The question of realness

[A Vestigial Mote]

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

Problem being that "mind" by itself, without sensory input to interpret the universe around us (NO MATTER WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY IT IS OR ISN'T COMPOSED OF), can obtain no worthwhile knowledge.

In other words, the "observer", with nothing to observe, is useless.

 

[WalterTrull]

Problem being that "mind" by itself, without sensory input to interpret the universe around us (NO MATTER WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY IT IS OR ISN'T COMPOSED OF), can obtain no worthwhile knowledge.

In other words, the "observer", with nothing to observe, is useless.

I believe the point is there is no universe around us.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

I believe the point is there is no universe around us.

And where does this revelation get us?

While others are busy using exactly "the universe around us" to accomplish a great many things, due to the fact that we seem to find ourselves here and can use the material we come in (apparent) contact with to do a great many things that improve our various ways of life, what can someone who realizes this "great truth" of yours hope to do with the information? The point being, supposing there is some greater truth to our existence does not mean we have a "get out of jail free card" that we can use to escape the realities of this existence - and I would argue it poses no real "help" to our situation - but that examination of the material realm as we experience it has proven time and time again to be a worthwhile endeavor.

 

[sealchan]

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.

Right you are again showing how the senses are essential and foundational. Almost any organism has that foundation. But senses aren't what makes higher forms of life qualitatively more adaptable and able to change that reality from something you can only respond to but something you can more and more alter.

Perhaps this is a defining characteristic of the human species or life in general that it can change reality to suit its needs. First a species has to have a community of knowers with a means to communicate. Language communities create knowledge and meaning. These communities define the realities we know today through those brain based linguistic systems. Different cultures have different levels of sensory differentiation, different experiences of temperature and weather, different educational levels. They collectively create different realities although arguably overlapping.

Now many concepts that are non-sensual are critical components of our reality like love and free-will and faith. How would you explain that out of sensory experience we come to know such things in the first place?

Here is a trickier form of the same question...how does the human brain recognize that one red object and another red object are "the same color"? In examining how color perception is rooted in how the nervous system "samples" from the environment of the organism, how is the word red associated with and abstracted from the environment such that two otherwise unrelated objects share the sensory quality of being red?

My answer to that features what I would call intuition as a complementary opposite perceptual function to sensation and, in fact, essential to the linguistic ability of the human species to abstract into language the basic terms we use to describe the sensory world as we describe our reality.

 

[WalterTrull]

And where does this revelation get us?

While others are busy using exactly "the universe around us" to accomplish a great many things, due to the fact that we seem to find ourselves here and can use the material we come in (apparent) contact with to do a great many things that improve our various ways of life, what can someone who realizes this "great truth" of yours hope to do with the information? The point being, supposing there is some greater truth to our existence does not mean we have a "get out of jail free card" that we can use to escape the realities of this existence - and I would argue it poses no real "help" to our situation - but that examination of the material realm as we experience it has proven time and time again to be a worthwhile endeavor.

No question about past worthwhile endeavors. However, the more we learn about the nature of the universe, the more control we have over our lives. Learning that we did not ride on the back of a giant turtle did not change our daily lives much, but greatly expanded our horizons. Quantum study of collapsing the wave doesn’t change daily life much either, but the horizons moved much farther away. Continued study may erase them entirely. Learning that there is no “universe out there” changes nothing, just suggests new directions for study. It has been claimed that observation collapses the wave. I find that fascinatingly similar to “faith of a mustard seed”. There may be no “get out of jail free card”, but there are keys. We just have to find, then use them.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Right you are again showing how the senses are essential and foundational. Almost any organism has that foundation. But senses aren't what makes higher forms of life qualitatively more adaptable and able to change that reality from something you can only respond to but something you can more and more alter.

You're right also, of course... opposable thumbs also play a large part in what you're referencing.

Perhaps this is a defining characteristic of the human species or life in general that it can change reality to suit its needs. First a species has to have a community of knowers with a means to communicate. Language communities create knowledge and meaning. These communities define the realities we know today through those brain based linguistic systems. Different cultures have different levels of sensory differentiation, different experiences of temperature and weather, different educational levels. They collectively create different realities although arguably overlapping.

And none of that communication is at all possible without sensory input.

Now many concepts that are non-sensual are critical components of our reality like love and free-will and faith. How would you explain that out of sensory experience we come to know such things in the first place?

It seems self-evident to me. I'll break down each that you mentioned, and I could likely do the same for any other abstract concepts you want to put in front of me:

love - in the perceived world we find objects of our feelings/desire. Because we can see/hear/touch others, we know they exist, and because we receive material inputs like testosterone, norepinephrine and serotonin we have innate reasons to desire specific types of contact with others. Because we have that foundation of physical inputs, our amazingly powerful brain is able to rationalize and examine the qualia we receive from such inputs and make determinations and even predictions about them. And because we have the foundations of communication, we're able to stand on the shoulders of our forebears in the understanding of love, their feelings on it - which only further solidifies and fleshes out the feelings we ultimately experience.

free-will - Because we can witness others' behavior with our eyes, or hear about others' behavior from actual witnesses, we get a chance to contemplate why some do things when others do not. We come to recognize the agency of other people through our ability to witness and again, to communicate with one another about the reasons people do things, or are able to do things at all.

faith - We take for granted our senses, and we very likely feel that we will have them in all spheres of existence. We also see or hear about death, suffering, we know pain ourselves due to the signals sent through physical nerves and therefore are able to understand other being's plight. We question why these things occur. Had we never witnessed or heard about them... were we unable to communicate to one another these types of things... would we come to contemplate why suffering exists? We wouldn't even have the concept. Our will to live, inborn within us - hard-coded as a physical property of our brains, is constantly telling us that prolonging of life is paramount. Is it any wonder then that, upon witnessing death, people began to hope, or even demand that there be more beyond such an end?​

Here is a trickier form of the same question...how does the human brain recognize that one red object and another red object are "the same color"? In examining how color perception is rooted in how the nervous system "samples" from the environment of the organism, how is the word red associated with and abstracted from the environment such that two otherwise unrelated objects share the sensory quality of being red?

I don't feel this is particularly tricky either. Less complex "eyes" within the animal kingdom are found that do no more than interpret light vs. dark - and there are other slightly more complex eyes that distinguish less of the spectrum than we do. At some point our eyes were outfitted with the correct physical gear and nerves/receptors/transmitters that could distinguish a full range of color. No matter what "red" would have been for any of us, we would recognize and remember "red" - whatever it was. In fact, what I see as "red" and what you see as "red" could be completely different if we were able to see through one another's eyes! As a matter of fact, if I look out of my left eye, some colors are more vibrant than if I look at the same object using only my right! That proves right there that there can be differences in signal interpretation, delivery and interpretation. However, the one thing that DOES NOT CHANGE, is the wavelengths of light either of us would call "red." Both of us were introduced to and taught the word "red" to describe a particular wavelength of color bounced into ours eyes. Whether you see what I see is irrelevant, at that point, all that matters is that you associate the word "red" with those wavelengths (however your brain interprets them) and I also do the same. And then we have a shared concept of "red." And our memory is extremely powerful, and stores abstracts just as it does hard-and-fast memory. We're able to remember aspects and attributes as being separate from the objects they are applied to - which is simply another form of memory - not necessarily some "trick" or "magic."

My answer to that features what I would call intuition as a complementary opposite perceptual function to sensation and, in fact, essential to the linguistic ability of the human species to abstract into language the basic terms we use to describe the sensory world as we describe our reality.

I would agree that the mind's processes of storing information and memory on qualia/sensation is separate from the sensory organs and input themselves... but what does this prove? The sensory input is still necessary to do any sort of organization of the information in the first place. I would still say that without the sensory input, those abilities of the brain are completely useless.

 

[Khasekhemwy]

So, [by] what formula do you consider your experiences real regardless if others believe you or not?

In view of Vestigial’s post (quote below), does this business really admit a definition in a human language? Our relationship to the cosmos resembles that between subject and circumstantial clause in an English sentence, yet every English sentence centers about the subject and object of its verb. This creates problems even starting the discussion, much less bringing it to a conclusion.

Ancient Egyptians, beginning to apply the rebus principle to record the spoken word 5kya, ran into this fact: to name is to believe, a conundrum which only got worse as pen & ink evolved from labels for merchandise jars to legal texts composed in full subject-predicate form developing the paragraph to, circa 2000 BCE, the world’s first known written narrative, Shipwrecked Sailor (Papyrus Leningrad 1115), already a nested literature, a story within a story within a story, delivered in first, second and third person pronouns.

Read it in hieroglyphic transcription and English at

Mark-Jan Nederhof
University of St. Andrews
https://mjn.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/egyptian/texts/corpus/pdf/Shipwrecked.pdf

(The original 12th Dynasty document at the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia, was produced in a cursive handwriting called hieratic; the hieroglyphs we see carved on walls were used mostly for monuments or temples.)

I hate to bring linguistic considerations into the thread, yet because we talking animals have only this medium to communicate ideas from our privy minds one to another, I must do so. For contra postmodern thinking, the world depends neither upon the observer or that observer’s thoughts, nor, contra the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, upon the language she uses. To subscribe otherwise is to conflate descriptors with the realities they intend to represent.

In short, my experiences are real to me alone, as yours differ from mine. They’re as real to me if my neighbor discredits me as they are if he takes me honest. Yet I cannot claim personal experience to model reality beyond the extent to which mine correspond to the experiences of other people. For this we require measurables, things we can agree to qualify, quantify, and describe using a shared terminology. We agree roses are red, whatever the color sensation “red” means, as the physics and physiology of light guarantee we’ll all reckon pretty closely on the color of a flower we behold. Just don’t count on Mrs. Honeybee to join our chorus; she sees ultraviolets we do not, yet remains blind to the red we lavish.

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?

I suspect the problem not lack of people to talk to or things to talk about, or symbols to use, but of adequate descriptors to convey those elements of our privy minds which might carry meaning to our listeners. While I don’t know the situation of the organism Ulmus pumila regarding content of mind or ability to communicate such, it’s known that elms do in fact message neighbors. Once infested by elm bark beetles, Ulmus, by means of a signaling molecule carried by wind, “warns” nearby trees to stiffen their chemical defenses.

Hardly language in a human sense. But it’s got a subject, the second-person pronoun referring to the tree which receives the molecule, and an imperative verb with object, “stop beetles!” All it misses are the flexibility and abstraction humans are capable of, which this thread has alluded to. What I think you meant to say was is that each mind’s content is divided into privy and public with no way to categorize the privy. Of the inaccessible, we need only recall the day Thomas Nagel asked, “What is it like to be a bat?” English’s peculiar existence verb, used to make nominal sentences of identity or equation, invokes something privy unless its scope is confined to mathematics.

Yet Frege’s foundations of arithmetic quaked in 1931 when Kurt Gödel published his undecidability theorem. The category of all non-trivial theorems whose truth vale cannot be determined per Gödel is impossible to delimit; particular cases are so hard to find that the first came to light only in the 1970s. I propose a weak analogy to the privy in minds with this class of Gödelian theorems. What’s worse is although undecidability can be demonstrated in particular cases and we know that some unprovable theorems are true, we can’t know whether a particular undecidable theorem is actually true—no proof, no disproof!

Hence while I disagree seriously with you regarding ability to conceptualize and existence of targets for messages, you have like a shark scraped the surface of an underlying mystery. What is it like to be a bat? I don’t echolocate moths; Friend Batty never interprets the two-dimensional drawings I handle routinely. What do we share in common, our nexus of communication? All I could think of is to make a wooden bat box and nail it to a tree. The bats knew what it was and roosted in it, but I doubt they connected the structure with me. Identitarian conception in bats differs from mine; absent human words such as “craftsperson,” they recognize only social hierarchy of roostmates and distinguish their species from the clumsy, bushy-bearded critters like me which they avoid.

Thanks to the rest of this thread’s contributors. I read your posts, but can’t answer due to length limits. Student since 2012, I read Egyptian, currently working on the Coffin Texts. Ain’t we all gonna die someday?

 

[Sir Doom]

I try to work the problem backwards. Most people decide what god is then try to reconcile reality with that vision of God. I just look at reality and think about what sort of being might make this crazy place. My expectations are low.

 

[WalterTrull]

I try to work the problem backwards. Most people decide what god is then try to reconcile reality with that vision of God. I just look at reality and think about what sort of being might make this crazy place. My expectations are low.

Hoping you keep looking. Seems like you will.

 

[Sir Doom]

Hoping you keep looking. Seems like you will.

There is no end in sight. Until I find what I'm looking for or die. It's the journey that's important, after all.