The question of realness

[Unveiled Artist]

What makes a mystical/metaphysical deity real are the emotions and the psychological effect it has, and that which from that, a person molds their life around.

Have you had an unexplained expeience that it was logical and real to you but not to others? If so, what was the logic of that experience; how did you know its real and what realness is to you?

 

[Epic Beard Man]

Have you had an unexplained expeience that it was logical and real to you but not to others? If so, what was the logic of that experience; how did you know its real and what realness is to you?

For me, I think it was when I was a super religious Christian back in '95 and I was heavily involved in going to church. I recall at night looking up at the stars and praising God, I felt an overwhelming sensation of calmness. Grant it, I think from a scientific standpoint I think the emotions and feelings I experienced was due to my undying faith in God and the mentality that God was close to me. It was an experience that I know today outside looking in, made no sense, but at that time it did.

 

[David T]

Always. Questions are far more interesting anyway.since some times assumptions are made without questioning them.

What I really want to find out is how this threaded into the eucharist conversation that has gone on inside the church. That actually surprised me.. It comes from a different angle but the identical structure. Like music, different words but same harmony. That I find interesting.

 

[sealchan]

Have you experiences thats logical to you even though you cant explain it in terms and concepts familar to other people?

All the time...in fact, I think this is a universal experience. This is because so much of what seems "logical" or expected or the natural consequence of events is due to the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we use to create ourselves and orient ourselves in our lives.

I have consciously chosen to follow a narrative that I have had a hand in creating which came out of an emotional act of desperation and a dream that supported that narrative. I know that one could explain such things in terms of psychology and cultural influence. I accept such explanations. But I also assert the right to create half of the reality I know and so with a inspired author's pen I have written a story about my belief in God. The room to grow a garden of subjective truth is a sacred and essential aspect of one's personal well-being and is a mystery of our reality.

For me logic comes in four flavors: thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition. I use the word logic here loosely or metaphorically. Thinking appreciates how logic helps keep the word-crops of the mind in order and weed free. Feeling appreciates how "logic" keeps the values of one's self and others in a consistent framework of interpersonal meaning. Sensation appreciates the "logic" of how if something happens, it has happened. Intuition appreciates the "logic" of how a pattern is consistent across all the various phenomena it can be found within.

Subjectivity arises out of differences between two people's stories-experiences. It also comes from their different biases regarding the four functions of consciousness. It is an essential aspect of our self-existence that we are provably different than others...not interchangable even as we will substitute the needs of someone else as our own.

The basis of reality is that which came before I came. My experience of myself as a part of and also unique to that reality is my dance with reality.

Reality is a "whole term" like consciousness, the universe or God which encapsulates the ultimate set of all things. As such it is a word which points to mystery.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

For me, I think it was when I was a super religious Christian back in '95 and I was heavily involved in going to church. I recall at night looking up at the stars and praising God, I felt an overwhelming sensation of calmness. Grant it, I think from a scientific standpoint I think the emotions and feelings I experienced was due to my undying faith in God and the mentality that God was close to me. It was an experience that I know today outside looking in, made no sense, but at that time it did.

Have you ever thought god could be working through your physical senses; and, it doesn't need to be supernatural to experience "his" presence?

Kind of like stuck on the language and concepts as god as a being that can do, feel, see, and say rather than the experience of god who can do these things through you? (Not like poltergeist or something)

Disassociate god from your christian practices and experience him directly (however you name him)

 

[Unveiled Artist]

All the time...in fact, I think this is a universal experience. This is because so much of what seems "logical" or expected or the natural consequence of events is due to the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we use to create ourselves and orient ourselves in our lives.

I have consciously chosen to follow a narrative that I have had a hand in creating which came out of an emotional act of desperation and a dream that supported that narrative. I know that one could explain such things in terms of psychology and cultural influence. I accept such explanations. But I also assert the right to create half of the reality I know and so with a inspired author's pen I have written a story about my belief in God. The room to grow a garden of subjective truth is a sacred and essential aspect of one's personal well-being and is a mystery of our reality.

For me logic comes in four flavors: thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition. I use the word logic here loosely or metaphorically. Thinking appreciates how logic helps keep the word-crops of the mind in order and weed free. Feeling appreciates how "logic" keeps the values of one's self and others in a consistent framework of interpersonal meaning. Sensation appreciates the "logic" of how if something happens, it has happened. Intuition appreciates the "logic" of how a pattern is consistent across all the various phenomena it can be found within.

Subjectivity arises out of differences between two people's stories-experiences. It also comes from their different biases regarding the four functions of consciousness. It is an essential aspect of our self-existence that we are provably different than others...not interchangable even as we will substitute the needs of someone else as our own.

The basis of reality is that which came before I came. My experience of myself as a part of and also unique to that reality is my dance with reality.

Reality is a "whole term" like consciousness, the universe or God which encapsulates the ultimate set of all things. As such it is a word which points to mystery.

Hmm. Nice. Thank you.

How would you define realness if you compared the definition based on subjectivity *(intuition, emotions, etc) and objectivity (universal laws [all studies] of the physical universe)?

Are they interconnected or do you lean towards subjectivity as a definition of realness as opposed to objectivity?

 

[sealchan]

Hmm. Nice. Thank you.

How would you define realness if you compared the definition based on subjectivity *(intuition, emotions, etc) and objectivity (universal laws [all studies] of the physical universe)?

Are they interconnected or do you lean towards subjectivity as a definition of realness as opposed to objectivity?

I see these questions coming down to a set of multiple ways of knowing truth. Again, in the brain there are the two pairs of psychological functions...the irrational intuition and sensation as well as the rational thinking and feeling functions. Each presents to our minds a coherent and consistent way of "mapping" reality into our brains for the use in understanding the past and anticipate the future.

So when you ask the question "How would you define realness..." I am assuming that you are using a thinking-logic context. I could answer the question in that way but I would know immediately that I was missing half of the answer in what I would give.

Also the latter part of your question "...if you compared the definition based on subjectivity and objectivity?" Here you pair intuition, emotion with subjectivity while objectivity gets the ideal of the physics textbook in its corner. This is not wrong...within the context of the thinking function.

But reality also has a value and those values often pit the needs of a person or group of people against the "facts" of the physical universe. This creates a sense of a deep need to relativize what is objective and making it less important than one who is predisposed to always emphasize the actual and logical. This need, at its worst, leads to the rejection of scientific knowledge. At its best, however, it leads to the creation of new technologies, the solution of deep scientific puzzles and the correction of great human suffering.

Additionally, the concepts of physics are intuitive and the limitations of the original intuitions behind the concepts of physics are showing their "frayed edges". This is not so much a critique of the obvious accomplishments and "truth-value" of scientific knowledge, but rather a recognition that human beings created scientific knowledge and the "braininess" (that is the thinking-feeling-sensation-intuition-iness) of such knowledge is beginning to show. The human brain creates the knowledge that it derives from the non-brain reality in which it comes into existence.

I feel that if I have had one revelation in my life it is that truth is much more the product of a binocular rationality than it is of a "mono-modal" rationality such as we human beings tend to fall into. We experience the need and the desire for such binocular vision within ourselves all the time. Without understanding it it becomes the battles we face with other people, even and especially those closest to us, which we never seem to win without loosing...

There is also a deep warning that comes from the ultimate discipline of thinking-logic...mathematics. Kurt Godel discovered a mathematical theorem known as the Incompleteness Theorem which basically states, no logical, consistent system of determining "truth" can ever be comprehensive for there are always well-formed truth statements that any system will never be able to resolve without adding additional conditions. Each basic condition of that system amounts to an unproven axiom.

The duality of subjective vs objective or science vs faith are all part of this human tendency to be biased against these binocular perspectives on the one reality. We are "deeply" divided in the sense that "depth" is only attained if we can bring our "two eyes" together as we look at the "one reality".

 

[corynski]

Quite amazing I will admit ...... I don't see the word SCIENCE or the words SCIENTIFIC METHOD even referred to with respect to 'reality'. Nor is there any mention of the subject of SEMANTICS, which concerns itself with the notion of BEING, and the verb IS, which we unfortunately use indiscriminately, for example as when we ascribe BEING to angels and trolls. BEING refers to 'ISNESS', that quality that permits us to measure and to describe reality. REALITY 'IS'...... reality has being because it can be measured, and is composed of protons and electrons and neutrons, that operate according to fixed laws of the universe. For example, what can you really say about a troll? Nothing, because there is no sense data from the world out there to reach our brains, nothing that can be measured. Trolls and angels and gods and goddesses are created, i.e. imagined, by humans, 'thought up' from ideas and notions that exist in our minds, but not from anything that we can say exists in reality, anything that truly 'is' and has 'being'. Reality reaches us through sense data which we all agree upon as best we can, from our prior experiences. Something 'is', when it can be measured and agreed upon by other humans, and can be 'corroborated' by others.

But science is not accepted by all people as one would think it could or should be. Religions are hardly concerned about a method to ascertain what is real and what is not, just as science itself hinders the imagination and is antithetical to the formation of anything not 'real'. Notice that the thousands of religions and belief systems existing have created thousands of gods for their peoples, any and all of which may have no relation to any other god or religion.
I would suspect that people might get along better if they could agree upon the reality in which they live, but it would mean giving up the unrealities they themselves have created........

To understand why some humans would prefer 'unreality' to 'reality' needs little thought. We all prefer pleasure and comfort, and the comfort of thinking we could live on, and see our deceased parents and children in a 'heaven' somewhere in la-la land would obviously be agreeable to us all.

Afterthought........ Let's compare a 'god' to a 'troll'. My dictionary gives as meaning for 'troll' the following: "A giant or a friendly but mischievous dwarf in Scandinavian mythology." How many of you have seen a 'troll', or would say a troll is 'real'? Few I'm sure..... Now how about a 'god'? The definition is "A superhuman being regarded and worshipped as having power over nature and human affairs." Same situation to my mind. Superhuman only means 'something more than human', and tells us nothing. And so on. Definitions must have referents that are existing, and those regarding gods cannot do that.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

I made a thread recently that basically posed the question: What can you come to know without your material senses which perceive the universe?

In other words, if you were a capable brain/mind minus any experience with (and lacking ability to experience) touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing, spatial orientation, etc. - what knowledge could you acquire? You can't interact with any objects - you don't even have a concept of them. You can't interact with others - you can't see, locate or hear them. You have no concept of numeric data - there is nothing to measure, nothing to count. You can't even perceive the passage of time - for there is no way to witness change in anything. You might, possibly raise a question of "what am I?", but then again, you have nothing to compare anything against, so you may not even be able to distinguish your "self" as a "thing" in the first place. Rudimentary emotions like frustration and anger might be possible - but what is there to get frustrated with except your own, amorphous musings about nothing at all? As a mind without access to the input from any physical senses - you wouldn't even have a concept of "real" versus "fake."

So to answer the OP, I would say that the ability to have trust in your senses and reaching a predictable, consistent reliance on their input is the very foundation of any knowledge worth having - especially as concerns "reality" as it is experienced.

 

[WalterTrull]

How does that relate to your example of amulets and chanting manta?

We seem to flounder when it comes to faith. Amulets and mantras are fairly simple structures to focus and direct faith. They work, but not very well.

Do you have (or do you think people have) unexplained experiences only (my words) based on faith or can their justifications be real even if we disagree with them?

I suppose I shouldn't use the word faith, but honestly, it seems the best word. Unfortunately, I believe its meaning has been hijacked to mean something else over the centuries. Justifications are just that, justifications. Sometimes they make sense to others, sometimes not. But, they do tend to focus our faith. Also, we are one. While I believe the universe is subjective, apparently only a miniscule portion is actively subject to me, and even that is not subject to me alone.

For example, if someone had X experience they know is real and can justify it, do you think their justifications are logical when they see it as objective not subjective? (Going off their view not our own)

Justifications are as logical as the faith we have in them. Seeing something as objective doesn’t make it so. (Fully realizing the opposite claim) An objective universe simply makes no sense to me, and the pile-on nature of the justifications for it just make it seem more ludicrous.

 

[WalterTrull]

What can you come to know without your material senses

Problem is, some of us feel that what you call "material" senses, aren't.

 

[sealchan]

I made a thread recently that basically posed the question: What can you come to know without your material senses which perceive the universe?

In other words, if you were a capable brain/mind minus any experience with (and lacking ability to experience) touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing, spatial orientation, etc. - what knowledge could you acquire? You can't interact with any objects - you don't even have a concept of them. You can't interact with others - you can't see, locate or hear them. You have no concept of numeric data - there is nothing to measure, nothing to count. You can't even perceive the passage of time - for there is no way to witness change in anything. You might, possibly raise a question of "what am I?", but then again, you have nothing to compare anything against, so you may not even be able to distinguish your "self" as a "thing" in the first place. Rudimentary emotions like frustration and anger might be possible - but what is there to get frustrated with except your own, amorphous musings about nothing at all? As a mind without access to the input from any physical senses - you wouldn't even have a concept of "real" versus "fake."

So to answer the OP, I would say that the ability to have trust in your senses and reaching a predictable, consistent reliance on their input is the very foundation of any knowledge worth having - especially as concerns "reality" as it is experienced.

Care to drill down a little into what, in the brain/mind, constitutes the senses and trust in them?

I might agree with you about the foundations of knowledge lying mainly in the senses, but regarding the foundations of language and abstract knowledge...there the senses begin to take on a more, if not trivial, then more or less supportive role.

The senses are to human thought and reason as the artist's paint colors are to an artist's painting.

And to what extent can we say that the senses are the foundation due to an inherent trust (faith?) in that perception and to what extent can we say that that is true due to reason?

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Problem is, some of us feel that what you call "material" senses, aren't.

I'm talking, specifically, about the senses supported by the parts of the body. Senses which, without those sensory inputs (including ALL nerves leading from the sensor-structures) the brain has no information from which to draw or report on anything.

Our sense of sight - requires physical/material eyes that transform the input they receive into signals the brain can interpret
Our sense of hearing - requires not only physical/material ears, tympanic membrane, etc., but also physical/material medium through which vibrations can travel
Our sense of touch - requires nerves and energies, which are, decidedly, physical entities, in order for the signals to be produced for and transported to the brain
Our sense of smell - requires physical olfactory organs to produce the sense input the brain can interpret
Our sense of taste - requires the physical tongue to produce the signals that can be interpreted by the brain
Our sense of balance - requires the physicality of liquid in our body and also additional organs that produce brain signals

And in my example, I specifically cited that the separated brain/mind not only NEVER had these physical implements to garner sensory signals for the brain, but also has had NO EXPERIENCE with such signals. Meaning those areas of the brain have never been activated or given ANY signal. NONE. These were the conditions under which I assert that there is no useful knowledge available to or much of any useful thinking that can be done by such a brain/mind.

 

[WalterTrull]

I'm talking, specifically, about the senses supported by the parts of the body

I think we're talking past each other. I'm one of those mental subjective universe folk. The idea being that the body and therefore what you refer to as the physical senses are not objective, but mental and subjective.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Care to drill down a little into what, in the brain/mind, constitutes the senses and trust in them?

I might agree with you about the foundations of knowledge lying mainly in the senses, but regarding the foundations of language and abstract knowledge...there the senses begin to take on a more, if not trivial, then more or less supportive role.

The senses are to human thought and reason as the artist's paint colors are to an artist's painting.

And to what extent can we say that the senses are the foundation due to an inherent trust (faith?) in that perception and to what extent can we say that that is true due to reason?

As regards abstract knowledge, I would argue that without the sensory foundations of perception, you would never achieve the abstract. For example - "love". Without sensory perception to even understand that there is anything else outside of a nebulous "self", what is there to direct an emotion like "love" at? What is there to experience that is pleasurable enough to "like" let alone "love?" Perhaps a general "love" of self might be possible, but not knowing the context within which one exists - indeed, knowing nothing about yourself whatsoever except that you simply "are" - is there "love" there? You don't even have a concept of survival or stuggle. No concept of something that is "bad" or something that is, instead "good." The ideas of "better" or "worse" do not exist. Everything is the same. You feel no pain, you do not feel hunger and have no needs. As "just a mind" - I really can't think of anything worthwhile to think about. How would you get to abstract concepts from there?

Another example - language isn't even a thing to be conceptualized. Not only is there no one to talk to, but that separated mind can't hear anything or form sound on its own to conceptualize what it would be like to even communicate at all. Why would it need words? It would have no concept of "symbols", no experience with visual stimulus whatsoever. And what is there to communicate about anyway?

Therefore, it is my opinion that if you have trust in ANYTHING, your senses have to come first. They are the ONLY tie you have to the "outside world". Otherwise you are that useless, separated "mind" from my example.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

I think we're talking past each other. I'm one of those mental subjective universe folk. The idea being that the body and therefore what you refer to as the physical senses are not objective, but mental and subjective.

Then by what utility do you propose you perceive "the universe?" Do you believe you are part of "the universe?" By what method do you believe you are able to perceive anything at all? I would assume you have to agree that you DO perceive things, correct?

 

[WalterTrull]

Certainly I perceive. I perceive the same way you do. I just claim that what appears to you as physical, isn't.

 

[Cary Cook]

Anything existing in a particular context is real in that context. If that context is imaginary, then anything existing in it is real in it.

[QUOTE="So, [according to] what formula do you consider your experiences real regardless if others believe you or not?[/QUOTE]

All of my experiences are real to me regardless of others' belief.
None of my experiences can be shown to be objectively real as what I think they are. I have no reason to care if my experiences are objectively real. I have only to care about thinking and acting in what appears to be my best interest.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Certainly I perceive. I perceive the same way you do. I just claim that what appears to you as physical, isn't.

Well... in the universe I perceive, ALL of the evidence suggests that sense organs made of physical material do all of the leg-work producing sensory input to the brain. What evidence did you have for your claims again?

 

[WalterTrull]

Well... in the universe I perceive, ALL of the evidence suggests that sense organs made of physical material do all of the leg-work producing sensory input to the brain. What evidence did you have for your claims again?

I just claim there is no evidence for a physical universe. Just like Dr. Henry ( A pdf)