h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Toxx -- an entry on reality is enormously tempting! More words on what words can't comprehend . . .

Male researcher -- ranibows are not subjective! Please read A954759 "Rainbows End - Fact and Fiction" and let me inow your response!

**Creeps quietly into a corner, in the hope of further education. (but has brought his "join the dots" book in case it`s all beyond him)**

It's all beyond me, too, Lurcher. Doesn't shut me up, though

I don't think there is *a* correct definition, toxx. There's a rather vague "general" definition which is then sharpened up a bit for particular purposes. A bit like reality.

Noggin

Noggin. You just wanna be Wittgenstein doncha? If terms are going to be quite so flexible, let's have your axioms for the fuzzy logic so entailed. Gonna be modal ain't it. If P, then (possibly) Q. OK, it does come in handy as a description of the real world. But are there any theorems that might come in useful?

Just happened to hear something about Druidry on 5 live in the form of one Mark McCabe. Guess Math is busy being Gandalf tonight.

toxx

RMan. 'Enormously daunting' too, I would have thought. Rainbows, shadows, that star 100 LY away. Reflections, visual illusions, psychological delusions. Let me know when Vol 1 of the series is published.

toxx

Reality? Bah, humbug. Sorry, just a seasonal response. Admitting to being deeply immersed in L W ( thanks to R'man's generous loan of the lazy reader's compact LW ...) and finding myself delighted by the way the said Wittgenstein neatly delineates the limits of language, and ( at the moment ) the "rules" by which we play the language game. Very tempting to just dump loads of his observations into this thread.

Anyway, back on track, an entry on reality???????? Daunting? Tempting? Challenging? Or futile? Just for laughs, consider the fact that the most ancient continuing philosophical tradition, that of Vedanta, refuses to consider as real anything that is subject to change. How about that for a basic criterion. And out of Vedanta came Buddhism in its various forms, whose philosophical stance, particularly in the early days, was, if anything, tougher.

And here, for form's sake, is a classic Buddhist quote....
"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form."

And another, em, not Buddhist in origin.

There was a faith-healer from Deal,
Who said, "Although pain is not real,
When I sit on a pin
And it punctures my skin
I dislike what I fancy I feel."

Well it's easy to knock reality but it sometimes does get up and bite us. An entry is a definite possibility, and it needn't be a tome. Will think over the hols. I can see the pitfall -- the temptation to spend all the time on unreality.

The Wittgenstein game I was thinking of when I mentioned the necessary tension between language and reality is the one with two people on the beach, one teaching the other a game where you mark out a grid, like a hopscotch frame, and throw a stone to land in one of the boxes. Fine. Then one player says "we needn't mark the grid, I know where it should be and I'll tell you whether you're in or out". The game collapses, because the necessary tension is broken when one person assumes the role of pronouncing reality. See A973343 "How to be infallible". This has a bearing on lots of arbitrary activity. You employ a judge, or a referee in soccer, but you don't pretend he has a hotline to the truth.

R'Man. How about a joint project on 'reality'? Each criticises the other and then suggests positive improvements. Just a sketch of how it might work. Wanna write a paragraph on another page, or shall I kick off?

toxx

PS. I think it should be public in the sense that any of those of a similar cast of mind might ask questions, make suggestions, slag us off.

toxx

<...refuses to consider as real anything that is subject to change.>

I, on the other hand, refuse to consider as real anything that is *not* subject to change.

Synthesis required.

Noggin

Noggin. Was is you who suggested or quoted that to be real is to be the value of a variable? In that case, we have a rather nice mini-topic to start us off. Is reality change or constancy or neither. I'll argue for the latter.

toxx

Not me. Originally WVO Quine, I think. My suggestion was that to exist was to be a cause.
What *doesn't* change is an abstract conserved quantity (of energy or cause/effect). That's background, though - the "what's necessary" of anything we might call reality. But though necessary, it's not sufficient.

Noggin

Yep, Nogg. Kinda thought it was good ole Willard. Here's a bit of a quibble for ya: if the effect isn't real, then the cause isn't real. Therefore all effects are real, or there are no causes and hence no reality! (Modus Tollens)

My logic may be at fault. I've just got through half a bottle of gin!

toxx

On the other hand, Nogg. Maybe you suggest some 'causes' that have all that is necessary, but not that which is sufficient to produce an effect. In that case, to call it a 'cause' surely has to be cheating. Or can you define a cause while at the same time stipulating that it has no effect?

Petard wielding, toxx

Sorry toxx. The "necessary but not sufficient" was referring to reality, rather than effects.

All effects are real in some sense, but the causes may not be what we think them to be. My Xmas prezzies are real, but Santa Claus isn't.

If a truly Objective (capital O) reality is unknowable, reality must always contain some subjective/intersubjective element, but this has to be limited in some way, or it's anything goes.

"Reality is the totality of the facts." And a fact is a fact only within some framework of explanation. So there seems to be some relation between reality and such frameworks.

Noggin

Noggin. OK, so just pick your framework and take your pick - or are there criteria for selecting a framework? If so, what are they and how do you justify them? Don't (you wouldn't) say that you need a framework to justify the framework! You know bloody well I'll call 'infinite regress' yet again.

toxx

As to your initial point. You say 'to be real is to be a cause' and I asked if there can be a cause without effects, which there could be if a cause was only necessary but not sufficient. Hence the reality of effects reflects back on the reality of the alleged causes. If the effect doesn't exist due to lack of sufficiency of cause, then the alleged cause is not a cause and therefore not real!

I'm afraid my entry would be disappointing to both Toxxin and Noggin. I think I'll just sit here drinking a naggin of my favourite toxin and watch you two boyos knock bits out of each other.

I came here to expand my mind
Not knowing quite what I would find
Alas it`s clear that what I seek
Is couched in language I can`t speak
Too late I realise that I
Have let far too much time slip by
To reason or to make suggestion
When I don`t understand the question
Leaving, with dignity intact
I wish you well, and that`s a fact.

Lurcher. It's never too late. You've kinda hit the heavy mob. There are some teenagers here who are really good, but not as well read as us oldies. Give us another chance. We are happy to communicate with folks at all levels of getting into the subject.

toxx

"You can believe something without ever having perceived it. 'The moon is made of green cheese'"-Toxxin post 654

Ahh, but faith in the unpercieved is not what I was refering to at all, but merely my own perceptions limiting what it is that I think of as real, as the other way verges on religious belief, which I already said wouldn't cut the mustard (as a person's religious faith is inviolate, if sometimes illogical) . Somehow I feel like you have proven my point with the 'blindsight' idea. It rather eloquently states why another's perception may be dubious, and have you looked about for psi-related phenomina? That could just as easily explain the blindsight as any other, seeing as we know virtually nothing of these things (workings of the brain, that is). So, as I ramble on and on, can you define what it is that is real without perception? Or at least confirming through multiple perceptions? I've given this a little thought (as I sip my fav gin, Tanq #10, rocks and a twist) and cannot come to a sensible conclusion.

Sneaky

Are electrons real? (I've never seen one)
Are colours real? (I see them all the time, but it seems they're Only in my mind)

toxx

Put that way I have to agree . But I was trying for something more subtle, in the way of social and psychological realities (for instance) which, while effects, are not so as simply as physical objects. What about delusions (or even fiction)? Definitely effects with causes, but their content is not considered to be reality.

Noggin