and quarks, the other being subjectivism. The subjective experience cannot be defined in empirical terms, however one tries. Seeing the colour red can be explained by reference to light spectrums and neurones. But the experience of seeing red is different. The subjective experience has a reality all its own and in Birch's contention is shared by all living things, right down to subatomic particles. Atoms have subjective experience but no consciousness. They are hardly random in what they do. Within each organism, Birch contends, there is a "mentality", a driving force which causes atoms to form into molecules, cells to form into tissue, tissue to form more complex organisms. The mind itself comes further up the chain. But even the simplest organisms relate to their environment. To Birch, all subjective experience is an aspect of god. The concept is called "Pansubjectivism".

Review of Birch's last book, Science and the Soul (featuring a quote from Whitehead....Birch was basically a process theologian.)

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;133456 wrote:

IIn answer to the concerns about solipsism and the manner in which things are a function of perception: consciousness is collective. All humans see things the same way. At the basic levels of consciousness, we see things pretty much identically. So we are all participants in this reality, even while it is, in the sense we are discussing, mind-created. (There is a name for this idea in theory of consciousness, which escapes me at the moment.)

So it is not a matter of your mind or my mind or whose mind it is. It is Mind. We are used to thinking of mind as something 'inside' us. I don't know if this is really true. As we have discussed many times in the Forum, the rationality or the logos of the Universe seems to suggest that mind is fundamental to the manner in which the universe exists. After all, the panpsychic perspective, to which you often refer, is that mind is all pervading. This does not mean that it can be an object of perception but perhaps it can be understood as the universal instrument of perception..)

I am of course not objecting to the panpsychist perspective (or its pan experientialism, or pansubjectivism, forms) as I advocate it at many levels. The notion that mind and perception are fundamental to reality and pervausive in nature is one that I think deserves serious philosophical consideration. Of course the notion that there is one collective mind is a little more theistic than the basic panpsychist doctrine holds.

It was the notion that it is human perception which is necessary for or which creates reality to which I objected. If the position is that things are interrelated and interdependent (essentially a form of monism) and that reality is a function of both material and mental poles or aspects and that perception and mind are present to the very core then that is a position basically I hold. It was the human minds (the anthropomorphic) aspect of the assertion to which I object. If one sees the human mind as the integrated combination of more fundamental mental properties, then human perception alters or contributes to reality but reality does not depend on human perception alone. Human type consciousness is the result of the integration and combination of more primitve perceptual and mental properties present in nature into a complex organized society. Thus human consciousness does not magically or mysteriously emerge from inert insensate matter for matter is not inert and insensate to begin with.

Reality is process a series of events and each event has both a mental (perceptive or experiential) aspect and a material or physicalist aspect. Each succeeding event is perceptive (prehension is the Whitehead term) of both its antecedent event and future possibility. This view of reality and the relationship of mind (not necessarily human type consciousness) to matter is one which I hold. The basic panpsychist position is primitive aspects of mind are inherent to reality and extend to the core of reality (mind is not a epiphenomena or emergent property of reality).

The more extensive view of a collective consciousness, or cosmic soul, universal mind is one that I entertain but would not care to rationally defend.

So if we make it clear than when we assert mind contributes to the creation of reality we are not just talking about human minds, I have no deep objection to that assertion. There is still of course a gap between our human perception of this (neutral monism-mind matter reality) and the thing in inself (Kant) .

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;133386 wrote:

The question, "What is real?" is ambiguous. It may mean either:

1. What is reality?
2. What things are real?

Which of these do you mean?

The answer to the first is, what is independent of mind.
The answer to the second would go, oases, chairs, stars, etc.

You still haven't given an answer to the questions I posed in my previous post. Let me rephrase them in terms of your latest post given above:

1. Are sensations, feelings, thoughts, memories, dreams, hallucinations, etc., "real" in the first sense given above, that is "independent of mind," or as you previously qualified it "independent of any particular (individual) mind"? Yes or No?

2. Are they "real things," to use the second sense of "real" given above, for which you gave only an enumerative definition? Yes or No?

:flowers:

@longknowledge,

longknowledge;133474 wrote:

You still haven't given an answer to the questions I posed in my previous post. Let me rephrase them in terms of your latest post given above:

1. Are sensations, feelings, thoughts, memories, dreams, hallucinations, etc., "real" in the first sense given above, that is "independent of mind," or as you previously qualified it "independent of any particular (individual) mind"? Yes or No?

2. Are they "real things," to use the second sense of "real" given above, for which you gave only an enumerative definition? Yes or No?

:flowers:

Thoughts (say) are real in the sense that their existence is independent of anyone's belief that they exist. I already said that. Just as microbes are real because their existence is independent of anyone's belief that they exist.

Yes, thoughts are real.

@Pythagorean,

well show me one then. I say that because it would seem to me that thought cannot be an object but only appears subjectively. My thoughts are real for me, but how can they be real for another?

@Pythagorean,

Appearance is one. Noumena (paradoxically called "reality-in-itself") is the negation of this appearance, and the only thing that makes it appearance and not capitalized Reality.

Noumena is the negation of appearance, and only the negation of appearance. Nonbeing is not.

Naive realism equals one. Transcendental realism equals negative one. But this is just high grand useless philosophy.....or not

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;133486 wrote:

well show me one then. I say that because it would seem to me that thought cannot be an object but only appears subjectively. My thoughts are real for me, but how can they be real for another?

Here: my thought that thoughts are real. There, I have just shown you a thought.

@kennethamy,

the problem you guys are having is i believe, over assumptions about the applicability of the various uses of the word real.

There is real as in a real sensation or thought experienced. And real in the sense of independent of experienced. Some of you are assuming that it is either one or the other. Others see no problem with both.

eg

1 ......... a thought about my mother can be real to me as i think about her. ie as a subjective experience.

2 ......... a thought in pagan's brain that is about his mother is real and existent to someone outside pagan's body. eg as a dynamic cluster of neural forms.

2 is equivalent in meaning to the reality of pagan's mother and stars. (because as it happens she is alive and independently real and existent, whether someone is thinking about her or not.)

The problem arises when you merge the two meanings simultaneously. eg as pagan is thinking about his mother, and thus having the subjective experience, biggles asks him the question "do you recognise that the thoughts about your mother that you are now experiencing, have also a reality independent of you thinking about her? This is true because for me (biggles) they exist independently of me"

Some of you have either got confused between the two meanings, or you do not recognise the possibility that thoughts can have an existent reality independent of the thinker. eg you may feel that subjective experience is not open to objective consideration. It exists in another realm entirely, and is beyond 'objective' reality. Such persons rate empathy very highly, since this is a subjective way to understand someone elses thoughts and feelings.

so

3 ........ a common emotion (or scheme of understanding) can be evoked by one person in order to understand and recognise the subjective real experience of another.

compare 3 to 2

Art as compared to science say.

Helping someone by understanding through listening, as compared to helping someone by doing things for them.

@pagan,

pagan;133535 wrote:

the problem you guys are having is i believe, over assumptions about the applicability of the various uses of the word real.

There is real as in a real sensation or thought experienced. And real in the sense of independent of experienced. Some of you are assuming that it is either one or the other. Others see no problem with both.

eg

1 ......... a thought about my mother can be real to me as i think about her. ie as a subjective experience.

2 ......... a thought in pagan's brain that is about his mother is real and existent to someone outside pagan's body. eg as a dynamic cluster of neural forms.

.

What does "real to me" mean?

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;133456 wrote:

So it is not a matter of your mind or my mind or whose mind it is. It is Mind. We are used to thinking of mind as something 'inside' us. I don't know if this is really true. As we have discussed many times in the Forum, the rationality or the logos of the Universe seems to suggest that mind is fundamental to the manner in which the universe exists.

It has been suggested that there may be only one mind of which all other minds are aspects.

It has also been suggested that the world is merely an idea in the mind of God.

I am interested in other peoples notion of the role, pervausiveness and extent of mind (not limited to human consciousness) not just in perceiving but in creating reality.

The classic notion would seem to be that mind is a rare emergent epiphenomena in a largely inert insensate mechanical machine like reality, I think this is both uninspiring and incorrect.

I think mind is inherent in the universe and the world is more like a unified perceiving enchanted organism than a dead mindless machine. So strike a blow for romantic idealism, the reenchantment of science and the universe.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;133481 wrote:

Thoughts (say) are real in the sense that their existence is independent of anyone's belief that they exist. I already said that. Just as microbes are real because their existence is independent of anyone's belief that they exist.

Yes, thoughts are real.

OK, were getting closer to what you "really" mean.

First you said that what is "real" is what is "independent of mind."

Then you said that what is "real" is what is "independent of any particular (individual) mind."

Now, you're saying that what is "real" is what is "independent of anyone's belief that they exist," which you have not said before, but which echoes the poet's statement, that you have quoted previously and also agreed with, that "reality is what remains after you stop believing in it," which is slightly different.

And you also say that "thoughts are real." I am assuming that you would also agree that sensations, feelings, beliefs, memories, dreams, hallucinations, etc., are "real" as well, wouldn't you?

Now what I think you are saying more precisely is that my thoughts, for example, are "real" in the sense that they are "independent of anyone else's belief that they exist." In other words: "My thoughts are real to me." The same for the rest of what I listed above. Wouldn't you agree?

:flowers:

@longknowledge,

The point is that in philosophy he who claims the existence of certain knowledge must provide a metaphysical basis upon which that certainty rests. And all such metaphysical bases must remain in the realm of theory. This is the framework of speculative philosophy, as opposed to critical philosophy. To reject this framework is to assert unfounded truth claims. And it is absolutely necessary to recognize this fundamental open endedness.

To adapt a phrase: Speculative philosophy without the critical component is empty and critical philosophy without speculation is blind.

Idealism cannot prove that the cosmos is somehow related to mind or ideas, and positivists cannot prove the body, or the physical world, exists independently on their own.

-

@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean;133630 wrote:

Idealism cannot prove that the cosmos is somehow related to mind or ideas, and positivists cannot prove the body, or the physical world, exists independently on their own.

This is precisely the dichotomy that Ortega y Gasset attempted to resolve by postulating a new metaphysical principle, namely that reality is "My Life, your life, the life of each one of us," and that for each person, "My Life" consists of the "I," the person that I am, and "My Circumstance," which includes not only so-called "physical" phenomena, such as sensations, but also so-called "mental" phenomena, such as feelings, thoughts, beliefs, memories, dreams, hallucinations, and even so-called "spiritual" phenomena, such as ecstatic states, etc.; i.e., everything that is not "I".

Thus Ortega described his theory as an attempt to "save the appearances." He did this by making the "appearances" or phenomena as real as the "I" to whom they occur. All of these phenomena, as well as the "I," "appear" or "occur" within the "Radical Reality" that is "My Life." (The word "radical" which he got from William James's "Radical Empiricism" comes from the Latin word radix meaning "root.") So all realities are "rooted" in the "Radical Reality" of "My Life."

Now this is not a form of solipsism, as some have questioned, since other persons "appear" or "occur" within "My Life," as part of "My Circumstance," but we cannot experience their "Radical Reality" or "My Life" "from within" the way we do ours. At one point Ortega describes this theory as a "radical unitary duality," in that "I" and "My Circumstance" co-occur within "My Life," and at the same time it is a "pluralism," in that there are as many realities as there are persons who have there own "Radical Reality" or "My Life."

As I've said in a previous post, the word "appearance" is used primarily in terms of visual phenomena and must be understood metaphorically as applied to all the other phenomena that I have mentioned. Ortega uses instead the more general terms "occurrence" or "happening," although the latter he also uses to distinguish between what "happens to me" or to the "I" on the part of "My Circumstance," and what "I do" or what "happens" to "My Circumstance" as a result of actions "I" take with regard to it.

So in terms of the theme of this thread, there is no contrast between "appearance" and "reality," as if they were a dichotomy, but rather "appearance(s)," i.e., visual phenomena, as well as metaphorically all other phenomena that "appear" to the "I" or to me, "occur" within the "reality" of "My Life."

:flowers:

PS: I'm "certain" that you'll find this interesting!

@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean;133630 wrote:

The point is that in philosophy he who claims the existence of certain knowledge must provide a metaphysical basis upon which that certainty rests. And all such metaphysical bases must remain in the realm of theory. This is the framework of speculative philosophy, as opposed to critical philosophy. To reject this framework is to assert unfounded truth claims. And it is absolutely necessary to recognize this fundamental open endedness.

To adapt a phrase: Speculative philosophy without the critical component is empty and critical philosophy without speculation is blind.

Idealism cannot prove that the cosmos is somehow related to mind or ideas, and positivists cannot prove the body, or the physical world, exists independently on their own.

-

Doesn't the fact that the Moon existed before people show that the physical world exists independently on its own?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;133664 wrote:

Doesn't the fact that the Moon existed before people show that the physical world exists independently on its own?

You often say this, perhaps you might elucidate the way in which this point has a bearing on the original argument?

@Pythagorean,

Jeeprs, Reconstructo, Pythagorean, longknowledge, and Fil. Albuquerque:

If reality is simply what we perceive, or, the physical realm is not independent from what we perceive, how do you differentiate what is real from what is imaginary?

Is there such a thing as imaginary in your vocabularies? It seems as though nothing would be imaginary, as you all could simply claim that what that person is perceiving is their reality, or is reality. But we know that people hallucinate, that is, see things that aren't real. So, how do these sorts of people fit into this theory? Or, are they not considered entirely?

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;133686 wrote:

You often say this, perhaps you might elucidate the way in which this point has a bearing on the original argument?

Well, someone just wrote that idealism cannot be refuted. And my point is that:

1. If the Moon existed before people, then Idealism is false.
2. The Moon existed before people.

Therefore, 3, Idealism is false.

If that argument is sound (which it is) then Idealism is refuted. I don't know which original argument you mean.

@Pythagorean,

But this is not what idealism means. It is a caricature. If you really think that some of the greatest minds in the history of philosophy really believed anything so simplistic and trite then perhaps you ought to do a bit more reading.

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;133693 wrote:

Jeeprs, Reconstructo, Pythagorean, longknowledge, and Fil. Albuquerque:

If reality is simply what we perceive, or, the physical realm is not independent from what we perceive, how do you differentiate what is real from what is imaginary?

Kant grounded objectivity by negating appearance. "Real" and "imaginary" are words, or logos. Logos is the collision of two incompatible transcendentals, the digital and the continuous. Number is abstracted/negated from logos. Word to the degree that refers to experience: qualia as perceived in intuitive time and space, cannot be precisely defined, as true "definition"is transcendentally digital. Wittgenstein gets neat this in TLP.

This whole issue is nothing but the confusion of transcendentals. Words like "reality" and "appearance" are inherently metaphorical/continuous. Objectivity is experienced as the collision of two transcendental modes of perception. The most one can do logically/digitally about this appearence/reality distinction, is to negate appearance. In human life, the distinction is blurred, for human life is simultaneously digital and continuous. It's all in Kant. It's also manifest in pi.

Rorty's brand of pragmatism is the most sophisticated response I know to this dilemma. Pragmatism sacrifices Truth for "truth." These quotes around truth are logically equivalent to Kant's noumena. "Calling infinity a number doesn't make it one. "

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;133699 wrote:

But this is not what idealism means. It is a caricature. If you really think that some of the greatest minds in the history of philosophy really believed anything so simplistic and trite then perhaps you ought to do a bit more reading.

Well, I thought that Idealism says that there are no mind-independent entities. And if this is what it says, then if the argument is sound, then Idealism is refuted. If Idealism says something else, then, of course, it may not be refuted by the argument.

It often happens that philosophers (even great philosophers) state very abstract theories which, when the concrete implications are drawn, turn out to imply false propositions, and therefore are, themselves false. Of course, if they fail to have these false implications, it is proper to ask what the theory does imply concretely. And, of course, it it implies what we all believe anyway, then the next question is, why is it worth stating, especially as it it were great news?

There may be (as I have pointed out) a lot of baiting and switching going on. We advertise a Rolls Royce, but when you get to the showroom, it turns out to be just a gussied up Chevy.

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