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

Hi P-C, been following the Dawkins discussion on the FFFF and came across a post of yours where you said:
"I see atheism as an immature and misguided response to an incomplete view of reality as it is for humans"

Obviously I understand there is no onus on you to explain that further, but I would be interested in hearing you expand upon this statement! If, on t'other hand, you'd rather not, then fair enough. I just wondered what had brought you to this conclusion.

Hi Ictoan,

I'll be entirely honest with you: I made that up on the spur of the moment, to try to illustrate what it's like to be publically insulted, and so forth. I assume you read enough of the thread to get the idea?

Insulting others is not something I make a habit of doing, and I wouldn't want to do so here....

However, I do (roughly! ) mean what I said, and would be pleased to explore the idea with you, provided we can do so politely, of course!

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

How rude of me!

Er, thanks for dropping by!

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

s'okay!
Yeah I think I understood the points, and although I reserve my judgement on the argument itself, I was interested in your views.

My first take on your statement would be that by "incomplete view of reality" you mean both that a) as humans we cannot perceive an object reality* and b) that we can't even really perceive anothers subjective view of reality+.

Since we have an incomplete view of reality then the atheist viewpoint (strong atheism assumed here) is misguided since it makes unsupportable assumptions (indeed, is more anti-theist and as such shares many of the same issues as theism).

'immature' I guessed was a slip of you mask of equanimity. Didn't see how it applied and was interested in why you chose that word. On the other hand, since many equate theism with a childish belief value then I can see that it can be equally applied to both theism and atheism.

* as humans we cannot perceive an object reality - indeed, even if we could perceive objective reality by some fluke, would we even know that that is what it was?

+ can't even really perceive anothers subjective view of reality - and since we cannot fully absorb/understand/'feel' anothers subjective reality we can't even uise a many viewpoints method to construct a common subjective reality which would be more 'objective' than any one individual subjective reality.

Hi Ictoan!

I'm not sure how much I can expand: you seem to have got my intended meaning pretty accurately, even down to the petulant swipe that was "immature"! However, there *was* an intended meaning behind the word:

It is my experience that the young somtimes make sweeping statements of certainty, not learning until they're older the merit of other views, and the impossibility of proving the validity of their own. Thus a declaration of strong atheism could be seen as immature...?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I think there is something to that. Although I'm not sure whether immaturity is necessarily the right term for it.

Thing is, certainty of beleif is considered, in some situations, as being a very strong trait. Indeed, in many areas of life it is important to have a strong beleif in something in order to make any headway. (I believe I have a job, I believe they will pay me this month, I believe it will be enough to pay my bills) Thus in every day life we may well ignore the fact that nothing we see, nothing we experience can be proven to exist. I think many people intrinsically know this, yet few would be willing to step in front of a speeding artic in order to test it. (not that it can be tested since there is no way to objectively prove that it was an artic that hit you and killed you).

Seems we must operate on two levels, on one level we accept that that which we see and experience is objective reality. It's there, it's that colour, in that place, moving at that speed. And it works very well.

Outside of that though we have the philosophical stance whereby there is only subjective reality and we can know nothing for certain. I think I am at the point of questioning this level of thought.

If we adopt a stance, a viewpoint if you will, that can teach us nothing, and can in fact invalidate that which was previously held to be objectively true, can remove from certainity things which have had a positive use to us so far, then is there really any worth to that viewpoint? If then the viewpoint has no worth (and that is a point well worth discussing) and can be got rid off, then that leaves us with a 'common sense' view of objective reality. I.e. we can junk the purely subjective world where nothing can be known as an intellectual curiosity and nothing more.

I'm just bouncing ideas here to see what response they provoke, so very interested if you wish to add anything.

Interesting post, but I'm a bit busy. I'll be back...

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

s'okay, it's a s*d trying to post on here at the moment anyway, nearly gave up on the above but as the alternative was doing some work I decided to persevere

I've seen this curious 'artic' response to the statement 'I can't prove that the universe isn't a figment of my imagination' before. I never understood it; perhaps you can enlighten me? It seems to me that the artic comment is a response to the statement 'I believe that the universe *is* a figment of my imagination'.

Just because I believe that I can't prove the universe isn't a figment of my imagination doesn't mean that I believe that the universe is a figment of my imagination.

Taking myself as an example, I don't believe I can prove the universe isn't a figment of anyone's imagination, but my guesstimate that the universe is objectively real (accepting this also can't be proved! ) is in excess of 99%. I wouldn't stand in front of the artic to test this, any more than I would play russian roulette with a gun with a million chambers, with only one empty!



Couldn't we operate on one level, which eschews the problems of objectivity by ignoring them, and works on the basis that many things are so probable that we can rely on them *without* pretending anything's certain? Trivial, in one sense, but good mental hygiene in another.

If we frame our words, even our thoughts, in terms of certainty (when we aren't actually certain), surely we will forget at some point, and start to believe/assume that these 'certainties' actually *are* certain? This could prevent us from recognising a new discovery: we failed even to look for it, because we knew for certain that our current understanding was correct.



I hope I just answered this point, yes?



Whoa! the 'purely subjective world' *I* know is one where nothing can be known *for certain*. There is much that can be known in *my* subjective world; the only stumbling block is the supposition of certainty. Something not certain is not necessarily random (chaotic)!

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

> I've seen this curious 'artic' response to the statement 'I can't
> prove that the universe isn't a figment of my imagination' before.
> I never understood it; perhaps you can enlighten me?

I suspect you understand well enough and are trying to get me to think more about this
In one way it is a way of looking at the subjective/objective argument and saying that although we can understand that our subjective reality is not the objective reality that we infer exists, there is a degree of crossover between the two such that it makes sense to assume that our subjective reality is a good enough approximation to objective reality for every day use, and thus that making the distinction between the two is an academic exercise that, whilst valid in and of itself, doesn't really help us much in our general lives.

>Just because I believe that I can't prove the universe isn't a
> figment of my imagination doesn't mean that I believe that the
> universe is a figment of my imagination.
Fair enough.

>Couldn't we operate on one level, which eschews the problems of
> objectivity by ignoring them, and works on the basis that many >things are so probable that we can rely on them *without* >pretending anything's certain? Trivial, in one sense, but good
> mental hygiene in another.

>>> nothing, and can in fact invalidate that which was previously
>>held to be objectively true, can remove from certainity things
>> which have had a positive use to us so far, then is there really
>> any worth to that viewpoint?>

>I hope I just answered this point, yes?

I think we are both making the same point here.

Taking this bit out of sequence deliberatly as it raises an issue I wish to discuss seperatly.
>If we frame our words, even our thoughts, in terms of certainty
> (when we aren't actually certain), surely we will forget at some
> point, and start to believe/assume that these 'certainties'
> actually *are* certain?
Whether we will start to assume certainty where none exists or not is perhaps an individual trait.
Whilst I agree that from a subjective pov there can only be limited certainty (there may well things that can be know for certain in such a reality) there are indeed, as I think we both mentioned earlier, things which we can treat 'as good as' certain. For the purposes of getting on in the world/learning about it/experimenting and so forth can we not class those as certainties, on the understanding that they aren't really but that it makes sense *for now* to treat them as such so that we can make further progress? I'd argue that this is in fact what we do (which goes back to the artic example).


>Whoa! the 'purely subjective world' *I* know is one where nothing
> can be known *for certain*.
You're right, that was badly phrased.

I think perhaps we need to define what order of concept subjective and objective reality are.
At the most basic I think that the relationship between the two should be defined, because there appear to be people who use the concepts in a manner which seems to define subjective reality as divorced totally from objective reality.
Whereas to my mind subjective reality (that's almost a conceptual pun isn't it?) is a subclass of objective reality. By this I mean it shares some elements with objective reality, and then adds some elements of its own to the mix.
I guess also that I come from the position that objective reality is that which is (whatever that might be) and thus those bits of subjective reality which are nor shared (or inherited from) objective reality are, by definition, *not*. They do not exist, or to put it more simply, are not real.

Subjective reality, to me, is a virtual world, which may have its own internal consistency, rules and truth, but they are only valid within that subjective world. They carry no weight outside it.

In general, I have nothing to disagree with here. But I still wonder why we need to bother with objectivity and certainty at all? Our (subjective) reality is the reality we perceive.

- We believe it is quite similar to the reality that a being with objective perceptions might perceive, but this belief is far from central to our lives! For a start, how many beings with objective perception do you interact with?

- To us, reality appears mostly consistent and rational, as it does to all beings except those with objective perception who *also* know all the rules/laws that govern this reality. And again, how many of the latter do you know?

We don't need to deal with the loss of certainty or objectivity: we never had them in the first place. We understand what they are, conceptually, but we know of no instances of them in the real world, do we? And we've managed without them since we crawled out of the slime, so we clearly don't need them.

In conclusion: the reality we perceive isn't second-best to a theoretical objective reality, it isn't 'nearly-as-good', it's what we have. It's *all* we have. Why do we need to continually remind ourselves that we don't have God's perspective on reality, for surely that's what we're discussing?



I split life, the universe and everything into four: bodyworld and mindworld, me and not-me (inside and outside, if you prefer). The bodyworld is the physical universe; all of space-time *except* minds, spirits, souls, supernatural creatures and the like. The mindworld comprises all of the latter which is real, or believed to be real.

Within these definitions, there is nothing in the bodyworld of which we can be certain. There *are* some things in the inside-mindworld of which we can be certain because we observe them directly, not via our fallible perceptions.



You mean we agree to pretend something we know isn't true, when 'highly likely' is true and sufficient for our needs? I can't see why we would do, or want to do, such a thing....



This might imply that science (and this is only an example! ) doesn't exist. It certainly () doesn't exist in the bodyworld, although the bodyworld is its subject and raison d'etre. Nowhere in the bodyworld is there a number "2", or a theory or law, and so on. And yet science is real; it exists. Since I'm sure this isn't what you were getting at, I'll stop here for you to come back in and comment.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

"But I still wonder why we need to bother with objectivity and certainty at all?"
Because it exists. It is there. Certainty is possible, just maybe not for us, as we are now.

"how many beings with objective perception do you interact with"
How would I know? Seriously though, I don't think that has any bearing on the issue, since my perception of such a being would be subjective and thus their testimony would be of no use.

>And we've managed without them since we crawled out of the slime,
>so we clearly don't need them.
But how can we tell? We survive perfectly well for most our species existenced without many things that we now have. Now we have them, we understand their usefulness.
Equally, there are things that we do have yet they appear to have no actual use.
I'd argue we do need it to be able to properly understand the universe as it is.

>In conclusion: the reality we perceive isn't second-best to a
> theoretical objective reality, it isn't 'nearly-as-good', it's
>what we have. It's *all* we have.
It's all we have at the moment. And it is second best, because it contains errors and ommissions. It means we cannot fully comprehend the universe, which includes ourselves.

>Why do we need to continually remind ourselves that we don't have
>God's perspective on reality, for surely that's what we're
>discussing?
I'd rather leave god(s) out of this. I don;t think it adds anything to the debate, and actually confuses things to some degree due to the extra questions it raises.
I don;t see it as a process of continually reminding oneself, rather a basic understanding of how things are. Maybe that is the point of the concept of objective reality and how subjective reality relates to it, in that by understanding that relationship one is reminded that certainty does not exist as part of the human condition. Maybe this would have a positive effect on the worldview of those who are certain of what the universe/reality is.

"This might imply that science (and this is only an example! ) doesn't exist. It certainly ( ) doesn't exist in the bodyworld, although the bodyworld is its subject and raison d'etre. Nowhere in the bodyworld is there a number "2", or a theory or law, and so on. And yet science is real; it exists."

Where in your 4 way split of reality do concepts reside?
Because 2, velocity, coordinates, algebra, beauty, honour, all exist as concepts. They undoubtedly do exist, yet none can be prodded or otherwise interacted with physically. They can perhaps be seen as properties of physical objects. But equally they can be properties of other non physical concepts.
Laws and theories on the other hand may or may not exist. If you mean what we refer to as scientific laws and theories, such as those you find in text books, then they are, by definition, approximations to reality. They model an objective reality which is very close to the universe as we perceive it. As such they have no objective existence.
If you mean the actual laws and rules that govern the objective universe then (assuming a rational universe) they again exist in a non physical manner, in a conceptual manner. All such laws do is to quantify, qualify and define the series of interactions that occur to get from state A to state B. Those interactions will occur whether or not someone has formulated the concept of the rules governing them. So it exists in an abstract manner, but not in a physical one.

I believe Plato and others did a lot of thinking about this, and I'm sure there have been lots of learned arguments about it in the time since (!), so forgive me if I fall into any obvious traps on this one. It's new territory to me as I haven't fully formulated my ideas on this before.

Hi Ictoan, and thanks! I haven't enjoyed a discussion so much for ages! I think it has to do with not having to field unsavoury comments from those who disagree, and are angry with it!



Prove it! Seriously: in the bodyworld, the best we can say is that certainty may be possible, but not for humans.



Agreed. My point is that we don't have objective perception. I see little value in a philosophy that revolves around a pov that we can't and don't have. I strive to come up with a philosophy that is directly of use to us: real people in (what we hope is) a real world. Is that so weird?



As it *is*? Once again, this isn't stating the facts as we know them. It's assuming the existence of a world that may exist, but which we can't perceive. What's the point?



Isn't that, of itself, an extremely valuable piece of information? It seems true, from our pov.... It's *comparable* (but not the same as) with what Godel taught us about logical systems: you can't have one without at least one axiom/assumption. That's valuable too.



In the mindworld, which contains much that is real, and much that may not be. Science, my example, exists (almost entirely) within the mindworld. It's real, though.



I suspect that these may be a myth created by humans!

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Will respond to the latest tomorrow, I can only do so much thinking each day (they expect me to work whilst I'm, would you credit it?).

But just to say:
"Hi Ictoan, and thanks! I haven't enjoyed a discussion so much for ages! I think it has to do with not having to field unsavoury comments from those who disagree, and are angry with it! "

Yes, makes a nice change doesn't it? I think it is the difference between people exchanging ideas and trying to further their understanding/thought process and those who merely wish to bash other people over the head with 'their' brand of 'the truth'. Like I say, I may disagree with many things you (that's an impersonal, general, 'you'!) might say, but that doesn't mean that I can't learn anything in the process of discussing it. And that's the bit I find fun

Agreed wholeheartedly. Talk tomorrow.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

>My point is that we don't have objective perception. I see little value in a philosophy that
>revolves around a pov that we can't and don't have. I strive to come up with a philosophy that is directly >of use to us: real people in (what we hope is) a real world. Is that so weird?
Not sure that the objective pov is something that we can't have. It seems that way, but I'm not yet prepared to say that it is that way. There is much yet to discover.

But either way a philosophy that is centred on objective reality would be of great use since it would be objectively true. Something to use as a yardstick, something would tell us immense amounts about our subjective world and the process that goes into making that world. But above all that it would be 'true', objectively so, unarguably so.

Damn weird Or at least the way you phrase it is. Because to me, ' real people in (what we hope is) a real world.' can only exist in an objective reality. Real people and real worlds do not exist in my subjective reality, only my perception of those people and that world exist there. And they may be totally wrong, which means any philosophy I come up with based on my subjective reality will be inherently wrong to some degree, and thus of no use to people, at best, and possibly actively downright dangerous to them at worst. In order to be of use to real people, you must deal with real reality. And that means objective reality.

>As it *is*? Once again, this isn't stating the facts as we know them. It's assuming the existence of a >world that may exist, but which we can't perceive. What's the point?

If there are facts, and we can know them, then there is an objective reality that we can in some form perceive. This goes back to the artic argument.
If on the other hand all there is is subjective reality with no objective reality (or only an objective reality that we cannot perceive) then there can be no facts that we can know and we then exist in what amounts to an irrational reality (be it subjective or otherwise).

>
>Isn't that, of itself, an extremely valuable piece of information? It seems true, from our p.o.v. .... It's >*comparable* (but not the same as) with what Godel taught us about logical systems: you can't have one >without at least one axiom/assumption. That's valuable too.
Useful? Hmmm, well, yes I guess so. If it is the case. But it is depressing too since it would mean that we could never know the truth of our existence, or even the universe we are in. We might as well give up trying to find out about the universe since some indeterminate proportion (possibly none, possible all, probably somewhere between the two) of what we find out will be cobblers. I.e. only subjectively true.

>In the mindworld, which contains much that is real, and much that may not be. Science, my example, exists
> (almost entirely) within the mindworld. It's real, though.
Seems your mindworld then is my conceptual reality. Things do not have to have a physical existence to be real. Conceptual/abstract existence is just as much a part of objective reality as the aforementioned artic.

>
>I suspect that these may be a myth created by humans!
I suspect otherwise I suspect that the objective universe is in fact highly rational. I'm working on something on this line though.

I'm beginning to get myself confused so feel free to cut this lot down if you so wish!

(p.s. can I just say that
"In the mindworld, which contains much that is real, and much that may not be."
would make a great first line to a sci/fi book )

As I understand it, we can't have an objective pov without objective perception. Do you *really* think this could happen? [If yes: based on what evidence? ] I prefer to face the world as it is, not as I think (wish) it should be. Come in and join me - the water's lovely!



Of great use to whom? Why someone with objective perception, of course! Of great use to humans? I can't see how.



Now lie down on my couch here and tell me: how long have you felt like this? Do you have any justification for these, er, feelings? Does it worry you that the world in which you seem to live may not be wholly knowable by you?



Now you're getting hung up on labels, yes? Real people exist in the world we perceive, as far as we know. The world is the world. Labels such as 'subjective' and 'objective' are imposed by humans. I think it is worth trying to look past the labels, and try to see what the real world looks like. Trying to force the world into a mould of our shaping seems unwise....



Oooh! Nasty one! Hmmmm. ... Let me try rephrasing what you said, and see if that helps:

Any philosophy I come up with based on my subjective reality could (not must! ) contain inaccuracies. Thus its use to people could be limited, at best, and dangerous at worst.

But the subject we're revolving around concerns our non-objective perception, and the consequences of this. Surely one of these consequences is that our philosophies (and all other products of our little grey cells) are incomplete at best? Its unavoidable, yes? [Unless we pretend we can perceive like God can (or could if She existed), and develop a philosophy based on the pov of a being we've never met the like of, and are never likely to....]

Like I said:









And your point is...?



'Objective reality'? Surely just 'reality' states the facts as we know them to be? Quibbling aside, I agree.







And you could be right. But 'rational' is a label, and the real world may or may not see fit to conform to it! The real world is what it is.

Enough for now. Looking forward to your next post.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

>As I understand it, we can't have an objective pov without
>objective perception. Do you
>*really* think this could happen? [If yes: based on what
> evidence? ] I prefer to face the
>world as it is, not as I think (wish) it should be.

"the world as it is"? As it is where? In your subjective reality, my subjective reality or in true objective reality?
In my reality (and, I suspect, the subjective reality of most human beings) how we perceive the world is not known. No one knows what path the information takes to get from point of perception to our internal world view. No one knows for definite how our internal representation of the world works, or even what it is. Current theories assume it is subjective representation. But that doesn’t mean it is. With greater knowledge of these things who knows what we may discover?
Do I think it is possible? How about I do not think it is impossible. And the evidence I have for this is as good as the evidenced that it is impossible

"Come in and join me - the water's lovely!"
I would, but I prefer to know what lurks beneath the surface first.

>great use…>
>Of great use to whom? … Of great use >to humans? I can't see how.
Because it would reveal the inaccuracies in ones subjective realities. Do you not think would be a useful thing?

exist in an objective reality>
>>Now lie down on my couch here and tell me: how long have you felt > like this? Do you have any justification for these, er, feelings? Not sure what your problem with this is. It is by definition. Objective reality is that which is really real, with no subjective overtones. Therefore real people are people as they really are, with no subjective overtones. If they have no subjective overtones then they cannot exist in our subjective reality. What we perceive as people are the real people overlaid with our subjective filters.

> Does it worry you that the world in which you seem to live may not
> be wholly knowable by you?
Yes.

>Now you're getting hung up on labels, yes? Real people exist in the
>world we perceive, as far as we know. The world is the world.
>Labels such as 'subjective' and 'objective' are >imposed by humans.
Ah, but this invalidates the entire debate we have been having. By doing this you throw out the concepts of subjective/objective and go back to what some may call the ‘common sense’ view of reality which is that that which we see is that which is. Yet this is demonstrably not true. What you perceive is not necessarily what actually is.
We can label things or not, but what remains is that between ‘you’ and the ‘the world’ is a whole load of processing. You do not perceive the world directly. Therefore whilst it may be arbitrary which words we use to distinguish whether we talk about the unprocessed, raw reality or the pre-processed/overlaid reality, they are both concepts which are valid. One of them may even be physically real.

> I think it is worth trying to look past the labels, and try to see
> what the real world looks like.
Thought we’d agreed that this is something that we, as humans, can’t do (but disagreed as to whether it is something we can never do). But having said that, trying to see what the real world looks like is what I am trying to do.

>Trying to force the world into a mould of our shaping seems
>unwise....
But equally not trying to understand it, to say it just *is* and that we can never understand it is to deny ourselves the possibility of greater understanding and knowledge. To some extent we must attempt to put the world into a mould, just to see if it fits. And if it doesn’t, or some bits don’t, then that needs revision.

>since some indeterminate >proportion of what we find out will be >cobblers.>
>And your point is...?
My point is that this is not a satisfactory position to take, for me. Which is why I keep waffling on in this conversation, trying to elicit some germ of truth through discussion and debate.

>'Objective reality'? Surely just 'reality' states the facts as we
> know them to be? Quibbling aside, I agree.
Ah, but I am making a specific distinction between things that are actually real and things that I merely perceive as real. I think this is an important distinction to make.

>And you could be right. But 'rational' is a label, and the real
> world may or may not see fit to conform to it! The real world is
> what it is.
But that shouldn’t stop us trying to find out. "What it is" is what I want to find out!
Indeed, this is an area where it is very easy to fall into the Intelligent Design pitfall of ‘I cannot conceive of something like that, therefore it doesn’t work that way’. Yet I have to concede that this may be the case. We cannot state definitively that it doesn’t.

But this is getting too close to the ‘we can’t know anything’. So, given the proviso that anything that we think we know may turn out to be erroneous (which we can use to ensure we never take ourselves too seriously and always look for new explanations that may be better), we have to start our investigation into what objective reality actually is from somewhere. To me, the most obvious place to start is from shared, or common, subjective reality components. And move on from there to reliably predictable subjective reality components. I choose this as these are the most probable to actually be components of objective reality incorporated into our subjective reality with the least filtering and overlaying.

BTW: "how long have you felt like this?" usually for as long as it took to reply. I'm winging it here, which I find is an interesting way to explore concepts. Don't take anything of the above as a hard and fast belief or certainty of mine. Some may be dearly held concepts, some may be new ideas (to me) that I decide to keep, but none is expempt from revision.

I find I've been swaying between two different veils over our perception without realising it. One is our lack of objective perception; the other is a map-territory thing. Part of our perceptive process is to 'import' our raw sense data into our world model, putting it 'into context'. One consequence of this is that we can easily become confused between artifacts of our internal mindworld and those of the real world. Specifically, this is what I've been referring to when I've talked about 'labels'.

We can and should strive to see the world as it is, in the sense of distinguishing our own concepts and labels - mindworld things - from things that exist in the bodyworld.

It would be nice if we could see the world as it is in an objective sense too, but I see no possibility of this. We know from our observations that human perception - or our memory of what we perceived - is sometimes wrong. And when it is, the person who has misperceived has no idea that anything has gone wrong. Not only do our senses deceive us on occasion, but we can't tell when it's happened. I can see no possibility of any improvement here.

It is for this reason that I have tried to face the world as I believe it to be, and see if I can come up with a sensible and honest way of dealing with it. I can't be certain of anything in the bodyworld, but I can make estimates of probability, and these are quite sufficient for our purposes: our continuing ability to live and prosper in the real world shows this.

The loss of certainty and objectivity is really no loss at all. That I once thought we had them was a misapprehension on my part; I have lost nothing, only come to see what is. We have always lived in their absence, therefore I conclude that we can probably continue to do so.

<"the world as it is"? As it is where? In your subjective reality, my subjective reality or in true objective reality?>

First, I think referring to "true objective reality" can only serve to confuse. We cannot confirm even its very existence to objective standards. Yes, the existence of such a world seems likely based on our experience of living in the real world, and we can and do use this to help us along. But objectivity revolves around and requires certainty, and that (as regards the bodyworld) is denied to us. If you can't prove its existence, then I think making it the primary reference - "true objective reality" - can only serve to confuse and mislead.





Oh there's just me, and a few others. ... oh, and a few fish. Life is many things, but 'safe' isn't often one of them.



And I would agree, if we had any means at all to distinguish between them. As it is, we don't, so my preference is to move away from a question that clearly can't be answered, and concentrate on things that might yield useful results.

Enough for now. I'm still thoroughly enjoying this chat. Anything you read which might seem discourteous is unintended! The same applies if I should seem to be sermonising! I'm just winging it, like you, and not taking *too* much care to consider every word and thought.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

This has been a very interesting discussion, especially as you seem to treat it in much the same way that I have been doing so. I wonder how much we're getting lurked?

It's certainly helped me to clarify some of my thoughts.

"not taking *too* much care to consider every word and thought."
Sounds about right

Our perceptions of our environment are limited to some (indeterminate) degree by the processing and interfaces that are necessary to bridge the gap between the real physical/conceptual world and out internal representation of it.
However our minds and processing functions are not limited to that which we perceive. Our internal world is not restricted by the perceived subjective world. We can imagine, we can extrapolate and infer. Indeed, often the world we perceive can seem less innovative and exciting (less real) to people than that which they can construct in their minds. Equally, there is no suggestion that our subjective reality is made up completely of subjective objects. Thus some amount of what we perceive will be objective.

We can, as you say, use probabilities. We can use shared perception, although there is still the risk of mass delusion. So this method must be backed up by others.
Common perception says the sun is a big yellow thing in the sky. Studies of our eyes reveal the limits of our perception of electromagnetic radiation. Studies of the sun reveal the predominant wavelength of light emitted by it within the parameters that our eyes can perceive. It corresponds to yellow.
We can use devices and machines to measure it's distance and relation to ourselves. Thus we can corroborate that it is indeed a big yellow thing in the sky.
Using this information we can make predictions, and it does indeed conform to them.
Thus we can infer and extrapolate from the subjective to the objective.

Of course there is still the subjective Sun which is happy, or a god or whatever. But we can see behind that cover to the real sun. It could be argued that this is still subjective. Or at least could be.

But if we are to escape from the 'Nothing can be known for certain' then we have to make some basic assumption(s).

Personally, I can think of little that is of more importance to human beings, self aware thinking beings that we are, than objective reality. It is of necessity a key part of who we are, what we are and why we are. It affects us all the time. And if we don't understand it then how can we ever hope to explain the effects it causes?

I think our differences are in how we choose to approach the problem of subjectivity. For a start, I don't think you necessarily see it as a problem. From my pov it is. Your argument seems to be to try and cope with the symptoms, whereas I want to find the cause. (to put it very crudely!).