The Case Against Reality - Dr. Hoffman

[Veritas Aequitas]

Re "I don’t believe anything exists" meant exists are really-real independently or a thing-in-itself.

Obviously things exist as empirically-real, i.e. an oncoming train on the track one is standing on is empirically real.
Thus one will have to jump off the track upon seeing the oncoming empirically-real train.

"Obviously?" You mean you can establish that just by observation?

What is the difference between, "empirically-real," and, "really-real?" You have to admit that it is unusual usage, don't you think? Doesn't, "real," usually mean that which actually is versus that which is only imagined or made-up (fiction)? Eagles exist, but phoenix only exist as mythical birds of ancient Egypt. (Not sure if phoenix can be a plural, perhaps it should be phoenixes.)

So how would you classify the phoenix? It certainly doesn't exist "empirically," I would think, and I'm sure its not what you call, "really-real." Do we have three classes of real?

I may not actually disagree with you, but I'd have to know how your are differentiating what you call empirically-real from really-real.

What is empirically-real is the reality that can be observed and verified. The most notable of this is via Science.

• Empirical evidence is the information received by means of the senses, particularly by observation and documentation of patterns and behavior through experimentation.[1] The term comes from the Greek word for experience, ἐμπειρία (empeiría).
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empirical_evidence

What is empirically-real is conditioned by human observations, testings and verification. Hume was the most notable empiricist philosopher.

What is claimed as really-real is that thing which is not conditioned by human observations, testings and verification. This is the view of the Philosophical Realists. Kant labelled this as the noumenon and thing-in-itself.

• In metaphysics, [Philosophical] Realism about a given object is the view that this object exists in reality independently of our conceptual scheme. In philosophical terms, these objects are ontologically independent of someone's conceptual scheme, perceptions, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism

The extreme of this view are that of the theists who claim a real God exists as an ultimate Being that is ontological independent of the human conceptual scheme, perceptions, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc.

Yes, eagles exist because they can be observed and verified empirically by the relevant scientists.

Since a phoenix have not been observed and verified, the question is how one define what is a 'phoenix'.
If a 'phoenix' is defined with full empirical elements [without the fictional elements of rising from ashes], then it is empirically possible to exists.
If one can bring the evidence of a real phoenix where all its empirical elements then it can be observed and verified by the relevant scientists to confirm its real existence.

If a phoenix is defined as a full empirical bird that can rise from its ashes after being completely burnt, such a phoenix is still possible. But then one will have to bring the evidences to justify such a miracle as real.
Because it is fully empirical, we have to concede it is empirically-possible, but the probability of such a reality according to present knowledge, is almost ZERO.

But if someone were to define his 'phoenix' as having a square-circle [or of some contradiction], this is outright impossible empirically, because a square-circle is empirically impossible to start with.

This is what happened with the idea of God.
The idea of the ultimate God is non-empirical -the ontological God.
Therefore it is impossible for God to exists as real empirically and philosophically.

But if someone insist his God is fully empirical, e.g. bearded man in the sky, monkey God [hanuman], and of whatever empirical attributes, then the onus is on the claimant to bring the full empirical-laden God for observation, testing and verification by the relevant scientists and others to confirm such an empirical god exists.
But we know such an empirical god which is conceded to be empirically possible, has ZERO possibility to be confirmed as real.

This is what happened with Richard Dawkins who is so strict and rigid with empiricism [as a Scientist] that he has to concede God has a 1/7 possibility of empirical existence, but he nevertheless insist [intuitively] it is not probable at all.

[Atla]

Straw-man!!
I don't believe in the absolute, i.e. the absolutely-absolute.
What is most realistic is mind-interdependent.

No, you believe in an absolute form of mind-dependence and call it interdependence. It's a destructive, some would say malignant position.

The correct view is of course neither mind-dependence nor mind-independence, but that the (real) human mind is continuous with the (real) world 'out there'. It's just that the world 'out there' can't be directly percieved in any way, shape or form (because we always experience the inside of our own head).

If the human mind is continuous with the world 'out there' - that is where the concept of 'interdependence' is applicable.

It is the same if you use the term "(real)" for whatever, they are interdependent with the human mind.

Stop lying, continuous does not mean interdependent. It doesn't mean any of this emergent bullshit or any of this case against reality.

[Veritas Aequitas]

We are minds interacting through a substance called physical. Physical is not an illusion though. So I partially agree with Kant.

Kant did not agree with 'substance theory' or 'physical' as you label it.

• Substance theory, or substance–attribute theory, is an ontological theory about objecthood positing that a substance is distinct from its properties. A thing-in-itself is a property-bearer that must be distinguished from the properties it bears.[1]
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_theory
  
  Criticisms:
  The idea of substance was famously critiqued by David Hume,[36][citation needed] who held that since substance cannot be perceived, it should not be assumed to exist.
  But the claim that substance cannot be perceived is neither clear nor obvious, and neither is the implication obvious.[according to whom?]
  In direct opposition to substance theory is bundle theory [Hume's], whose most basic premise is that all concrete particulars are merely constructions or 'bundles' of attributes or qualitative properties:
  
  Friedrich Nietzsche, and after him Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze also rejected the notion of "substance", and in the same movement the concept of subject - seeing both concepts as holdovers from Platonic idealism.

[Veritas Aequitas]

No, you believe in an absolute form of mind-dependence and call it interdependence. It's a destructive, some would say malignant position.

The correct view is of course neither mind-dependence nor mind-independence, but that the (real) human mind is continuous with the (real) world 'out there'. It's just that the world 'out there' can't be directly percieved in any way, shape or form (because we always experience the inside of our own head).

If the human mind is continuous with the world 'out there' - that is where the concept of 'interdependence' is applicable.

It is the same if you use the term "(real)" for whatever, they are interdependent with the human mind.

Stop lying, continuous does not mean interdependent. It doesn't mean any of this emergent bullshit or any of this case against reality.

If you do not agree with 'interdependent' then it is inter-related.
Note Chaos Theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

I insist it is 'interdependent' in matters of degrees but I am not wasting time convincing you of it.

[Atla]

If the human mind is continuous with the world 'out there' - that is where the concept of 'interdependence' is applicable.

It is the same if you use the term "(real)" for whatever, they are interdependent with the human mind.

Stop lying, continuous does not mean interdependent. It doesn't mean any of this emergent bullshit or any of this case against reality.

If you do not agree with 'interdependent' then it is inter-related.
Note Chaos Theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

I insist it is 'interdependent' in matters of degrees but I am not wasting time convincing you of it.

No, it's not inter-related, and Chaos theory has nothing to do with it.
Get your head out of your ass already.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Stop lying, continuous does not mean interdependent. It doesn't mean any of this emergent bullshit or any of this case against reality.

If you do not agree with 'interdependent' then it is inter-related.
Note Chaos Theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

I insist it is 'interdependent' in matters of degrees but I am not wasting time convincing you of it.

No, it's not inter-related, and Chaos theory has nothing to do with it.
Get your head out of your ass already.

To you,
Get your head out of your ass already.

[RCSaunders]

I'm absolutely as certain (of those things and others) as I need to be.

Well, that's what I expected.

But, in deference to my Robot Overlord, I accept some minuscule possibility that I'm, for example, a disembodied brain, maintained in a jar in a Cleveland lab, bein' fed impressions of an apple through embedded copper wires. The possibility doesn't keep me up at night, though.

Certainty doesn't require omniscience or infallibility, else we'd never be able to learn anything knew or have to think to make a choice.

[RCSaunders]

...
I may not actually disagree with you, but I'd have to know how your are differentiating what you call empirically-real from really-real.

What is empirically-real is the reality that can be observed and verified. The most notable of this is via Science.

• Empirical evidence is the information received by means of the senses, particularly by observation and documentation of patterns and behavior through experimentation.[1] The term comes from the Greek word for experience, ἐμπειρία (empeiría).
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empirical_evidence

What is empirically-real is conditioned by human observations, testings and verification. Hume was the most notable empiricist philosopher.

What is claimed as really-real is that thing which is not conditioned by human observations, testings and verification. This is the view of the Philosophical Realists. Kant labelled this as the noumenon and thing-in-itself. ...

We may not have that much of a disagreement then. I made the mistake of thinking you were using, "real," in the everyday sense of what is actually so verses make-believe, but if I understand your explanation you use, "empirically-real," to mean actual existence and, "really-real," in the Platonic realism sense of some kind of mystical ineffable reality behind the existence actually experienced.

I do not agree that, "What is empirically-real is, "conditioned," by human observations, testings and verification." If by, "empirically-real," you mean the existence that we see, hear, feel, smell, and taste, it is not, "conditioned," by human observation. What I mean by reality is all that is and has the nature it has whether anyone is conscious of or knows what that existence is or what its nature is or not. What human observation, testing, and verification do is, "discover," (gain knowledge about) that existence and its nature. They do not make it or condition it. Reality is what it is and has the nature it has whether any human ever observes, tests, or verifies it.

This may not be your view, so I'd be interested in how different it is from yours.

[Skepdick]

1. E is a subset of O ( O is a superset of E)
2. There is an intersection between O and E (they are adjoint)
3. There is no intersection between O and E (they are disjoint)
4. There is a complete overlap between O and E (there is 1:1 correspondence)

Which one best describes your conception?

None of the above.

My bad. I thought the list was exhaustive, but obviously I was wrong.

Care to add the missing option which accurately represents your view?

[henry quirk]

"When one mistaken a length of rope for a real snake, says a lot that one had been duped as to what is real."

When Penn & Teller transform a snake into rope, or vice versa, I've been duped (in a most entertaining way).

When I, because of poor lighting, mistake a rope for a snake, or vice versa, I've made a mistake.

Either way: I don't get all doubt-ridden about the realness of snakes or ropes. In the first case, I applaud P & T for their clever misdirection; in the second, I kick myself for bein' an idiot.

#

"Thus the question to ask is, are you also duped when you see and hold on to the 'real solid rope'."

No. I go to Ace Hardware, buy myself some nice nylon rope, then hang myself in despair that folks like Hoffman are actually taken seriously. The rope, its realness, is never in question. The only question: can I hang myself so that I kick quick, or am I gonna hang there twitchin' for ten minutes as I suffocate?

#

"A higher reality of the rope would be what materials the rope are made of and how many strands and how they are constructed to form the rope. Surely this fact has a higher degree of realness than the realness of just being a rope."

None of that is a higher reality. That there is the constituents of the rope, its foundation, none of which I have to be familiar with to recognize the rope as rope, or to use the rope to end my snakeoil salesman inspired despair.

The rope is real, it exists independent of me, its realness is independent of my familiarity with its constituents (nylon, hemp, old lady hair: I'm gonna swing at the end of it just the same).

[henry quirk]

I'm absolutely as certain (of those things and others) as I need to be.

Well, that's what I expected.

But, in deference to my Robot Overlord, I accept some minuscule possibility that I'm, for example, a disembodied brain, maintained in a jar in a Cleveland lab, bein' fed impressions of an apple through embedded copper wires. The possibility doesn't keep me up at night, though.

Certainty doesn't require omniscience or infallibility, else we'd never be able to learn anything knew or have to think to make a choice.

Don't worry, RC, I haven't flitted over to the side of anti-realism or skepticism

And: I agree. I'm just sayin' there's some small, niggly, lil chance that mebbe I'm wrong. As I say, I don't lose sleep over it, don't second guess myself or Reality over it, don't even think about it till I run across snakeoil sellers and snakeoil buyers.

[commonsense]

RC,

I like Common. He's just about my favorite Robot Overlord. He knows this and so won't be too offended when I say: he's fuckin' with you in a LARGE way. He'll cobble up an objection no matter which way you go. I suspect he's playin' the madman to illustrate a point (sumthin' about the impossibility of truly knowing). So, properly armed, and with your tongue in cheek, carry on, carry on...

Nail on head, HQ. I mebbe playing to illustrate a point like you say, but you probably also know that I am serious about the point, which is about the impossibility of truly knowing as you noted.

I do so miss the days of the robots!

Meh, you metal monsters are all alike: always pinin' for the glory days.

As for the impossibility of truly knowing: technically, you're right. It's impossible to know with complete certainty. Seems to me, though, the pursuit of complete certainty is the pursuit of madness. At the least such a pursuit is a kind of Zeno's paradox with a person always gettin' closer to complete certainty but never achievin' it. Reason, parsimony, experience get us damn close, I think, close enough to confidently say 'the apple on my table is real, it exists independently of me, and it is pretty much as I perceive it to be'.

Madness is right. Psychosis has been described as a break from reality. I am definitely breaking from the reality of your universe, at least in metaphysical thought.

I said earlier, in the discussion of the train, that I’m a hypocrite, at least in life.

The metaphysical thoughts are there, yet I recognize that what something appears to be must be accepted as what it is, at least in order to navigate in practicality through life.

I am intrigued rather than obsessed with the idea that nothing can be known absolutely definitively. For me, this concept is a reminder to be open minded.

[commonsense]

If you have an evaporating camera that reassembles itself, it cannot also be one that does not evaporate and remains in tact.

Yes. It can only be one or the other. In theory it could be either.

I'll not try to convince you otherwise, but I hope you do not mean by, "not possible to absolutely know reality," that one must be omniscient or infallible to have certain knowledge. I know literally thousands and thousands of things that are absolutely certain. I don't have to know everything to know anything and I don't have to never make a mistake to not be mistaken about most things, do I?

Yes, agree.

[commonsense]

But, in deference to my Robot Overlord, I accept some minuscule possibility that I'm, for example, a disembodied brain, maintained in a jar in a Cleveland lab, bein' fed impressions of an apple through embedded copper wires.

That’s all I’ve been saying.

The possibility doesn't keep me up at night, though.

Me neither. But I have found the discussion here to be very interesting.

[jayjacobus]

Re "I don’t believe anything exists" meant exists are really-real independently or a thing-in-itself.

Obviously things exist as empirically-real, i.e. an oncoming train on the track one is standing on is empirically real.
Thus one will have to jump off the track upon seeing the oncoming empirically-real train.

If you jump off the track upon seeing the oncoming train, that is circumstantial evidence that the train is real.

Nope, it is literally empirically-real, NOT absolutely and really-real [per Philosophical Realists' view].

If you see a snake-in-the-shade and run, is that 'snake' in the shade absolutely & really-real or was it an empirical-rope instead that was mistaken for a 'snake'. It is very common many a times, where rope-in-the-shade is mistaken for a "real snake" which stirred fright and triggered some to run.

As a pre-requisite, whatever is empirical-real need to be verified with proper-observation and tested.
Further if one want to know what that rope is really made of, further observations and testing is need to verify its finer reality.

Thus there is always a degree of reality to a thing, i.e. the deeper one dig into the thing, the greater degree of reality of that thing.
But all these degrees of reality are conditioned upon human actions in observing, testing and verifying that degree of reality.
As such, there is no such thing as 'reality' that is independent of the human condition.

Your thinking is there are no words without humans. Assuming words are about imaginary things does not follow.