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What Is 'Real?'

Mindmaster

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
How can one trust that these are, indeed, real? How do you know you won't wake up from this reality into a 'real' one?

They're not. Your brain and senses establish your reality, but and reality doesn't exist without them. This means they're actually active in the creation of your perception of the world. However, that being said, it's well known that every single one of these senses and even your mind can be tricked. (If it weren't the case, magicians wouldn't be making very much money, lol.) The only truth in this is that your perceptions may be similar to someone else's and via consensus, we might come to agree on a few rules to engage with those objects. But, funny enough, it's hard to say anyone's perceptions are exactly the same as your own. We take it for granted most of the time.

Thus, fundamentally we're unable to actually establish the reality of something through our own mechanisms because all we are capable of witnessing is our own thoughts reflecting on these inputs. We create input (through body senses) and complimentary thoughts -- we create all of it, basically. If we've created it then it's not fundamentally real, it's just sort of our idea of what is real. Is Schrödinger's cat still alive or not? You can't know without the perception of it, so what's real is basically just all in your head.

Reality (capital R) must override our senses, and fundamentally exist regardless of our impressions, thus it can't fundamentally exist in a universe which is governed by them. Governed is the proper term, and modern quantum science concurs with this understanding. There are several experiments where the fact of observing a result changed an outcome.
 

questfortruth

Well-Known Member
what 'real' is
Real is all that, what comes from God. Namely, God is the Spirit. All that comes from God is the Spirit of God. From God comes Love, thus, the Spirit of Love is God. From God comes Existence, thus, the Spirit of Existence is God. Therefore, God exists, because He is Existence Himself. The Lucifer has lost the gift of Existence and became satan, the evil spirit, who does not exist.
 

King Phenomenon

Well-Known Member
In another (non-debate) thread, it was asked what 'real' is. A response to that question was the Google dictionary definition, "actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed."

How can one be certain something is real given that definition? I'm fairly certain nearly everyone has had dreams that, while dreaming, they thought were real until they awoke.

What one perceives is merely a model resulting from sense organs that create electrical signals as interpreted by the brain. How can one trust that these are, indeed, real? How do you know you won't wake up from this reality into a 'real' one?
For me questioning what is real would fall into a spiritual category
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
I said nothing about having a 'true model'. I required a *minimal, predictive* model. And, furthermore, if there is more than one such model, then I only consider what all of them agree to.

I have a model that is minimal and predictive. When we debate what "real" really is, everybody will end up using a subjective definition based on cognition and not observation.
I have tested that for years now and nobody including you have mean able to do it as objective as per 1a, 2a and 2b:
Definition of OBJECTIVE

I do understand what test and replicate means. I just sometimes test, if it is subjective and yes, you can learn that. But you can't learned it, if you insist that all tests for them to be tests must be scientific. And as long as you don't actually realize that you insisting is subjective, then we will go in circles.
 

shivsomashekhar

Well-Known Member
Real is all that, what comes from God. Namely, God is the Spirit. All that comes from God is the Spirit of God. From God comes Love, thus, the Spirit of Love is God. From God comes Existence, thus, the Spirit of Existence is God. Therefore, God exists, because He is Existence Himself. The Lucifer has lost the gift of Existence and became satan, the evil spirit, who does not exist.

Is Santa Claus real?
 

shivsomashekhar

Well-Known Member
Real is all that, what comes from God. Namely, God is the Spirit. All that comes from God is the Spirit of God. From God comes Love, thus, the Spirit of Love is God. From God comes Existence, thus, the Spirit of Existence is God. Therefore, God exists, because He is Existence Himself. The Lucifer has lost the gift of Existence and became satan, the evil spirit, who does not exist.

Is Santa Claus real?
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Real is all that, what comes from God. Namely, God is the Spirit. All that comes from God is the Spirit of God. From God comes Love, thus, the Spirit of Love is God. From God comes Existence, thus, the Spirit of Existence is God. Therefore, God exists, because He is Existence Himself. The Lucifer has lost the gift of Existence and became satan, the evil spirit, who does not exist.

Yet "The Lucifer has lost the gift of Existence and became satan, the evil spirit, who does not exist" that is really unreal and that is a real unreal.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
I have a model that is minimal and predictive. When we debate what "real" really is, everybody will end up using a subjective definition based on cognition and not observation.
I have tested that for years now and nobody including you have mean able to do it as objective as per 1a, 2a and 2b:
Definition of OBJECTIVE

I do understand what test and replicate means. I just sometimes test, if it is subjective and yes, you can learn that. But you can't learned it, if you insist that all tests for them to be tests must be scientific. And as long as you don't actually realize that you insisting is subjective, then we will go in circles.

OK, but that is not predictive of, say, what the results will be for the decay of a proton.

I guess I should have said 'maximally predictive'.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
OK, but that is not predictive of, say, what the results will be for the decay of a proton.

I guess I should have said 'maximally predictive'.

Yeah, and I guess, I shouldn't point out that you are still subjective. 'Maximally predictive' is still you subjectively as only accepting scientific tests and you are unwilling to test, if that has a limit, because that is in effect subjectively nonsense to you. But that is not relevant to you, because it works for you to deny that the world has in effect an irreducible subjective element.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
Yeah, and I guess, I shouldn't point out that you are still subjective. 'Maximally predictive' is still you subjectively as only accepting scientific tests and you are unwilling to test, if that has a limit, because that is in effect subjectively nonsense to you. But that is not relevant to you, because it works for you to deny that the world has in effect an irreducible subjective element.

I agree that there is a subjective element. i just don't agree that it is irreducible
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
I agree that there is a subjective element. i just don't agree that it is irreducible

Then reduce away that you don't agree. That is the test. You can test it right now. And you can get the result. But because the outcome is subjective, it is not science, yet it is real. :D
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
In another (non-debate) thread, it was asked what 'real' is. A response to that question was the Google dictionary definition, "actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed."

How can one be certain something is real given that definition? I'm fairly certain nearly everyone has had dreams that, while dreaming, they thought were real until they awoke.

What one perceives is merely a model resulting from sense organs that create electrical signals as interpreted by the brain. How can one trust that these are, indeed, real? How do you know you won't wake up from this reality into a 'real' one?

Generally whatever to the best of my knowledge actually exists. Usually something I am able to convince someone else exists.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Generally whatever to the best of my knowledge actually exists. Usually something I am able to convince someone else exists.

You don't have knowledge in the strong sense. You have a set of beliefs, which in the end is without proof, evidence, logic and what not. But that is not unique to you. I just happen to be able to test that, because I am a skeptic.
 

Yazata

Active Member
In another (non-debate) thread, it was asked what 'real' is. A response to that question was the Google dictionary definition, "actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed."

It's a hugely difficult philosophical question. Interestingly, while all of us use the word 'real' all the time, few of us can provide a satisfactory explanation of what it means. I'm doubtful that I can, but that won't prevent me from taking a shot.

I think that I would approach it through the objective-subjective distinction.

Something is objective if it's true of the reality that we all share. But if I say that something is subjectively true, I'm basically talking about myself and not the wider world around me. If an objective truth is true for me, then it will be true for you too. (Physical reality seems to be like that. Arguably mathematical truths as well.) But if a subjective truth is true for me, it needn't be true for you. (Most of our value judgments are like that.)

So, to call something 'real' means that in our opinion it falls on the objective side of that distinction.

In philosophy this is the province of ontology.

Ontology - Wikipedia

How can one be certain something is real given that definition? I'm fairly certain nearly everyone has had dreams that, while dreaming, they thought were real until they awoke.

Now we've moved from ontology to epistemology.

Epistemology - Wikipedia

I'm not convinced that human beings can know the truth of any proposition with 100% certainty, without any possibility of being wrong. So we probably can't ever be absolutely certain what is and isn't real. But we mustn't interpret that to mean that any belief is as good as any other.

Instead of each proposition having just one of two truth-values, True or False, it seems more realistic to me to assign them plausibility weights (often assigned intuitively and informally) in a fuzzy logic scheme.

Fuzzy logic - Wikipedia
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
It's a hugely difficult philosophical question. Interestingly, while all of us use the word 'real' all the time, few of us can provide a satisfactory explanation of what it means. I'm doubtful that I can, but that won't prevent me from taking a shot.

I think that I would approach it through the objective-subjective distinction.

Something is objective if it's true of the reality that we all share. But if I say that something is subjectively true, I'm basically talking about myself and not the wider world around me. If an objective truth is true for me, then it will be true for you too. (Physical reality seems to be like that. Arguably mathematical truths as well.) But if a subjective truth is true for me, it needn't be true for you. (Most of our value judgments are like that.)

So, to call something 'real' means that in our opinion it falls on the objective side of that distinction.

In philosophy this is the province of ontology.

Ontology - Wikipedia



Now we've moved from ontology to epistemology.

Epistemology - Wikipedia

I'm not convinced that human beings can know the truth of any proposition with 100% certainty, without any possibility of being wrong. So we probably can't ever be absolutely certain what is and isn't real. But we mustn't interpret that to mean that any belief is as good as any other.

Instead of each proposition having just one of two truth-values, True of False, it seems more realistic to me to assign them plausibility weights (often assigned intuitively and informally) in a fuzzy logic scheme.

Fuzzy logic - Wikipedia

You are on to something.
A few nitpicks. Math is both objective and subjective, just so for different versions of objective and subjective.
Now for 100% certainty, you might enjoy these sites:
Cognitive Relativism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/

They are "better" than Wiki.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
You don't have knowledge in the strong sense. You have a set of beliefs, which in the end is without proof, evidence, logic and what not. But that is not unique to you. I just happen to be able to test that, because I am a skeptic.

Sure if we both agree something is real then there is a greater likelihood of its actual existence. Still no guarantee. Personally, I'm fine with working with that level of likelihood.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Sure if we both agree something is real then there is a greater likelihood of its actual existence. Still no guarantee. Personally, I'm fine with working with that level of likelihood.

No, not if you look closer. Nobody in effect have solved epistemological solipsism. That is connect to how science is methodological naturalism and not metaphysical/philosophical naturalism.

BTW the word "exist" is no different than the word "God". Both have no objective referent. You either believe in them or not.
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
What Is 'Real?'

(Well I'll give my Advaita Vedanta answer)

'Brahman Alone is Real'


Brahman is the pure infinite Consciousness that is the ground of all else. The universe is then all Maya (illusion). The universe is a cosmic play/drama of Brahman and not permanent or real in the most ultimate sense.

 
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