Reality (General)

by dhw, Monday, August 12, 2019, 13:06 (1929 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: We can never be 100% certain that our perception agrees with objective reality or any other perceived reality.

dhw: I don’t know why “objective reality” cannot include all the realities that we perceive.

DAVID: What we perceive may not be all of the reality that really exists. we have to accept what our brain gives us.

TONY: It is different because it exists independent of us and is not subject to our subjective interpretations. Our personal realities are objective reality overlayed with our own filters and perceptions.

Yes, of course. We are all agreed that our perception is subjective and limited. I was simply pointing out that Tony’s original comment doesn’t quite make sense: “we can’t be certain that our perception agrees with...any other perceived reality.” There are realities that we perceive and realities that we do not perceive. “Objective reality” must include all the realities that we do perceive, even though we perceive them subjectively. Or are you referring to imagined "realities" which we think we perceive but may be figments of our imagination? That = we can't be certain that our perception agrees with things that might not have any objective reality. (God would be an example.) It's all getting too complicated!

TONY: This would mean that objective reality and perceived reality are separate AND unequally valid realities. Objective reality differs in the fact that it can operate absent OUR mind…[dhw: fine with me up to this point]… which means that the mind behind it is on a different, higher in terms of complexity, level of existence. It is different in degree and magnitude but NOT by type.

dhw: You say later that “this is not a call for God”, but what else could it be if you say there is a mind behind it? We simply do not know if there is a mind behind it. Objective reality might simply be the materials that make up the universe and operate just as we see them operating.

TONY: I am asking the question "Could physical reality be the manifestation of a 'mind', and if so, can we look at our own consciousness and infer questions to ask and avenues to research. It does not exclude God, but does not focus on God either.

But you didn’t ask a question in your original post. You simply referred to “the mind behind it”, which is “on a different..level of existence”. The question you are now asking gets to the nub of the matter: Is there a mind behind it (e.g. God, or some kind(s) of panpsychist consciousness) or is physical reality nothing but mindless materials swirling around in mindless space?

dhw: However, if there is a mind, I have no objections at all to it being different in degree and magnitude but NOT by type. It makes perfect sense to me that a God would have attributes in common with the humans he has been instrumental in creating – though this is anathema to David.

DAVID: Not 'anathema' to me. What is anathema is trying to attribute human mental traits to God. Some or all may exist, but all we can do is guess.

Of course we can only guess at his nature and his purposes (not to mention his existence), but it is anathema to you if someone guesses at either of these unless it is your guess, which is that he is always in control and is purposeful, and his one and only purpose in creating life was to produce H. sapiens, and he specially designed billions of non-human life forms, lifestyles and natural wonders (like the remarkable jumping larva of the golden rod gall midge) only so that they could eat or be eaten by one another until he could specially design the only thing he wanted to design: H. sapiens. You even guessed yourself once that his purpose in specially designing all these wonders (if he did design them) could have been to enjoy his own work, like a painter enjoying his paintings. But for some reason you have a fixed belief in the "eat or be eaten" guess.

END OF PART ONE