5 Planes of Existence

[mikkel_the_dane]

That is an interesting arrangement. The most interesting thing about it is that you have (rightly, I think) relegated "objective reality" to the end, and conceded that it is the one you can actually know the least about. And therefore, one must assume, the one that we can actually say the least about with any sort of authority.

We already know, for example, that the bees in your garden "see" the flowers there very differently than you do. Or we can remember Thomas Nagel's essay "What is it like to be a bat?"

The problem is that our only real access to "reality" is and must be subjective -- everything is filtered through our own senses and how they work, and through our own perceptions and beliefs. We are never, ever, totally objective, nor can we possibly be.

Well, as for knowledge I am an epistemological solipsist, so yeah, I get you.

Now for the order in which I placed that is not random, but in order of objective to subjective as I see it.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[Terry Sampson]

Independent of me being no fan, the Kabbalah is not philosophy, at least not the kind of philosophy to deal rationally with problems of existence.

• (a) For the record, it's your OP and, whether or not Kabbalah's assertions about "planes of existence" have any significance outside of a specific theistic faith community or not, I figured you'd object to their incorporation into your OP's framework as "useful concepts".
• (b) It was dybmh's question about whether or not certain concepts had a place in your framework and my limited knowledge about Kabbalah's claims that led me to say to him that the concepts he named--which I'm pretty sure are fundamental realities in Kabbalah--wouldn't qualify as fundamentals by your standard.
• In others words: in response to your words quoted above, I reply: "I figured you'd say that".

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

High School? How old are you, kid? I took my first and only course in GS back in the spring or fall of 1974, at San Francisco State University, when S.I. Hayakawa (the "Shining Public Face" of GS) was the university president. I've grown old, but a couple of things still stick in my mind:

• "The map is not the territory" - non-identity premise. Reality, or that portion of what we abstract from it, is not what we say it is.
• "The map is not all of the territory - non-allness premise. What we abstract from reality is far less than the reality from which we abstracted, and what we say about what we abstracted is not all than could be said, even if we had words to describe the abstraction.
• "Maps can be self-reflexive" - self-reflection premise. We can say things about things that we say about things.

Or something like that. At the time, the stuff I learn expanded my brain more than any drug I ever consumed. Ahhh, those were the days ...

Maps happen in the territory, unless you believe we live in a map room, which is not part of the territory. - Non-duality premise.

 

[Terry Sampson]

Maps happen in the territory, unless you believe we live in a map room, which is not part of the territory. - Non-duality premise.

It's been a while, but I think that's an element of the third premise I mentioned, i.e. the self-reflection premise. Or maybe not? Does every map have to include a copy of the map of the territory?

 

[blü 2]

I agree that the first divide is between objective reality and unreality. But things can be unreal in different ways. The existence of constructs like laws and borders have real life consequences whereas the consequences of the existence of fantasies are minute. If you can't distinguish between the two you'll be in trouble soon.

Yes, I agree that there are different categories of subjective phenomena ─ language, both denotation and connotation, concepts of real things, concepts of abstractions and generalizations, concepts of things with no objective counterpart eg unicorns, fictions, fantasies, dreams, hallucinations, emotions, appetites, instincts and instinctive responses, distorted perceptions and misperceptions including those due to drugs, trauma, disease, genetics, migraine, and so on. But they're all part of the body-brain biomachinery that makes us human.

And I agree that they have different functions, effects, and consequences.

But, with all proper respect to believers, I think all supernatural explanations of reality are fantasties, in that they attribute objective existence to imaginary beings and powers; and they frequently drive the subject's actions; Christian martyrs volunteering for the arena back in the 2nd century are a vivld example, and so are teenager boys and girls blowing themselves up on buses and trains. And with all proper respect to voters, the same is true in politics. We're looking at populism in politics all over the world at the moment, a favoring of one's concept of one's tribe at the expense of reason, to take one example. We're also looking at the deliberate manipulation of such public emotions for political purposes, which is what the Cambridge Analytica scandal was about, and which is being eagerly emulated as we speak.

So I'd find it hard to agree that the consequences of fantasies are minute.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

It's been a while, but I think that's an element of the third premise I mentioned, i.e. the self-reflection premise. Or maybe not? Does every map have to include a copy of the map of the territory?

It is another tradition. If you ask how you can make a map of the territory, it assumes there is a connection between the map and the territory. Thus it seems a case of non-dualism in some sense.
I am playing ontology.

 

[WhyIsThatSo]

You have been mislead. You have stumbled into the philosophy section of RF. This is where we think and have rational arguments. Preaching isn't helping you here.

"philosophy" - "philo" (love) and "Sophia" (Wisdom) = love of Wisdom
and "Wisdom" is the "reason" for all that is called "religion".

get a clue..

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

"philosophy" - "philo" (love) and "Sophia" (Wisdom) = love of Wisdom
and "Wisdom" is the "reason" for all that is called "religion".

get a clue..

Well, I do it differently. I look at all the wisdom in hard science, soft science, philosophy and religion and combine those.

 

[WhyIsThatSo]

Well, I do it differently. I look at all the wisdom in hard science, soft science, philosophy and religion and combine those.

Yes, and that's "wise", and what we all should do...
so, I didn't just "stumble" in here.

 

[Heyo]

But, with all proper respect to believers, I think all supernatural explanations of reality are fantasties, in that they attribute objective existence to imaginary beings and powers [...]

So I'd find it hard to agree that the consequences of fantasies are minute.

Does Jesus exist in same way Harry Potter exists?
Supernatural explanation are not fantasies. For the believer they surely aren't. Depending on their devotion and intellect they would put them into "real", "ideals" or "constructs". I'd put them into "illusions". But we'd agree that they aren't fantasies.

 

[Heyo]

1) In our reality everything is unique there a no two things exactly the same and everything is constantly changing unless kept in a vacuum or at absolute zero because of this all we have is scientific consensus which is arbitrary. If you are talking microscopic then for example things to the nano is acceptable. If we are talking houses then less centi is acceptable. If we are talking about the universe then less than light years is acceptable.

2) Numbers are made up as proven by Zeno's paradox and math's own laws. Zero is either a number or not a number depending on if you are adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing(you can't do this). The square root of a negative number is a number time "j". As just a few problems.

3) Construct as the above argue everything is a construct an agreement to perceive something as part of a group based on an agreed upon tolerance. Depending on who you talk to the construct may fall apart. For example is Race Human or is Race Ethnic. Can you and a color blind person really see reality the same way. Why is your way right, some animals and insects see the world is a completely different way.

4) Fantasies do not have to be shared and would be impossible to share exactly as is reality.

5) Illusions are impossible to prove they don't exist for they surely do exist to the mind in the moment and the mind is what interprets all of reality.

I'm having a hard time to recognize what the gist of your argument is. Do you think that it is futile to categorize things into states of existence? Do you not like my categories?
Do you disagree with my wording of the definitions of my categories?
Please explain.

 

[blü 2]

Does Jesus exist in same way Harry Potter exists?

Let's assume that there was an historical Jesus.

Then as an historical human, he's now dead. He doesn't exist in the ordinary sense of the word.

But as an idea, as something imagined or conceptualized, I can't think of any way to distinguish the manner of his present existence from the manner of Harry Potter's present existence. If you can, I'm interested to hear.

 

[wellwisher]

Let's assume that there was an historical Jesus.

Then as an historical human, he's now dead. He doesn't exist in the ordinary sense of the word.

But as an idea, as something imagined or conceptualized, I can't think of any way to distinguish the manner of his present existence from the manner of Harry Potter's present existence. If you can, I'm interested to hear.

The human brain reacts differently to reality experience versus imaginary experience. Reality will get natural instinct involved which allows the core of our being to be part of the equation. If a wild dog attacked you, your instinct will kick with adrenaline. If you watch this on TV, part of you knows this is imaginary, and will not allow deeper parts of the psyche to overreact. One will not pick up a bat and attack the TV, like one may have to do if the dog was real.

For example, the Corona Virus is real, but also imaginary to those who fear it, but who never come in contact with it. There is a degree of detachment from reality, which allows the imagination to fill in the blanks, that are left because of no direct sensory content for an internal trigger. If you get the virus and become very sick and survive, this reaches the core of your brain and being. The memory is different.

Say you have a person who was paranoid of the virus but never got it. You also have another person who got the virus and survived. Each is telling their tale to their children. The person with the reality data tells a reality tale that can touch the deeper parts of the psyche. Strong experiences in life are hard to forget and easy to recreate, with deep emotions. The fantasy tale touches shallower parts of the brain, and will be not register as deep in the psych. This will be forgotten sooner.

The spiritual leaders, like Jesus and others, still resonate after millennia. The transfer of data, from generation to generation, reaches deeper in the psyche. If people get shallow, this data may still be there, but it will become more unconscious. Shallow may require new and improved imaginary based fads to feel anything for the short term. Then it wears out and we seek another. Real things last a lifetime.

 

[Heyo]

Let's assume that there was an historical Jesus.

Let's not. It only complicates things.

Then as an historical human, he's now dead. He doesn't exist in the ordinary sense of the word.

In that case hid did exist and is therefore a part of reality, past reality but non-the-less.

But as an idea, as something imagined or conceptualized, I can't think of any way to distinguish the manner of his present existence from the manner of Harry Potter's present existence. If you can, I'm interested to hear.

I agree that the Jesus of the gospel fairy tales exists in the same way as the Harry Potter of the Harry Potter fairy tales.
But the status changes when a believer enters the scene. Remember that a fantasy is a story we agree upon that it is a story.

 

[blü 2]

The human brain reacts differently to reality experience versus imaginary experience.

The brain monitors sensory input for anything that might require a response. As you say, its response to movies will be appropriate to movies and its response to news broadcasts will be appropriate to news. Its response while watching TV to the sound of the kitchen window being broken will be different again.

Say you have a person who was paranoid of the virus but never got it. You also have another person who got the virus and survived. Each is telling their tale to their children. The person with the reality data tells a reality tale that can touch the deeper parts of the psyche.

What you say is possible but the circumstances can be so various, I'd hesitate to generalize.

The spiritual leaders, like Jesus and others, still resonate after millennia.

Leaders, spiritual or not, may have personalities that resonate, or they may not. I find the personality of Jesus elusive ─ I think it's possible there was an historical Jesus, but it's also possible there was not. For instance, the NT has five different accounts of him, much of it obviously fiction, and none by anyone who ever met him.

But of course that doesn't stop believers using him as a focus for living with decency, inclusiveness, kindness and honesty and doing good things.

 

[blü 2]

I agree that the Jesus of the gospel fairy tales exists in the same way as the Harry Potter of the Harry Potter fairy tales.
But the status changes when a believer enters the scene. Remember that a fantasy is a story we agree upon that it is a story.

As I may have said before, I think truth is a quality of statements, and that a statement is true to the extent that it corresponds with / accurately reflects reality (the world external to the self). We have no reason to think Harry or Jesus is actually out there. They have in common that they only exist as concepts in individual brains. The statements "The Jesus of the NT is alive" and "The Harry Potter of Rowling's books is alive" are both untrue statements by my definition ─ do not accurately reflect reality.

 

[blü 2]

(Trigger warning: this is going to be a long and philosophical OP. If you are bored by this stuff, this OP is not for you.)

Does god exist? That question is currently unanswerable and will probably remain so for a long time or even never be answerable due to a lack of an agreed upon definition of "god". But what about the definition of "existence"? I want to suggest a classification of 5 planes of existence that make it easier to talk about existence.

1. Reality

Real are all those things that can be measured with a scientific instrument, repeatedly, objective and independent. Particles, forces and fields are real (and nothing else is). Reality is the subject of the "hard" sciences, physics, chemistry, biology, etc.​

2. The plane of numbers and forms a.k.a. the plane of ideals

This is taken from Plato's idea of ideals. But other than Plato, I don't call them "real". These are things that must exist by necessity. They are found by sapient beings, not constructed. Mathematicians and philosophers deal with ideals.​

3. Constructs

Things that exist only by consensus, like laws, nations or borders. This is the domain of lawyers, politicians and the "soft" sciences like sociology.​

4. Fantasies a.k.a. Fiction

Fantasies are shared ideas of the unreal. We accept that they are not real but we can talk about them as if they were real. We say that Dumbledore exists in the Harry Potter "universe". This is the realm of literature and lore.​

5. Illusions

The most unreal and hardly existing things are illusions. These are the things that exist only through a skewed perception like dreams and hallucinations. Unfortunately some people take them for real. When that happens, this is the problem of psychology.​

Not a thing

The English language allows us to substantivise verbs and adjectives. That creates artificial, only grammatical "things" that aren't. That's why I reject the idea to include a plane for emotions. Love is not a thing, it is something we do.​

What do you think? Would that make the discussion of the existence of gods and other things easier?

Interesting.

Me, I work from three assumptions (which I assume because I can't demonstrate their correctness without first assuming they're correct):

that a world exists external to the self
that our senses are capable of informing us about that world, and
that reason is a valid tool.​

and I notice that anyone who posts here agrees with the first two, and I hope the third as well.

This leads me to only two of what what you're calling levels: external reality, also called nature, or the realm of the physical sciences, or the sum of all things and processes that have objective existence (&c).

And the self, with its evolved methods of receiving, sorting, understanding and responding to reality. As for understanding, I think Plato's forms and Kant's universals are vastly better understood as concepts. The brain had evolved with language, and language is very strong on abstraction and generalization, constantly shuffling the idea of THIS CHAIR with the idea of CHAIRNESS, implicit in an expression like 'a chair'.

Likewise all maths is conceptual ─ there are no uninstantiated 2s running around in the woods, no instantiations of numbers greater than the rational numbers in reality, no true points, lines or planes; all these are purely mental tools for analyzing the real, but they aren't themselves real. You can't count to two without first making a judgment ─ WHAT do I want to count, and in what FIELD do I want to count it? How many hens in the barn? Pages in this book?

So between reality and conceptual / imaginary thinking, I don't think much is left out.

 

[Heyo]

This leads me to only two of what what you're calling levels: external reality, also called nature, or the realm of the physical sciences, or the sum of all things and processes that have objective existence (&c).

And the self, with its evolved methods of receiving, sorting, understanding and responding to reality. As for understanding, I think Plato's forms and Kant's universals are vastly better understood as concepts. The brain had evolved with language, and language is very strong on abstraction and generalization, constantly shuffling the idea of THIS CHAIR with the idea of CHAIRNESS, implicit in an expression like 'a chair'.

I partly agree. You can see the 5 Planes as a tree. The first branching point is between the real (physical) and the unreal. The unreal then branches into the conceptual (which has applications) and the fantastical.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Interesting.

Me, I work from three assumptions (which I assume because I can't demonstrate their correctness without first assuming they're correct):

that a world exists external to the self
that our senses are capable of informing us about that world, and
that reason is a valid tool.​

and I notice that anyone who posts here agrees with the first two, and I hope the third as well.

Well, for the third one, it is where the fun begins.
So here are 3 options:

• Reason is a valid tool that works on everything/the world/the universe/reality/the sum of all that exists and so on.
• Reason doesn't work at all.
• Reason is a valid but limited tool and only works on some and not all aspects of everything/the world/the universe/reality/the sum of all that exists and so on.

This leads me to only two of what what you're calling levels: external reality, also called nature, or the realm of the physical sciences, or the sum of all things and processes that have objective existence (&c).
...
So between reality and conceptual / imaginary thinking, I don't think much is left out.

There is a problem with this sentence: "So between reality and conceptual / imaginary thinking, I don't think much is left out."

Here it is using your rules of real and reality.

And the self, with its evolved methods of receiving, sorting, understanding and responding to reality. As for understanding, I think Plato's forms and Kant's universals are vastly better understood as concepts. The brain had evolved with language, and language is very strong on abstraction and generalization, constantly shuffling the idea of THIS CHAIR with the idea of CHAIRNESS, implicit in an expression like 'a chair'.

Likewise all maths is conceptual ─ there are no uninstantiated 2s running around in the woods, no instantiations of numbers greater than the rational numbers in reality, no true points, lines or planes; all these are purely mental tools for analyzing the real, but they aren't themselves real. You can't count to two without first making a judgment ─ WHAT do I want to count, and in what FIELD do I want to count it? How many hens in the barn? Pages in this book?

So between reality and conceptual / imaginary thinking, I don't think much is left out.

So for the underscored sentence the results it this it is itself conceptual/imaginary thinking, because the sentence only exist in your mind and it is not real. It means that your rule of reality is not a part of reality and not real, yet you in effect treat your rule as real otherwise you wouldn't use it. And you your reason is in effect valid and real, but not a part of reality.

How do I know that your rule is not real? Well, I test according to your examples and it turns out that you use conceptual/imaginary thinking in regards to your rule.

So back to these:

• "that a world exists external to the self"
• "that our senses are capable of informing us about that world, and"
• "that reason is a valid tool."

They are in effect all 3 conceptual/imaginary thinking.
How? Because none of them are real according to your rule of real. But it goes deeper and is the joke of your belief system. The word "real" is in effect the same as the word "God". How?
Here it is for the word "stone". You know, a piece of rock.
You can do a lot of things with a stone in regards to your body as physical and you can do a lot of things in regards to a stone in regards to natural science.
But you can't do that with "real" nor "God". So here it is. According to you real is out there in the world external to the self, but it is not. Real is no different that God. It is a concept in your mind, you imagine is out there.

You are in effect not a skeptic, because you haven't doubted real. Real is supernatural in your belief system as shown here:
Supernatural - of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe.
Definition of SUPERNATURAL
Real is an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe.

How? Again in your words: "...all these are purely mental tools for analyzing the real, but they aren't themselves real." There is no real out there as there is no God out there. The problem with God is the same for real. You can't show it as not conceptual/imaginary thinking, because just as God is in the mind, real is only in the mind.

You can't make a definition of real as you use it, that doesn't run into the same problem as God. It is nothing but an idea in your mind. God doesn't exist, because we can't observe God. The real doesn't exist, because we can't observe the real.

Hi blü 2.
I used to be like you. But I didn't stop at God. I also checked the real. And there is no difference.
The difference is rather that I just tell it as it is. You believe in the real. I believe in God. But as looked at with reason, there is in effect no difference, because both are in the mind.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[blü 2]

Well, for the third one, it is where the fun begins.
So here are 3 options:

• Reason is a valid tool that works on everything/the world/the universe/reality/the sum of all that exists and so on.
• Reason doesn't work at all.
• Reason is a valid but limited tool and only works on some and not all aspects of everything/the world/the universe/reality/the sum of all that exists and so on.

Reason is an evolved capacity, particularly but not exclusively of humans, to employ thought, whether instinctively or purposefully, to arrive at a relevant understanding of a problem or situation. Or something like that. What's an example of a problem or situation where reason can't in principle be helpful?

There is a problem with this sentence: "So between reality and conceptual / imaginary thinking, I don't think much is left out."

The brain does a great deal more than sort sensory inputs and understanding and thinking. It handles speech, desires, emotion, memory, self-editing and self-censorship, decision-making, instinctive behavior, social relationships, mating, and more, and more.

Here it is using your rules of real and reality.

Yes, those are some of things reason can apply itself to ─ with varying degrees of success, of course.

So for the underscored sentence the results it this it is itself conceptual/imaginary thinking, because the sentence only exist in your mind and it is not real.

You misunderstand language. You were able to read and understand what I wrote because I made it real (with the help of this site). You had to read it ─ interpret it ─ but real communication occurred,