UKC

Surely everyone's reality is different.....
And cannot reality or the world be changed?......
If everyone wanted change.....

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

Have you been licking Colorado River toads again?

In reply to The Ice Doctor:
I wondered abut the same things after going to Spanish classes, with everybody leaving with a different perspective of the class which had just happened.

I guess reality (the perception of) is subjective as well as shared and overlapping, and positive change can only happen once people are agreed on what the shared reality is, or what the realities of life are (see the house of Commons for people not agreeing)?

Other than that, I dunno.

Edit: Once enough people are agreed on what the shared reality is, I think enough recognition of what needs to be done will occur to improve things.

Edit 2: I don't think my perspective is definitely the objective one.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

Quick someone fetch the dried frog pills!

In reply to The Ice Doctor:


Yes


Yes


Yes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_reality

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

For help, see two and a half thousand years of metaphysical discussion ... [Not sure how you do a really big smiley]

In reply to The Ice Doctor:


No (at least at the macro level). Quantum sensitive scales aside, there is one base reality, factual truth, RWOT (real world out there), call it what you will. Subjective perception of the RWOT will differ.


Of course it can.


... you end up with Trump.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

we're all living in a computer simulation, so reality is whatever the tentacled monstrosities from dimension Z that wrote it decide it is.

And their reality is whatever the fish beasts from dimension Q decide it is

And their reality is....

In reply to toad:


No. reality would then include the monstrosities and dimension Z. Anyway, I find this computer simulation idea pretty daft and unlikely.

In reply to cb294:


I'm happy with that, pretty much by definition.

In reply to toad:

Have you been licking Colorado River Ice Doctors again?

In reply to The Ice Doctor:


No. But everyone's perception of reality may be different.


Reality changes all the time.


There wouldn't be enough to go round, I use contactless more and more.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

A quick trip in to the world of DMT can leave you in no doubt that reality is entirely subjective and quite possibly nothing like we normally imagine it.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

there is no reality


Yes (ha)


That's not got much to do with it.

Watch this series and then tell me there's a reality!

http://www.eagleman.com/research/11-david-eagleman/113-the-brain-pbs

here's a clip

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03g221y

In reply to cb294:


I think one might have to make a distinction between the scientific/environmental reality, and humanity and what people see as realities to do with societies - which almost seem to be a shared definition of what reality is, which can change as social norms do, to do with how people behave and what happens when people meet up?

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

Your ideas will further muddy grading debates.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

there is a reality out there, but too much exposure to it is not a good thing...

http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

Human brains work very hard to create and maintain a coherent internal model of reality. Sometimes these internal models can bear little resemblance to the external world.

That's why things like facts and evidence aren't enough to convince true believers that their beliefs may be flawed.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

What is reality?

Something to do with a ... https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--laoyl7qa--/c_fill,fl_p...

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Perhaps if we all just agree that it *is* a really big smiley... ;O)

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


When someone gets philosophical and argues that there's no such thing as objective reality I suggest kicking them in the balls.

People who have just been kicked in the balls have very little difficulty accepting that reality exists.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:


Or just get them to kick a rock

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:


... yes, and saying like Dr Johnson, 'I refute it thus!'

In reply to The Ice Doctor:
Each one of our brains is different, and so is the reality it produces. What is reality? It's whatever your brain tells you it is.


Watch this clip at 21:00 and then you'll understand

In reply to krikoman:


Bollocks. And a kick in them........

In reply to krikoman:



My perception is that there's no clip.

In reply to krikoman:

I think you're describing our perceptions of reality, rather than physical reality. For example, if a person was about to get hit by a truck and their brain tells them 'it'll be fine', they would still get badly injured or killed.

Reality is what the matter in the universe is doing, not what our brains think it is doing.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

It is what refuses to go away when you stop believing in it.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

No, by definition. There is one reality, which we all perceive in different ways.



Are you Philomena Cunk?

In reply to The Ice Doctor:


Yes, everyone's reality is different in one way e.g. if 100 people stand looking up at Stanage they all see/ experience a different thing. But in another way it isn't different i.e. if 100 people stand looking up at Stanage the one and only same Stanage is there for them.

The world/ reality can be changed. Stanage could be bolted.

What does everyone want, no idea, I don't even know what I want.

PS I'm a better climber than philosopher HONEST AND THANK GOODNESS

In reply to krikoman:

You are conflating reality with your (every individuals) internal model of reality. These models will not always be correct, as they were not selected by evolution to be so. They need to be efficient, not correct! In many cases it is well understood how such misrepresentations come about, both from a neurophysiological and evolutionary viewpoint, optical illusions or dizziness being simple examples.

Assuming that reality truly IS internal and unique reduces to solipsism, a standpoint of some despair. If you really believed this to be true, then why would you post on a forum? Talk to your "appearances"?

CB

In reply to Timmd:

One definitely should make this distinction! Lots of our current problems are caused by a failure to do so, religious fundamentalism and postfactual politics the most obvious examples.

CB

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

I thought it was the odd word Australians use for Estate Agents

In reply to Sir Chasm:


are you sure?

youtube.com/watch?v=3MSw2irv0-A&

In reply to Jimbo C:


But our perceptions are our ONLY reality.

It doesn't matter how many people corroborate or deny what you think is reality, they are at the end of the day electrical impulses in YOUR brain.

In the same way that dreams aren't real, but they can be pretty convincing.

Maybe EVERYTHING we're experiencing is just some massive dream

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

I remember my 2 year old daughter asking me how I new we were real. I couldn't answer!

In reply to krikoman:



Yes, I've looked again and I still can't perceive a clip in your post of 12:50. I accept that you might perceive it differently (incorrectly).

In reply to krikoman:


No, our perceptions are our experience of reality. I've seen the program you've linked to and it is very good at getting across what can be a difficult concept, but you seem to have got the wrong idea.

'Reality' as an absolute is a very useful concept, we shouldn't confuse it with other concepts, and why, when we have perfectly good words to describe what you mean eg sentience, consciousness.

In reply to Robert Durran:



Do you never notice the pixellation round the edges then?

In reply to krikoman:





Just to be sure, you don't think that the things happening around us are not real, right? You just have a different definition of reality to me. When you say 'reality' it is what I would call 'perception of reality'?

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

It's a watercolour our brains paint over the unpalatable behaviour of lumps in spacetime

In reply to wercat:

No, reality is ' behavior of lumps in spacetime' as you put it. The 'watercoulour our brains paint' is our consciousness. It is a construct that usually works well for what we need to do but can sometimes be wrong (or tricked).

In reply to Sir Chasm:


If you watch from 21:00 to 23:00 I think it explains everything quite perfectly

In reply to Jimbo C:


Of course there are real things.

Just one persons reality is different from anyone else's.

In the extreme a schizophrenic hearing voices telling them what to do is just as real.

Since our perceptions are what we view the world by, then how do you separate reality from the being?

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

read this first: http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1593650

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


Last time I tried the Doc Johnson gambit I couldn't climb for a week. No more philosophical debate before a big trip for me!

In reply to Mike Stretford:

the watercolour is our reality. Other realities are available depending on how many onion skins you care to peel

In reply to wercat:
Onions! really? Are they better than peyote?

In reply to David Martin:

I wouldn't want anyone to incriminate themselves but personal experience? I've had a few interesting journeys over the years but not sure if I'm brave enough for that one.

In reply to krikoman:


You may well think that, but, strangely, all those runners heard the bang and saw the light. I'm sorry you can't differentiate between the concepts "what happens" and "what we, our brains, interpret as happening", perhaps you could watch your video again - or cbeebies

In reply to bleddynmawr:


Wow, 2 year old philosophy is great. I suspect "I think therefore I am" wouldn't be readily accepted as an adequate response.

One of my first memories was asking an infant school teacher what came before God? Since I didn't get a satisfactory answer I decided there and then it was a load of old . . . . .

In reply to Sir Chasm:


Exactly, but since the hand clap needs different times for the brain to process and the brain then puts these together to make them happen at the same time surely reality is subjective and since we need roughly 0.5s to process anything were all living in the past anyway. Therefore reality for us humans is delayed.

I'm off to watch Teletubbies.

In reply to krikoman:



So contrary to your assertion that "there is no reality" you now accept there is reality and that what differs is our perception of it. Excellent, you're making progress.

In reply to krikoman:


No more delayed than watching a film shot last year.

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:


Nail it to the counter, Lord Ferguson, and damn the cheesemongers!

In reply to Thrudge:
"This is a nice party, I wish I was here." said the Bursar to a chair.

In reply to Sir Chasm:


I'm saying YOU only have YOUR perception of it, you might well be a computer programme in some lab for all you know!

Your perception is your reality, the same as the schizophrenic hearing voices, they are HIS reality.

If you think of colours I don't know what you see as red nor can you show me, we can only compare what you see as red with what I see as read and we either agree or disagree, your reality may be very different from mine, it's just we've agreed what red is. On the other hand I might not exist at all and you'll be agreeing what red is with some figment of your imagination.

In reply to krikoman:




Oh, you've relapsed. No, my reality isn't different to yours (earlier you accepted that there was reality, although you seem a little confused), but my perception of reality may be different to yours.
P.s. Schizophrenics don't hear voices (well, they might if someone's talking to them, obviously), their brain imagines the voices like you or I might have a dream - we really have dreams but they're not reality.

In reply to Sir Chasm:

The voices and dreams are just a pattern of neurons firing in the brain and, in a sense, are just as real as the pattern triggered when you are hearing actual voices or seeing actual things. Indeed, the pattern could, I suppose, be indistinguishable (just generated entirely internally rather than as a result of external stimuli). So I would say that the "voices" and dreams are part of reality.

But I do agree with you that Krikoman is completely wrong about us all having our own subjective reality.

In reply to aln:


Of course, a friend of a friend and not me can speak from numerous personal experiences. Reportedly:

Absolutely nothing to be feared. Very short duration, too amazing to even register fear (at least for longer than a few seconds and opening your eyes, even though not removing the trip, pegs you back to reality), takes reasonable effort and no small amount of technique to "break through" in the first place, but utterly awe inspiring once reached. After 10 minutes (though time has mostly evaporated during that period) it has largely worn off and you're keenly clinging to the last traces of the voyage but with no compulsion to fire the rockets again. Within 15 minutes pretty much back to normal and by half an hour as if nothing had ever happened and ready for another trip through the astral scenery. Unlike anything else, if you want to experience "infinity", "other dimensions", or kaleidoscopes of colours and creatues whose vividness is absolutely off the charts, DMT is your tipple.

Apparently...

In reply to Sir Chasm:


YOUR perception of reality, IS your reality.


They (the voices) are their reality, which was the point I was trying to make.

In reply to Robert Durran:

But if the neurons firing in the brain aren’t triggered by voices from outside the person then the person hasn’t “heard” a voice because there wasn’t a voice to “hear”, that’s why I used “imagine”. But if we’re going down the route of saying that everything we can imagine is reality then words mean whatever I want them to mean.

In reply to krikoman:


But it isn't reality.


They've really imagined voices but there aren't really voices.

In reply to Robert Durran:


Exactly.


If you extrapolate the above from not just voices but to all your sensory input then how would you know? Since we're are just a brain and a lot of electrical signals (all internal) then how do you separate the two. It's like synaesthesia, if you talk to a synaethesiac (??) they can't understand how you don't "feel" the same as them. Tasting colour? Smelling words? Of course this isn't reality is it?

In reply to krikoman:


The problem you and werecat have is you only seem able to define the word 'reality' as a possession.

Other people can accept a concept of reality that is 'as things are, unaffected by the perception or knowledge of any finite being'. Of course it is impossible to know but as a concept it is rather useful. We have based hundreds of years of scientific discovery on that concept, including some understanding of consciousness, or 'your reality' as you put it.

In reply to Mike Stretford:



No I understand, and was playing devil's advocate, but without perception YOU have no reality.

Going back to synaesthesia, do colours have a taste or a smell?

If not then how come in their reality they do?

If yes, then why don't I think they do?

Who's reality is correct? or do we use what the majority think?

In reply to krikoman:


Reality does not belong to anybody and I am sure it will continue to tick along nicely long after I am gone.

In reply to krikoman:


Sorry but I'm not sure what you mean - do you mean [1] there is no reality because you're not aware of it? Or [2] There is reality around you even though you're not aware of it?

Disclaimer, I have no idea what I'm talking about (welcome to UKC).

However, number [1] reminds me of the notion seriously put forward by some that if there's no human nearby to hear, a tree falling in the forest makes no sound. Which strikes me as ridiculous and too human-centred. I just don't get it (repeat of my 2nd paragraph)

krikoman, I am absolutely not saying or hinting that your comment is ridiculous. I'm just struggling here (see my para. 2 again).

In reply to abseil:





I must admit it's making my head hurt.

I suppose what I'm saying is for a person to know any reality they need to perceive things, since we already know and agree (mostly) that we each perceive things differently (synaesthesia - is a good example). If there's a difference which one is correct?

Over all of that, if you could take a brain out of someone's head (not mine I'm using it) and stimulate it in such a way as to mimic "real" life with all it's pointless UKC arguments and time on the bog, then who's to say you couldn't create an alternate reality in their brain.

Since our whole concept of "reality" is electrical signals within the brain, what makes my electrical signals and your electrical signals decide there's a reality.

Suppose you were a computer simulation, and then Ctrl-Alt-Del

I really do need a lay down now

and some tablets

In reply to krikoman:


It's ok I know what you're on about no need to keep shouting 'YOU', people will think your a fanatical solipsist.

In reply to Mike Stretford:

Not shouting just emphasising, is this better, "without perceptions I have no reality"?

As for solipsism, if you look at my other posts it might be hard to suggest

In reply to krikoman:


Thanks a lot for your reply. It's making my head hurt too, no worse than that, my eyes are slipping out of focus.... But I really like "if you could take a brain out of someone's head...": I bet there are loads of psychology Ph.D. students itching to do that to secure there* place in academia/ history (only half kidding)

I need a lay down too, in fact I think I'll put the TV on, look for 'reality' there, and vegetate.

*Edit, "their"

In reply to abseil:

My reality involves work

In reply to krikoman:


It's not bad, it's better than your previous effort of "without perceptions there is no reality".

In reply to Robert Durran:


Unless your reality only exists in your head.

In reply to krikoman:


My perception of reality does (in a sense) , but that is just a tiny part of the totality of reality

In reply to Sir Chasm:


I agree, but the pattern of neurons firing might, at least in principle, be indistinguishable.


I am certainly not going down that route! All I am saying is that the neurons firing in a particular pattern when I imagine something are part of reality.

In reply to krikoman:

Just read this, thought it fitted well with this thread, so I will throw it in:

On Hans-Georg Gadamer as a 'perspectival realist':
'There is a world beyond our culturally conditioned perspective of it - this is the realist dimension. On the other hand we can never get a full picture of the world since interpretations constantly change, hence we can never get more than a perspective' [Lawn, C, 2006, 'Gadamer; a guide for the perplexed', p.122].

In reply to krikoman:


It is meaningless to talk about a particular person's reality. Reality just is. We don't know its totality or by any means understand the bits we do know, but it's out there.

In reply to Robert Durran:

How do you know?

For instance, supposing every thought you've ever had was implanted into you brain, then reality doesn't exist ( or at least might not exist) at all.

In reply to krikoman:


My brain would still exist and that might be the totality of reality.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:
Here's an interesting argument to do with living within "the matrix" called the Simulation Hypothesis.

Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom has speculated that given the accepted theory that mind and consciousness is just a matter of information processing, it should be possible to simulate living beings with the super-computers of the future and that we would be likely to do this. By definition this would mean that simulated worlds would outnumber the real world by a factor trillions, which would be possible given a large enough "cloud". Therefore, the probability is, that you would be far more likely to find yourself in a simulated world rather than a real world.

People could argue that it has to be the real world as I can see, hear touch, smell and feel real things, but it must be remembered that all of these senses are experienced in your brain. Your eye don't actually see things, your fingers don't actually feel things, they are just messages interpretated by your brain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis

All the best, Morpheus.

In reply to Robert Durran:


Exactly, but you wouldn't know the difference.

The brain in the jar next to yours was given a different set of stimulations so it's / their reality could be totally different from yours.

In reply to Hugh J:

I think the David Eagleman programs touch on this in the last episode, regarding conscience and "the being" if you could replicate the brain and all it's connections then in theory you could "live" forever, and if it mimicked your brain in every way; is it you?

spooky!!!

In reply to krikoman:
I'll have to check it out, You posted a link didn't you? Ah yes . . . there it is (12:21 Thursday). Cheers.

In reply to krikoman:

Wow, the BBC clip about the squares is amazing. What a fascinating blob our brain is!

In reply to krikoman:


So what? There are many things we do not know about reality.


No. Both part of the whole of reality.

In reply to krikoman:


It would think it's a different environment (reality) than the other one.
Similar to me lying in bed with the Mrs and you clinging by your fingertips on a rock face.

In reply to Hugh J:


That series was excellent, well worth watching / buying totally fascinating and dare I say it mind blowing

In reply to abseil:


Well this actually gets to the nub of the question, or krikoman's interpretation.: like 'reality' it depends how you define 'sound'.

Of course a falling tree will generate disturbances of air molecules that will propagate in pressure waves, but until they trigger a response in someone's cochlea and are interpreted by some neural network, can you call this 'sound'? Isn't sound something which is (necessarily) heard?

If you think the unwitnessed tree does make a sound, then can we say what it 'sounds' like? We've agreed we may all have different perceptions, and other species will hear completely different ranges of those vibrating air molecules. Is it even sensible to think of sound as being part of the Reality Out There at all?

And colour... There exist in reality photons of various wavelengths, but until one lands on a retina, does colour exist 'out there' in the universe at all?

In reply to abseil:



e.g. if 100 people stand looking up at Stanage

... that would be a very quiet Saturday afternoon