Philosophy Now Forum

Western philosophy, it is said, began with Plato...
and what was the focal point of Plato? For him,
there was an eternal, a picture of the universe
that was yesterday, today and tomorrow..
certain truths that were, are and always will be...
Unchangeable truths that lie behind the reality we
see.. which is temporary, finite, transitory....
and that is the focus of Plato... Not the temporary truths that
we see but the permanent realities that lie behind finite
existence we see.....

And we have ''suffered'' from this false understanding of
reality ever since....we think that reality is like peeling an onion,
if we peel far enough back, we will come to some permanent truth
or reality, like Plato's truth/reality....But what if after peeling back
"reality" in seeking the truth and we find, nothing.. Just like in
peeling back an onion, what do we find? More onion until we run out
of onion to peel...There is no ''truth'' or eternal reality to find
once we have peeled back the onion... it is empty... just like
peeling back reality to seek some eternal truth... there is none to find...
it is empty...

Since the time of Plato, we have been seeking the reality/truth behind
existence.. so, what if there isn't any sort of truth behind existence?

What you see is what you get.... reality is exactly what you see,
nothing more, nothing less...Now what?

for example, Christians seeking that truth/reality behind our temporary
existence, by seeking heaven, a permanent reality/truth behind our temporary
reality/truth... but what if there is no permanent truth/reality behind our
existence? We are born, we live and we die.. and that's it....
there is nothing else...

religions are based on the belief of something beyond this reality,
there is some truth/reality that lies just outside of this existence,
that drives the beliefs of Buddhism to Christianity to Islam to Catholicism...

But what a waste time we are engaged with if, if there is no
outside, external reality that is posited by religions?
We have missed the entire point of life if we seek something
that isn't there... if we seek the permanent, eternal
aspect of existence and there isn't one... now what?

Pascal's wager is based on a false idea that there is actually
something permanent or eternal in existence... in fact, we
have no proof or evidence that anything is permanent or eternal...
even the universe, born roughly 13.7 billion years ago, which if it
is born, means it must die.. to be born is to die... so not even
the universe is forever, eternal... ....now there are some who will
claim that god is eternal or forever but again, there is only hope,
faith that that is true, there is not actual evidence or facts which
support the idea of god...... a no god universe is far more likely than
a universe with a god... think of everything that is assumed within
a god universe....now what is assumed within a no god universe?
life, and then death... that is it.... in a no god universe...

so, what is more likely, a universe that is exactly what you see,
or a universe in which there is a god, heaven, hell, angels,
guilt, sin, faith, despair and eternal life?

To hold to a god universe is to assume an awful lot that
has no evidence for... I for one, would much rather exists in
a universe in which we are one and done.. no eternal life,
no heaven, no hell, no guilt, no sin, no eternal damnation...

my path is a simple one... just to exist and then be done with it...
a no muss and no fuss universe...

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 4:45 pm What you see is what you get.... reality is exactly what you see,
nothing more, nothing less...Now what?

You need to include science among the beliefs systems that disagree with that idea.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 10:04 pm

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 4:45 pm What you see is what you get.... reality is exactly what you see,
nothing more, nothing less...Now what?

You need to include science among the beliefs systems that disagree with that idea.

K: science is the act of understanding experience.. an apple falls... why?
the sun goes about the sky, why? I die, why? it rains and thunder and lighting
happens, why? Now, one might argue that we cannot experience something
like a black hole, thus I am wrong.... but we can, now at least, experience
a black hole, we have pictures of a black hole.. now we may not understand
the experience of a black hole, but we can attempt to understand it...

now science cannot tell us the why of experience, but science can tell us
the how... now one may argue, that we cannot understand something
like love, given the science right now, that is true... it doesn't mean we
can never understand the experience of love, it just means today, we can't
understand the experience..
Now some experiences we cannot, at the moment, describe like
what does alien life look like... we can speculate, but we can't know...
we have no experiences with alien life... thus we cannot know...

Experience is the act of our senses, sight, hearing, touch, smell,
and taste... and science is the act of explaining those experiences...

one might say, we can't experience atoms... but we can in physics
experiments, we can see how atoms work by taking pictures of them
after a collusion between atoms...

what lies behind all science? what is the primary, rule number one of
science? what lies behind science? what is the center of all those science
experiments? some cardinal, primary rule about everything?

There doesn't seem to be theory of everything that explains
everything... Einstein spent 30 plus years searching for a TOE....
and it has been the holy grail of science for decades...but that doesn't
mean a TOE is possible... notice I said, Holy grail... and that is kinda the point,
a holy grail... and what is the actual holy grail? a religious artifact...
something that is part of a belief system.... but not necessarily factual or
true....we hope it's true, but it doesn't mean its true..

now science maybe able to work out or understand how everything works,
but it doesn't mean it will find the TOE, the thing behind everything else...
peel an onion and what do you find? Peel science and what do you find?

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 10:53 pm K: science is the act of understanding experience.

The way you present science it is a reaction to things we perceive only. But actually science is often precisely what you have a problem with in the OP.

Western philosophy, it is said, began with Plato...
and what was the focal point of Plato? For him,
there was an eternal, a picture of the universe
that was yesterday, today and tomorrow..
certain truths that were, are and always will be...
Unchangeable truths that lie behind the reality we
see.. which is temporary, finite, transitory....
and that is the focus of Plato... Not the temporary truths that
we see but the permanent realities that lie behind finite
existence we see.....

And we have ''suffered'' from this false understanding of
reality ever since....we think that reality is like peeling an onion,
if we peel far enough back, we will come to some permanent truth
or reality, like Plato's truth/reality....But what if after peeling back
"reality" in seeking the truth and we find, nothing.. Just like in
peeling back an onion, what do we find? More onion until we run out
of onion to peel...There is no ''truth'' or eternal reality to find
once we have peeled back the onion... it is empty... just like
peeling back reality to seek some eternal truth...

Finding permanent truths, or what in models gets called natural laws.
Peeling back the onion. Taking things apart. Experimental science.

And you make the strong statement that there is not eternal reality or 'truth' to find when we have peeled back the onion. I don't know how you can know this. (or why you put truth in citation marks. is there no 'truth' but maybe truth) I say this is a strong statement because the onion is a metaphor for reality in your OP. And you are saying we will not find an eternal reality. I don't know how you know this.

But the main point was that the kinds of processes you describe in your OP are a reasonable description of science.

. an apple falls... why?
the sun goes about the sky, why? I die, why? it rains and thunder and lighting
happens, why? Now, one might argue that we cannot experience something
like a black hole, thus I am wrong.... but we can, now at least, experience
a black hole, we have pictures of a black hole.. now we may not understand
the experience of a black hole, but we can attempt to understand it...

Attempts to understand things beyond our senses, yes. That's a part of science also. We extend the senses with technology. But we also model things and use deduction to posit models of things even technology cannot help us see. And can we use those processes to make predictions about what we can with or without technology sense?

now science cannot tell us the why of experience, but science can tell us
the how... now one may argue, that we cannot understand something
like love, given the science right now,

Given science right now is a very important concept.

Experience is the act of our senses, sight, hearing, touch, smell,
and taste... and science is the act of explaining those experiences...

And creating experiences. And using thought experiments to create models that perhaps we can test later and experience confirming or disconfirming things about experiences we've not had before but might produce evidence of what is going on one layer or many layers deeper in the onion.

one might say, we can't experience atoms... but we can in physics
experiments, we can see how atoms work by taking pictures of them
after a collusion between atoms...

With many mediated layers between us and the experience. We cannot directly see, but we can see the results on sensory devices. That is digging in the onion for more layers we cannot possibly normally see and can only see the effects of via technology that translates and amplifies those effects.

There doesn't seem to be theory of everything that explains
everything... Einstein spent 30 plus years searching for a TOE....

People have spent their lives trying to accomplish things that were later accomplished by others.

We don't know what reality is, we can't know what it is because we are not equiped to know, so God can hardly blame us if we settle for not knowing, and just treat our existence as what it seems to be.

Harbal wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 11:34 pm We don't know what reality is, we can't know what it is because we are not equiped to know, so God can hardly blame us if we settle for not knowing, and just treat our existence as what it seems to be.

What does reality seem to be? It seemed panpsychist to me until I was told it wasn't. 'Seems' seems heavily culturally determined and diverse.

By eternity we usually mean an endless duration.

So if we assume the existence of absolute truth, then we assume that if it exists it must be eternal, that is, once we discover it, its validity must last forever.

But that "forever" sounds strange, because nothing really lasts...

There is a fundamental misunderstanding in all of this.
This misunderstanding comes from mistakenly taking assumptions for granted.
Which are wrong instead.

That is, we link the Truth to our idea of ​​eternity.
Without realizing it, we relativize the absolute!

Because for us the Truth to be such "must" have an endless duration. So let's place the time-dependent Truth...

An absurdity!

Instead, we should do the opposite.

That is, first is the Truth and then, if anything, everything else, even time.

Then we could well see how eternity is not an infinite duration at all, but the pure timeless instant!
Truth makes time relative and therefore inessential.

There is, however, an even more serious misunderstanding.

That is, we do not realize that the Truth is, but it cannot exist.
Its appearance would in fact mean the annihilation of existence itself.

I think that the most serious mistake in the current interpretation of reality is the belief in the actual existence of the infinite.

Taking the existence of the infinite for granted, the world has finally become immanent in our eyes.

That is, it is there in all its concreteness.

This reassuring idea, however, is the antechamber of nihilism.
Because by cosifying the infinite we have canceled the sense of the limit, which allows, precisely as a limit, to perceive the Transcendence.

So we nonchalantly reason about eternity, understood as infinite time.
Just as we ignore profound and luminous ideas such as those of Parmenides and his disciple Zeno, considering them vain speculations due to ignorance.

Because we now know!
We possess the infinite.

An absurdity, due to our delirium of the will to power.

There is no infinity!
Neither spatial nor temporal.

The infinite is only the negation of the finite.
It's just a concept, not even really thinkable...

And instead we made it become a thing.
Nihilistic madness.

bobmax wrote: ↑Fri Jul 29, 2022 5:21 am I think that the most serious mistake in the current interpretation of reality is the belief in the actual existence of the infinite.

I agree.

bobmax wrote: ↑Fri Jul 29, 2022 5:21 am Taking the existence of the infinite for granted, the world has finally become immanent in our eyes.

That is, it is there in all its concreteness.

This reassuring idea, however, is the antechamber of nihilism.
Because by cosifying the infinite we have canceled the sense of the limit, which allows, precisely as a limit, to perceive the Transcendence.

So we nonchalantly reason about eternity, understood as infinite time.
Just as we ignore profound and luminous ideas such as those of Parmenides and his disciple Zeno, considering them vain speculations due to ignorance.

But this idea is just plain old wrong and incorrect.

bobmax wrote: ↑Fri Jul 29, 2022 5:21 am Because we now know!
We possess the infinite.

An absurdity, due to our delirium of the will to power.

There is no infinity!
Neither spatial nor temporal.

The infinite is only the negation of the finite.
It's just a concept, not even really thinkable...

And instead we made it become a thing.
Nihilistic madness.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 11:26 pm

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 10:53 pm K: science is the act of understanding experience.

The way you present science it is a reaction to things we perceive only. But actually science is often precisely what you have a problem with in the OP.

Western philosophy, it is said, began with Plato...
and what was the focal point of Plato? For him,
there was an eternal, a picture of the universe
that was yesterday, today and tomorrow..
certain truths that were, are and always will be...
Unchangeable truths that lie behind the reality we
see.. which is temporary, finite, transitory....
and that is the focus of Plato... Not the temporary truths that
we see but the permanent realities that lie behind finite
existence we see.....

And we have ''suffered'' from this false understanding of
reality ever since....we think that reality is like peeling an onion,
if we peel far enough back, we will come to some permanent truth
or reality, like Plato's truth/reality....But what if after peeling back
"reality" in seeking the truth and we find, nothing.. Just like in
peeling back an onion, what do we find? More onion until we run out
of onion to peel...There is no ''truth'' or eternal reality to find
once we have peeled back the onion... it is empty... just like
peeling back reality to seek some eternal truth...

Finding permanent truths, or what in models gets called natural laws.
Peeling back the onion. Taking things apart. Experimental science.

And you make the strong statement that there is not eternal reality or 'truth' to find when we have peeled back the onion. I don't know how you can know this. (or why you put truth in citation marks. is there no 'truth' but maybe truth) I say this is a strong statement because the onion is a metaphor for reality in your OP. And you are saying we will not find an eternal reality. I don't know how you know this.

But the main point was that the kinds of processes you describe in your OP are a reasonable description of science.

. an apple falls... why?
the sun goes about the sky, why? I die, why? it rains and thunder and lighting
happens, why? Now, one might argue that we cannot experience something
like a black hole, thus I am wrong.... but we can, now at least, experience
a black hole, we have pictures of a black hole.. now we may not understand
the experience of a black hole, but we can attempt to understand it...

Attempts to understand things beyond our senses, yes. That's a part of science also. We extend the senses with technology. But we also model things and use deduction to posit models of things even technology cannot help us see. And can we use those processes to make predictions about what we can with or without technology sense?

now science cannot tell us the why of experience, but science can tell us
the how... now one may argue, that we cannot understand something
like love, given the science right now,

Given science right now is a very important concept.

Experience is the act of our senses, sight, hearing, touch, smell,
and taste... and science is the act of explaining those experiences...

And creating experiences. And using thought experiments to create models that perhaps we can test later and experience confirming or disconfirming things about experiences we've not had before but might produce evidence of what is going on one layer or many layers deeper in the onion.

one might say, we can't experience atoms... but we can in physics
experiments, we can see how atoms work by taking pictures of them
after a collusion between atoms...

With many mediated layers between us and the experience. We cannot directly see, but we can see the results on sensory devices. That is digging in the onion for more layers we cannot possibly normally see and can only see the effects of via technology that translates and amplifies those effects.

There doesn't seem to be theory of everything that explains
everything... Einstein spent 30 plus years searching for a TOE....

People have spent their lives trying to accomplish things that were later accomplished by others.

The Grand Unified Theory Of Everything will conclude with something similar to; every thing is in either of two forms, which coexist together as one, and in equilibrium.

Harbal wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 11:34 pm We don't know what reality is, we can't know what it is because we are not equiped to know, so God can hardly blame us if we settle for not knowing, and just treat our existence as what it seems to be.

If, as you say and claim here, you can not know what reality is, then that itself would be (a) reality, which obviously you can know. As you just clearly expressed this in written word.

Age wrote: ↑Fri Jul 29, 2022 5:51 am

bobmax wrote: ↑Fri Jul 29, 2022 5:21 am Taking the existence of the infinite for granted, the world has finally become immanent in our eyes.

That is, it is there in all its concreteness.

This reassuring idea, however, is the antechamber of nihilism.
Because by cosifying the infinite we have canceled the sense of the limit, which allows, precisely as a limit, to perceive the Transcendence.

So we nonchalantly reason about eternity, understood as infinite time.
Just as we ignore profound and luminous ideas such as those of Parmenides and his disciple Zeno, considering them vain speculations due to ignorance.

But this idea is just plain old wrong and incorrect.

Parmenides' reasoning is clear, as you can see by reading Plato's "Parmenides".

If you are referring to Zeno's paradoxes, these did not deny the movement, but the multiple.

No one thing is distinct from the other precisely because there is movement.

The theory of infinitesimals has hidden this truth.

Age wrote: ↑Fri Jul 29, 2022 6:09 am

Harbal wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 11:34 pm We don't know what reality is, we can't know what it is because we are not equiped to know, so God can hardly blame us if we settle for not knowing, and just treat our existence as what it seems to be.

If, as you say and claim here, you can not know what reality is, then that itself would be (a) reality, which obviously you can know. As you just clearly expressed this in written word.

But I'm not sure enough about it to be able to claim it as a reality.

bobmax wrote: ↑Fri Jul 29, 2022 8:23 am

Age wrote: ↑Fri Jul 29, 2022 5:51 am

bobmax wrote: ↑Fri Jul 29, 2022 5:21 am Taking the existence of the infinite for granted, the world has finally become immanent in our eyes.

That is, it is there in all its concreteness.

This reassuring idea, however, is the antechamber of nihilism.
Because by cosifying the infinite we have canceled the sense of the limit, which allows, precisely as a limit, to perceive the Transcendence.

So we nonchalantly reason about eternity, understood as infinite time.
Just as we ignore profound and luminous ideas such as those of Parmenides and his disciple Zeno, considering them vain speculations due to ignorance.

But this idea is just plain old wrong and incorrect.

Parmenides' reasoning is clear, as you can see by reading Plato's "Parmenides".

If you are referring to Zeno's paradoxes, these did not deny the movement, but the multiple.

No one thing is distinct from the other precisely because there is movement.

The theory of infinitesimals has hidden this truth.

As can be clearly seen, what is said here is due to ignorance.

Harbal wrote: ↑Fri Jul 29, 2022 8:39 am

Age wrote: ↑Fri Jul 29, 2022 6:09 am

Harbal wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 11:34 pm We don't know what reality is, we can't know what it is because we are not equiped to know, so God can hardly blame us if we settle for not knowing, and just treat our existence as what it seems to be.

If, as you say and claim here, you can not know what reality is, then that itself would be (a) reality, which obviously you can know. As you just clearly expressed this in written word.

But I'm not sure enough about it to be able to claim it as a reality.

But you plainly and obviously stated, "we can not know what reality is", "because we are not equipped to know". So, either this is real and true, or it is not.

If it is not, then why say and claim it? But, if it is real and true, then it is (a) reality, and thus contradicting what was said and claimed.