How Do We Know What Ultimate Reality Is? (verse, divine)

[Sunstone]

What is Ultimate Reality?

How do we know that is so?

[d.]

we don't.

the search for 'ultimate' anything is futile, and the concept 'ultimate reality' meaningless.

[Sunstone]

Originally Posted by divine

the search for 'ultimate' anything is futile, and the concept 'ultimate reality' meaningless.

Even if one takes Ultimate Reality to be the material, physical universe?

[Bennu]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

What is Ultimate Reality?

The ultimate reality is, and is not. Anything else, would be something else. I don't think I could describe or define it.

Originally Posted by Sunstone

How do we know that is so?

I don't think we can. In the Tao Te Ching, more then once a question is asked along these lines, 'How can I know this?' with the answer being 'Like so!' or 'By looking within myself.' Any knowledge, if it can even be called that, would be incomplete and subjective, and highly personal.

[standing_on_one_foot]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

Even if one takes Ultimate Reality to be the material, physical universe?

Yes, even, although that would already be making an assumption. But you'd never know anything, and there's always some doubt. You might, perhaps, be able to say that something exists, but certainty is asking a lot. About the best you can do is "This is the way the Universe appears to be..." Which is, of course, a perfectly good answer for everyday purposes.

[angellous_evangellous]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

Even if one takes Ultimate Reality to be the material, physical universe?

Defined as such, I see no reason why we can't find the ultimate reality - but why would it be called "ultimate" if it were readily attainable? When you say "ultimate" I suspect that many of us hear a Platonic ultimate - something transendent but real, like God, who is unattainable.

[bigvindaloo]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

Even if one takes Ultimate Reality to be the material, physical universe?

The material universe is ultimately real because we can reach out and touch it. But is there something beyond this? What about knowledge of relationships A to B. What about pain. If there is a reality where our mental universe cannot go eg echolocation in bats, seeing colours animals with more than three colour cones can, it is inconsequential for us. I do not think for our species that ultimate reality is a worthwhile concept. I expect we will continue to live in increasing abstraction forever.

[michel]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

Even if one takes Ultimate Reality to be the material, physical universe?

I don't think that qualifies as an 'ultimate'; after all, the 'input' that we all have is subjective. I would imagine that we all have a slightly different 'take' on reality. (a simple but obvious example being that of colour blind people - as I am, with blue/greens, and people who see colours perfectly).

Strange thing (totally coincidental). At college, I have an exam tomorrow (which I am partly dreading ) in which the concept of the appreciation of colours plays a large part.

Quote from my book (well in my own words; the book is at the college): the colour that we see on a computer screen (and for that matter on a printed sheet) is not the 'true colour'. The only way of ensuring that we can reproduce true colour is using Pantone colour charts (where, for each colour, there is a predefined 'quantity of colour mixes' to ensure correct reproduction).