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The Forum > Article Comments > The nature of reality > Comments

The nature of reality : Comments

By George Virsik, published 12/12/2012

Three enigmas haunt our attempts to properly understand reality.

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...This is an intriguing subject which keeps us all involved looking for answers. The Physicist “dons” his white coat and toddles off into the physical world on a quest for answers of what is the reality of matter. While the psychologist dons his white coat and toddles off into the world of the subconscious looking for answers to the workings of the mind and its relationship to the reality of matter.

...But also the artist has his contribution to the quest which cannot be underscored by science. Art has passed through a recent transformative process by exploring the inward looking forms of artistic expression in “abstract”. The more inward the journey of the artist, the more it became obvious that the language of the subconscious mind is one of symbolism.

...The subconscious mind often expresses the uni-imperative of mind and matter as a complete form of human reality in symbolic expression as two small square boxes, both identical in all aspects, in which burns two identical candles representing the life force of both conscious and subconscious reality: A delicate symbiotic connection of the realities of two worlds exists in perfect balance in nature.

...(It is this balance which humans recognise in all animals in the animal kingdom, and goes a long way to explaining the grief caused to other humans when animals are mistreated...A strong connective and irresistible force).
Posted by diver dan, Wednesday, 12 December 2012 8:47:24 AM
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Don't bother trying to unravel this piece of philosophical mumbo-jumbo. Instead, wrap your mind around the following which has very direct relevance to your life and those who you love:

The Condition of Human Rights at the International Setting
By Professor Francis A. Boyle

“Today in international legal terms, the United States government itself should now be viewed as constituting an ongoing criminal conspiracy under international criminal law in violation of the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg Judgment, and the Nuremberg Principles, because of its formulation and undertaking of serial wars of aggression, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes that are legally akin to those perpetrated by the former Nazi regime in Germany.

The civil resistors are the sheriffs enforcing international law, U.S. criminal law and the U.S. Constitution against the criminals working for the U.S. government! This same right of civil resistance extends pari passu to all citizens of the world community of states. Everyone around the world has both the right and the duty under international law to resist ongoing criminal activities perpetrated by the U.S. government and its nefarious foreign accomplices in allied governments such as Britain, the other NATO states, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Puerto Rico, etc. If not so restrained, the U.S. government could very well precipitate a Third World War.”

Francis Anthony Boyle (born 1950) is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. He delivered this speech at the Puerto Rican Summit Conference on Human Rights –December 09, 2012. Visit ICH to read the full speech.
Posted by David G, Wednesday, 12 December 2012 8:58:27 AM
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David G:

...Well one could equate politics to a form of reality, and stay consistent with the thread. But if the US insists on electing shrunken brained alcoholics as presidents (George Bush), the outcome is bound to be messy. Obama is a much more humanely aligned and logical individual who will not lead the US into another major conflict without long and “sober” reflection. Stay calm, don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes David!
Posted by diver dan, Wednesday, 12 December 2012 9:39:59 AM
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The reality that the world is facing because of the criminal cabal running U.S. is dire, Diver Dan.

Surely that reality must be discussed and dealt with firstly because nuclear war is a large and ever-growing threat.

We can deal with other esoteric philosophical considerations after we take care of bread and butter issues that directly affect our lives.
Posted by David G, Wednesday, 12 December 2012 10:05:19 AM
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Actually David G is on to something important.
The "war is us" USA perpetual warfare security state did not appear out of thin air.
Indeed it is the inevitable manifestation of the "philosophical" world-view at the root of Western "civilization" altogether. A power-and-control seeking world-view which has inevitably created a hugely enormous Leviathan with an almost unstoppable momentum.

That having been said two posts at Tom Dispatch provide important reading. 1. David Vine - The True Costs of Empire and
2. Tom Engelhardt The Washington Strait Jacket The Barack Obama Story - How a Community Organizer & Constitutional Law Professor Became a Robot President.

Two quotes from the same Spiritual Philosopher I referred to in the climate change post. Both are very much applicable to Western "civilization" in particular. The second one is from the same talk.

1. The search for knowledge is hunter-gatherer behavior, based on the ancient pre-"civilized" brain.
The search for "knowledge leads to Scapegoat (or object-in-the-middle) rituals, in which power is ALWAYS exercised over the middle (even to the degree of destroying it).
Comment: the Western power-and-control-seeking project has now quite literally encircled the entire planet, all of humankind, all of Earthkind - and is now in the process of destroying everything.

2.Ordinary religion, ordinary science, and ordinary culture seek to experience, to know, to gain an advantage with respect to, and to gain control over what is mysterious, what is unknown, what is threatening. Ordinary religion, ordinary science, and ordinary culture want to achieve absolute power for human beings. The quest for power (or control) over the unknown is the collective egoic pursuit, or aggressive search of mankind, in the midst of, and on the basis of, the universal reactions of egoic fear, sorrow, and anger. ---- To affirm (as the world-culture of scientific materialism does) that this All of space-time is merely materiality - limited, dying, and, effectively, dead - is itself, a kind of aggressive affirmation of power, a collective cultural manifestation of a DISSOCIATIVE disposition that is deeply afraid, self-absorbed, and deeply depressed by hell-deep sorrow and anger.
Posted by Daffy Duck, Wednesday, 12 December 2012 4:01:20 PM
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"A power-and-control seeking world-view which has inevitably created a hugely enormous Leviathan with an almost unstoppable momentum."

This describes the U.S. perfectly, Daffy Duck. This Imperial Leviathan must be stopped before it consumes the whole world and reduces us all to the level of slaves.

Australia needs to divorce itself from the U.S. ASAP! They are using us just as they are using others.

When they gain global domination, we will be discarded.
Posted by David G, Wednesday, 12 December 2012 4:15:46 PM
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Daffy Duck and David G:

Yawnnn...is it time to turn the light out Daddy?
Posted by diver dan, Wednesday, 12 December 2012 8:49:19 PM
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Diver Dan, what a shame you haven't got the mental horsepower to realize the importance of what Professor Boyle is saying.

If you have nothing to contribute, why not say nothing?
Posted by David G, Thursday, 13 December 2012 6:48:32 AM
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George G:

...I laugh George. Only a few days ago I was roundly criticized for raising the subject of negative implications of atomic warfare and its relationship to the Ethical question of honesty, which was comment “on-topic”. That proves the point I am not averse to discussing the subject of Politics and Ethics under the correct circumstances of topical discussion.

...When you are off-topic George, you are “fair game”! I would further suggest to you George, that you Google-up "Fixed Fantasy" and honestly assess yourself for qualification.
Posted by diver dan, Thursday, 13 December 2012 7:18:36 AM
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>>If you have nothing to contribute, why not say nothing?<<

A case of do as I say not as I do, eh David?

Cheers,

Tony
Posted by Tony Lavis, Thursday, 13 December 2012 7:33:49 AM
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David G:

...Oops Dave, sorry, called you George: A subliminal/Freudian slip. Are you related to George Orwell per chance Dave?
Posted by diver dan, Thursday, 13 December 2012 8:55:48 AM
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This is an interesting topic, which has unfortunately been hijacked by some neo-Marxists (David G & Daffy Duck). The obsession with power relations is a Marxist idea, one that contaminates subject matter today. All issues, problems are reduced to power relations and "oppression." Let us put aside their resentment (a classic neo-Marxist lens) for a second and examine Mr Virsik's problem for what it is.

It's an interesting subject. I believe it goes back to at least Plato (as George mentions), and the German Idealists grappled with these issues in detail. For the Idealists the mind interprets everything. The physical world is only a re-presentation in the guise of 'mental images' formed by the mind. If mathematics and other sciences are true, and not 'idealist,' then we human beings possess a faculty that sees "things in-themselves." This view presupposes that the world has facts about it despite human interpretation. But, what could we know of the world without our interpretations? How do you get outside your own head when interpreting phenomena?

I believe that we interpret the world with all our prejudices, hidden desires, and subterranean emotions. There are no things in-themselves; only human interpretations. This is why you get neo-Marxists interpreting the world through their own private rage. Deep down in their souls is a thorough dissatisfaction with the world, and this is manifested in their neo-Marxist rants against whatever power structure has their goat on a given day. Conversely, it is also why another person can see the same phenomena but interpret it differently, i.e. without the pent up resentment.
Posted by Aristocrat, Thursday, 13 December 2012 1:12:05 PM
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Aristocrat,

Thanks for the feedback, I read it through a couple of times.

One comment I would like to make is that mathematicians who consider themselves Platonists or realists (there is a subtle difference between the two, that I did not want to go into) would not consider themselves Platonist or idealists in the classical, philosophical meaning of the word. Their belief in an independent of our mind world of concepts and relations between them, often only implicit, is restricted to mathematics only. If they claim that, say, the Mandelbrot set exists, the verb exists is obviously understood in a different way than when I say that this chair exists.

Still another kind of existence is meant when a "philosophically sophisticated" theist says that God exists.

It is exactly this ambiguity of the words ‘reality’ and ‘exists’ that I tried to avoid in that sketchy article of mine.

Another possible deviation from what you wrote would be that instead of saying “There are no things in-themselves; only human interpretations” I would suggest that there are no things in-themselves to be known except through our interpretations of physical phenomena (where mathematical models are essential) or "things" that depend on the human factor (culture, emotional or artistic expressions etc) where mathematics is not much of a help.

diver dan,

I think you have put your finger on the weak spot in my article: humans respond to their surroundings not only through rational analysis of their situation, where contemporary science - notably physics based on mathematical models - has been so far the best way of doing that (and I believe that mere survival of our species is not the only motivation) but also through artistic (emotional) expressions and “representations of reality”.

Here I have to concede that arts, aesthetics, are fields that I am not very much at home with, though I know that it is often said that (pure) mathematics can also be regarded as a kind of art.
Posted by George, Friday, 14 December 2012 7:57:19 AM
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Aristocrat. It is interesting to find out that I am a neo-Marxist. Never mind that the quotes I posted were from essays written by a Spiritual philosopher, and from two essays which are very much about the power structures at the root of all philosophical points of view, especially in this case Western points of view.

And by the way he completely agrees with the contents of your essay re how everyone projects their own interpretations on to everything that they observe. Indeed he spent an entire life time thoroughly investigating every philosophical proposition that has ever been made by human beings in all times and places.

Properly understood then the excerpts that I posted were/are very sobering assessments from an all-inclusive Spiritual perspective of the state of the humanly created world in 2012. Especially as created by us Westerners who now rule the world. He also pointed out that unless us Westerners (who rule the world) are now destroying the world, and that if we do not have a radical turnabout in our perspective we will destroy humankind, and even all of life on this planet too.
Posted by Daffy Duck, Friday, 14 December 2012 8:05:00 AM
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"This is why you get neo-Marxists interpreting the world through their own private rage," says Aristocrat in his lofty manner.

Yeah, I feel rage when I see what Imperial America is doing to our world and where it is leading while the 'intelligentsia' pontificate about whether things exist or not.

Perhaps when the nukes start falling, you will be able to examine this phenomenon and come up with a new interpretation.

Then again, you might be vaporized and others of your ilk might then theorize about an image of you left on a brick wall and argue about whether you still exist or not!
Posted by David G, Friday, 14 December 2012 8:43:42 AM
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Probably there were people also in the seventeenth century who would ridicule Newton for “theorizing” about such obvious things as why apples fall off trees (unable to understand what gravitation was all about), and telling him “perhaps when a cholera (or some other imaginable at that time disaster) breaks out you will be able to examine this phenomenon and come up with a new interpretation (of falling apples)”.
Posted by George, Friday, 14 December 2012 9:33:48 AM
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Dear George,

Excellent article.

Agree... we need to see if reality is concrete or amorphous, articulate or inexpressive, present or hidden, composed or unassembled. Abraham Maslow held it apt that heuristic approaches come to fore when dealing with complexities arising from reduction. In this regard, I think he is a counter-positivist rather than an anti-positivist. Description has its role.

Initially, describing a situation can act as an interim step, a priori to quantitative modelling. I know with my own research into the effects of culture on knowledge discovery, where, structural equation modelling of societal traits can be extremely challenging... Piling-on moderators makes explanations more, rather than less elusive.

Pragmatically, one needs to capture an deep understanding of the data AND relationships. But, does that always work? Perhaps one can contrast the flavours of quarks or isobars on a weather system. Yet, it would be unlikely for one to describe a weather system in terms of quarks and isobars would irrelevant to particle physics. A weather pattern, say a hurricane, is experienced and is deemed real to person in the street.

On the other hand, fundamental particles are more elusive. Herein, can something that does not exist still have a “state”. A null state? If this null state of non-existence complements existence, then philosophically, and, perhaps, as an alternative authenticity non-existence is explicit, but elsewise. What would govern such a relationship? Something, transcendental or is the relationship self-sustaining?

Knowing all that is real, I suggest, is different understanding the fundamentals of reality.No human, not even all humans, does not have capacity to understand all the information in the universe. Yet, perhaps, we have the ability to understand our reality in an elementary way by knowing the connections between mathematics and the mathematical aspects of the knowable universe. Maybe, we can even reliably conjecture, from templates, about the unseen universe, say, postulated galaxies beyond the light horizon.

Regards,

O.
Posted by Oliver, Monday, 17 December 2012 2:02:08 PM
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"Maybe, we can even reliably conjecture, from templates, about the unseen universe, say, postulated galaxies beyond the light horizon."

Wow, we have certainly moved a long way from observing an apple falling from a tree, haven't we? That the trouble with humans. They allow their vivid imaginations to intrude upon the simple reality of an apple and an apple tree.

I guess that keeps a lot of academics employed and explains the existence of religion!
Posted by David G, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 6:36:40 AM
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Dear Oliver,

As usual, your posts mean valuable impulses and challenges for me. I think each paragraph would require a whole article to relate it to what I wrote, but still, let me try some brief comments.

Maslow is a psychologist, and as far as I can see their understanding of reality is somewhat different from what a philosopher of science would mean by it: When I sleep I perceive as reality strange things in my dreams (and some people perceive strange things as reality even when awake). But seriously, if by “heuristic approaches” you mean models as heuristic devices to enable understanding of what they model, then, I think, this is only PART of the story that Hawking and Mlodinow (H-M) - and, more generally, those who use the term (sometimes better referred to as representations) in the philosophy of science - have probably in mind. Let me try to explain.

One can use a model (visual, like miniature version of the real thing, or, say, mathematical models) to BETTER formulate and consequently solve some problems associated with the “real thing”. This, I think, is what your examples are about, and this is what I would understand under “heuristic approach” to models.

There are, however - especially as used in contemporary theoretical physics - also conceptual models or rather representations (quarks, space-time, electromagnetic and other fields, state of a physical system, etc) of “physical reality as such” (if you believe in it, without “evidence”, as H-M don’t seem to) that become formally comprehensible and workable ONLY IF dressed in the mathematical language or, equivalently, have BUILT ON MATHEMATICAL MODELS.

It is one of the findings of last century quantum physics (and theories and interpretations that follow from them), that in this second case you need these non-visual representations and mathematical models not only to better your understanding but TO BE ABLE TO SAY ANYTHING verifiable about the physical reality modeled by this kind of physics. Because neither physicists nor philosophers can visualize or describe these findings using only common sense, as it used to be in pre-quantum times. (ctd)
Posted by George, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 10:49:34 AM
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(ctd)
To illustrate the distinction I have in mind, consider the difference between a miniature model of the Cologne cathedral (made of matches, Lego stones or what) to have a BETTER visual perception of the real thing out there, and between a miniature model of an edifice that exists only in the architect’s mind, where the model provides THE ONLY perception, knowledge, of what the architect has in mind.

Your questions in the second-last paragraph are probably answered by this inability to directly visualise concepts introduced in physics to represent situations/concepts/objects where classical physics does not provide any more a universally adequate representation.

Besides, it is the second kind of representations/models that I find applicable in philosophy of religion, where physical concepts are replaced by other abstract concepts (e.g. Trinity), and that of mathematical models is played by anthromorphic, narrative or metaphysical models rooted in culture and evolution (in our “memes and genes”).

In the case of physical reality you can have the philosophically respectable “model-dependent” H-M approach to reality. The same in the case of transcendental reality where you can also have a “model-dependent” approach to this reality, although, it is not a “respectable” expression of religiousity. Of course the problem of adequacy, (closeness to "truth") is even more complicated than in abstract physics.

You can be a scientist without believing in the “existence of model-independent reality” (as H-M’s seem to be), however you are not a good e.g. Christian if you do not believe in the existence of transcendental reality represented/modelled by Chridstianity's tenets

This emphasis on the difference between the two versions of modeling - for practical purposes and for epistemological purposes - brings me far away from your inspiring post. I have to finish, but I might want to continue commenting on your last paragraph, provided you at least are interested.

Especially because you rightly brought into play the human aspect, where our brains and their producst (culture, arts, humanities) when entering as objects of our investigation, much more than in physics, even quantum, inerfere essentially with the investigating subject.
Posted by George, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 11:11:13 AM
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Dear Oliver,

As promised, this is a continuation of my reading of your input, hoping that you are reading it, though I am not sure who else.

>>Yet, it would be unlikely for one to describe a weather system in terms of quarks and isobars would irrelevant to particle physics. <<

The theory that uses isobars as some basic concept, and the theory that uses quarks, do not contradict each other, only for a given system of phenomena one theory is useful, provides verifiable predictions, the other is useless, being either too complicated or inadequate to make relevant predictions.

My favourite, much simpler, example are mathematical models of our Earth: (a) a flat plane; (b) a rotational ellipsoid; (c) a geometric point. For global cartographic purposes (b) is useful, (a) and (c) inadequate. For local mapping purposes (a) is adequate, (b) too complicated, (c) inadequate. For cosmological purposes (c) is adequate, (b) too complicated, (a) inadequate.

>>can something that does not exist still have a “state”. A null state? <<
You could also ask, can something that doesn’t exist be a quark? More precisely, can concepts like state of a physical system, quark, etc. be parts of a meaningful representation/theory/model leading to verifiable conclusion without assuming that these concepts actually represent something independent of the theory used to represent them? Philosophically this corresponds to “can the premises of constructive empiricism (apparently supported by H-M) withstand objections from scientific realism”? That is a question, which I would not dare to answer.

>>What would govern such a relationship? Something, transcendental or is the relationship self-sustaining? <<
I am not sure I understand what you mean, except that the term ‘transcendental’ usually appears in religious contexts and is hence irrelevant when speaking of science explaining physical reality. Maybe you had in mind something like a Unified theory (or "theory of everything") that, if we ever arrive at it - which I doubt - will probably have nothing to do with transcendental reality postulated by religions. (Although the fly in the ointment here is consciousness.) (ctd)
Posted by George, Wednesday, 19 December 2012 8:34:50 AM
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(ctd)
>>perhaps, we have the ability to understand our reality in an elementary way by knowing the connections between mathematics and the mathematical aspects of the knowable universe <<

This is what I meant by the last enigma, namely that in practical situations - dealing with phenomena well described by classical physics and associated sciences, where mathematics can be seen only as “aspects” of physical reality - our commons sense suffices.

>>Maybe, we can even reliably conjecture, from templates, about the unseen universe, say, postulated galaxies beyond the light horizon. <<

I think there is no “maybe” about our universe extending beyond the light horizon. This is what contemporary cosmological theories (or representations of reality) tell us irrespective of whether we postulate the existence of a theory-independent (or "model-independent” in the H-M language) reality. The “maybe” would fit more the postulation of a broad family of universes, i.e. of a multiverse, that (still?) seems to be ad hoc, without any “verifiable” theory that this postulate would be part of.
Posted by George, Wednesday, 19 December 2012 8:37:47 AM
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David G and George,

Thanks for your interesting comments. A bit busy at the moment. Shall reply, as soon as possible, if the World doesn't end.
Posted by Oliver, Friday, 21 December 2012 1:16:53 PM
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