Philosophy Now Forum

Veritas Aequitas wrote: “You still have not proven your God or the self-in-itself [survives physical death] exists as real?”

———
Response to V A….. You are claiming it’s impossible for God to exist as real.

So my question to you is… does a human being exist for real?

If God isn’t real, according to VA’s logic, then is a human being real or is that not real either ?

beyond experience is not necessarily not real

-Imp

You need to define;
-what is a human being
-what is real

What is a Human Being

WIKI wrote:Humans, scientifically known as Homo sapiens, are primates that belong to the biological family of great apes and are characterized by hairlessness, bipedality, and high intelligence. Humans have large brains compared to body size, enabling more advanced cognitive skills that facilitate successful adaptation to varied environments, development of sophisticated tools, and formation of complex social structures and civilizations. WIKI

What is Real
"actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed."
(google dictionary)

So, a human being is real as verified scientifically via the science-biology system.

Do you deny the above?


What you are entangled with [i.e. illusions] is the philosophical /metaphysical state of reality which is very contentious.

WIKI wrote:Reality is the state of everything that exists, not how they might be imagined. Different cultures and academic disciplines conceptualize it in various ways.
Philosophical questions about the nature of reality, existence, or being are considered under the rubric of ontology, a major branch of metaphysics in the Western intellectual tradition.
Ontological questions also feature in diverse branches of philosophy, including the philosophy of science, religion, mathematics, and logic.
These include questions about whether only physical objects are real (e.g., physicalism), whether reality is fundamentally immaterial (e.g., idealism), whether hypothetical unobservable entities posited by scientific theories exist (e.g., scientific realism), whether God exists, whether numbers and other abstract objects exist, and whether possible worlds exist. Skeptics question whether any of those claims are true, and suggest more extreme postulates. WIKI

... in discussions of objectivity that have grounding in both metaphysics and epistemology, philosophical discussions of reality often concern the ways in which reality is or is not in some way dependent upon (or, to use fashionable jargon, "constructed" out of) mental and cultural factors such as perceptions, beliefs, and other mental states, as well as cultural artifacts—such as religions and political movements—on up to the vague notion of a common cultural world view (or Weltanschauung). WIKI

The gold standard of what is objectively real is the scientific system of realism.
What else can be higher?

Even with science, it is still contentious, i.e.
Scientific realism versus scientific anti-realism.
My view is that of scientific anti-realism.

In your case, you are relying on pure Metaphysics which is non-scientific and has negligible objectivity [say 5/100] thus no basis to arrive at any thing [God, Soul, self-in-itself] real objectively.
Why people cling on to Metaphysics as a basis of reality [absolutely real] is fundamentally psychological, i.e. to soothe the existential pains, dreads, angst from an existential crisis.
This is why the end game of theism is eternal life in heaven or paradise or continue to live somewhere out there after physical death; this is so evident with the majority.
This is the reality you have failed, blinded, or subliminally /deliberately ignore to address. If you can garner confidence to face the cold turkey, explore it.

Impenitent wrote: ↑Tue Nov 25, 2025 7:04 pm beyond experience is not necessarily not real

-Imp

Yes. Beyond experience of real and not real, there is no necessity for real or unreal as both concepts are superimposed upon emptiness by emptiness.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Nov 26, 2025 4:38 am This is the reality you have failed, blinded, or subliminally /deliberately ignore to address. If you can garner confidence to face the cold turkey, explore it.

I think it's the other way round. You have failed to deconstruct the 'YOU' from this actual discussion. Who's talking, what knows reality is unreal, or even real for that matter?

Is this 'you' assumed, or is this 'you' for real?

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Nov 26, 2025 4:38 amThe gold standard of what is objectively real is the scientific system of realism.
What else can be higher?

I'm assuming you are referring to human knowledge here, for example from a scientists world view of reality, of what's objectively real?

But if you were to ask a scientist or a physicist, which is in all actuality, only a construct of the mind, if you ask the question what is real, that which is real could only mean to the mind, that which must be real at all times under any circumstance, and not just real some of the time.
Like can what is real now, but later disappears be real. And so if these forms or characters that appear to be real, can only be known to be real in comparison to that which is not real, this points to the truth that there's no comparison being made really, is there.

For example: In deep dreamless sleep, there's no forms, no world, no mind, no others, there's simply formless presence aware of itself as formlessness dreamscape. Also noticed is the transient superimposed images coming and going in a dream, and also noticed is the permanent presence UPON which all these transient images are appearing and disappearing, or are superimposed upon this ever present empty presence.

So what is it that is appearing and disappearing exactly? lets call it mind stuff, dreamscape. The mind appears as form, and form begins and ends, it appears and disappears. So the 'You' only appear as the transient mind, which is already embedded within forever present empty presence, not even inside or outside or independent of this ever present emptiness.

So there's no 'YOU' in this ever present empty presence to know you existed, or to know anything existed. So everything is just a manifestation of this ever present empty beingness presence, and that all form is ultimately lacking in substance or reality.

So form doesn't matter, what matters is that emptiness is the only real and lasting condition. It has no beginning and no ending, therefore must be the highest truth. The mind that appears as a scientific objective truth, ultimately has no lasting reality, simply because it's a truth claim that comes and goes, and cannot be everlastingly real.

All that's everlastingly real, is the emptiness that is the ever present placeholder for all transient forms to come and go, including the human form.
Ultimately, there's no creation. Creation is simply known as form, and yet form is ultimately empty, and made purely of the emptiness in which it is appearing upon.

Fairy wrote: ↑Wed Nov 26, 2025 9:42 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Nov 26, 2025 4:38 am This is the reality you have failed, blinded, or subliminally /deliberately ignore to address. If you can garner confidence to face the cold turkey, explore it.

I think it's the other way round. You have failed to deconstruct the 'YOU' from this actual discussion. Who's talking, what knows reality is unreal, or even real for that matter?

Is this 'you' assumed, or is this 'you' for real?

You’re assuming a fixed, substantial 'YOU' as the subject of discussion. But that’s precisely what I reject.

There is no permanent, unchanging self present in the womb, at birth, in childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age, or during coma. What we call “you” is simply the temporary and contingent emergence of cognitive, neural, social, linguistic, and experiential conditions that produce the appearance of a unified self.

The ‘you’ that thinks, perceives, and speaks is not a metaphysical entity but a constructed phenomenon—a product of changing conditions, not a permanent substratum.

When you fully deconstruct or reduce the self, nothing substantial remains—not because “you” disappear into nothingness, but because the illusion of a fixed you dissolves. What’s left is the dynamic process, not an independent subject standing behind it.

Repeat:
In your case, you are relying on pure Metaphysics which is non-scientific and has negligible objectivity [say 5/100] thus no basis to arrive at any thing [God, Soul, self-in-itself] real objectively.
Why people cling on to Metaphysics as a basis of reality [absolutely real] is fundamentally psychological, i.e. to soothe the existential pains, dreads, angst from an existential crisis.
This is why the end game of theism is eternal life in heaven or paradise or continue to live somewhere out there after physical death; this is so evident with the majority.
This is the reality you have failed, blinded, or subliminally /deliberately ignore to address. If you can garner confidence to face the cold turkey, explore it.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Nov 26, 2025 4:38 amWhat is Real
"actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed."
(google dictionary)

So, a human being is real as verified scientifically via the science-biology system.

Do you deny the above?

No, not denied, for what or who denies existence, except a mentally constructed idea that is recognised to have no lasting existence. Where is an idea? the answer comes, from the mind, the question arises, where is the mind, and so on and so on until you reach the nothingness out of which every idea is arising.

The human being is known as as it is observed only, it is observed to be transient, impermanent, it comes, and it goes, it has a beginning, and an end.

So the question is, can that which has a beginning and an end, ever be real? What's real about something that is real just some of the time, and not all of the time. What exists that is real all of the time, do you know the answer to that question?
If there's nothing from the start, then nothing starts, nothing ends. So where do all these problems, or philosophical arguments arise?
There's no absolute, or relative. So we can't even ask whether anything is real or unreal because there's simply nothing really there that can answer.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Nov 26, 2025 10:26 amYou’re assuming a fixed, substantial 'YOU' as the subject of discussion. But that’s precisely what I reject.

Then what or who is using the word 'YOU' in this discussion to an assumed 'you' here, from an assumed 'you' there?

Or is there only 'assumption' appearing and disappearing from out of an everlasting presence? and what is everlasting here, the 'assumption', or something else?

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Nov 26, 2025 10:26 am
Repeat:
In your case, you are relying on pure Metaphysics which is non-scientific and has negligible objectivity [say 5/100] thus no basis to arrive at any thing [God, Soul, self-in-itself] real objectively.
Why people cling on to Metaphysics as a basis of reality [absolutely real] is fundamentally psychological, i.e. to soothe the existential pains, dreads, angst from an existential crisis.
This is why the end game of theism is eternal life in heaven or paradise or continue to live somewhere out there after physical death; this is so evident with the majority.
This is the reality you have failed, blinded, or subliminally /deliberately ignore to address. If you can garner confidence to face the cold turkey, explore it.

Okay, so now that you have deconstructed the 'you' to not be a fixed ever present fundamental reality. Then why believe anything that anyone appearing on this forum knows what they are talking about ? Who or what do you imagine you are talking with?

Maybe, you are talking to dead people.

Fairy wrote: ↑Wed Nov 26, 2025 10:49 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Nov 26, 2025 10:26 am
Repeat:
In your case, you are relying on pure Metaphysics which is non-scientific and has negligible objectivity [say 5/100] thus no basis to arrive at any thing [God, Soul, self-in-itself] real objectively.
Why people cling on to Metaphysics as a basis of reality [absolutely real] is fundamentally psychological, i.e. to soothe the existential pains, dreads, angst from an existential crisis.
This is why the end game of theism is eternal life in heaven or paradise or continue to live somewhere out there after physical death; this is so evident with the majority.
This is the reality you have failed, blinded, or subliminally /deliberately ignore to address. If you can garner confidence to face the cold turkey, explore it.

Okay, so now that you have deconstructed the 'you' to not be a fixed ever present fundament reality. The why believe anything that anyone appearing on this forum knows what they are talking about ? Who or what do you imagine you are talking with?

Maybe, you are talking to dead people.

I am discussing with an empirical person with an identity as long as that person is alive and capable of discussion.

Say I am discussing with A face to face.
I am discussing with an empirical person with an identity A. He exist as real as long as A is alive and capable of discussion.
If A suddenly got a heart attack and is certified dead, there is no more A but merely a corpse with no name.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Nov 26, 2025 10:26 amThis is why the end game of theism is eternal life in heaven or paradise or continue to live somewhere out there after physical death; this is so evident with the majority.

But this is an assumption. Who or what is making that assumption?

A theist is simply a mental construct, so can a construct that is imagined, ever be real? if the answer is no, then why keep constructing these constructs as though they were real just so that they can be deconstructed again, do you see a repeating dilemma here?

Can reality repeat itself exactly, or is reality unwritten, only appearing as a story written from a mental perspective, a view point that's already moved into the death of past as though it never mattered at all, and who or what is aware of all this non happening, apparently happening?

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Nov 26, 2025 10:56 am I am discussing with an empirical person with an identity as long as that person is alive and capable of discussion.

Say I am discussing with A face to face.
I am discussing with an empirical person with an identity A. He exist as real as long as A is alive and capable of discussion.
If A suddenly got a heart attack and is certified dead, there is no more A but merely a corpse with no name.

No you're not, you are talking to a projection of your own mind. That you believe exists for real.

How can that which only exists some of the time, and then becomes non existent be real, surely real would indicate something that is absent of unreality?

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Nov 26, 2025 4:38 am My view is that of scientific anti-realism.

If the universal objective of science is to look via physical empirical experiment to tell them what is true or real, what can anti-realism possibly mean, exactly?
I mean what doesn't exist, what is not observable, what cannot be, already doesn't exist in existence, right?
So the idea that is ''anti-realism'' just comes across as a completely meaningless concept, surely?

If scientists are looking for actual empirical guaranteed answers to what is real and true in existence, then they too are just doing the same thing theists are doing and looking for some kind of rational logical permanence to what reality is exactly.

Or, can the scientists admit they have no guarantee what reality is at all? can they admit that they know nothing of any beginning or ending to reality therefore, it's simply unknowable?.. especially to something that is a finite thing called a human being , how can something that is finite in nature know anything of what's real, unreal, true, or not true, of what's rational or irrational, logical or illogical? How does that work?

That's what you are either failing, or ignoring to address in this discussion VA. So as you like to point out, are you also willing to strip back the layers of mental constructs until you reach emptiness, and explore that to see if it's a fixed thing, or not? Bearing in mind, the mind has no other frame of reference to compare itself to, except through the conception of itself, which is being observed, but by what exactly, can that which is observed as a physical object observe itself? That's like saying a tree can tell itself it is a tree, when the tree clearly doesn't do that.



Present your argument, or admit, you do not know what you are talking about. I'll continue to do same.