Least prerequisites for a 'truth' existing?

[Kyriakos]

Given the second circle of my glorious seminar is approaching its end (next week will be the 7nth, and the circle ends in the 8th), the apogee of this part of it will be the coming more analytic examination of Zeno's paradoxa, and the views of his teacher, Parmenides of Elea.

In essence the Eleatics presented the claim that there is actually nothing in the phenomena humans can either sense or think of, which is 'real', apart from (perhaps) some kind of shadow of a shadow of the edge of some reality above human fields of thought. That shadow of a shadow was termed as a likeness of the Parmenidian concept of "Oneness" ("Everything is One" would be the most famous of Parmenides' claims). The idea of that distant 'One' is very closely echoed in Plato himself, and his notion of "Archetypes" and "Eide", which are argued by Socrates to be 'things-in-themselves' that are fully independent of human thought or other experience, eternal, and existent as categories on some higher plane. Any human thought or other view is possible due to idols (ie again shadows in some manner) of those Archetypes, and thus human thought is inherently very poor next to 'reality' and the realms of those eternal Categories and Forms.

The paradoxa of Zeno

Zeno wrote a book where he tried to show that those making fun of his teacher (Parmenides) by claiming that his view of only ONE existing and not a multitude of objects (eg many people, or plants, materials of various kind etc) is irrational, are led to even more laughable schisms with logic than Parmenides might be. He tried to do this by focusing on the human notion of 'infinity', and juxtapose it to how we view things through our senses. Eg if a faster runner is for the moment behind a slower runner (Achilles and the tortoise) we would always view with our senses the faster runner catching up, and then moving in front. But if we use the mental (non sensory) factor of infinite sets we can imagine, then Achilles can be seen to be locked for an infinity behind the tortoise. Zeno did not mean something irrational along the lines of "the faster runner won't overtake the slower one"; he meant that our senses are creating illusionary input which itself is not part of a 'reality'.
The paradoxa were examined by future thinkers, eg already by Aristotle philosophically, and Archimedes with his own proto-calculus. But the context of Zeno's work is the Eleatic vs Democritian debate of whether all things are infinitely divisible, or reach some 'atomic' state at some point. Atom, of course, was coined to be used in this manner by Democritos himself, in the early 5th century BC, where most of those philosophers lived -Parmenides, Zeno, Democritos and his followers Anaxagoras and Protagoras, and also young Socrates).

So now, after my excellent text, here is the question in this thread:

The glorious question of the thread

If one supposes that there is some quality or state in the whole of our cosmos which allows the view that there can exist a "reality" (regardless of whether we can pick it up or not, due to our finite manner of thinking, and our bounded sensory input), what would be the least prerequisite for such a "reality" existing? In other words: would it be enough for that to have some next level/order of being where "truth" is also a property? So that our own, lesser level, is in the lie, but a next level is a true one?

Or would more complicated things have to be in place so as to argue there can be something real at all?

In general the question is tied to whether or not 'reality' can be idealised as meaning 'the view forming by there being no point of view at all' or 'by there being at the same time conscious infinite different points of view'. The former is often a basis of Idealism. The latter is tied to hybrids of philosophy with theology (eg horrible Cartesian booklets ). Afterall any set/bounded/finite point of view is inherently contaminating the phenomena with a bias of its own, and remains subjective.

 

[svknoe]

I find this sort of discussion interesting, though I am not quite sure I am fully grasping what you are saying and asking about. I have written some excerpts from your post in italics, with some thoughts about them directly beneath.

-which are argued by Socrates to be 'things-in-themselves' that are fully independent of human thought or other experience, eternal, and existent as categories on some higher plane. Any human thought or other view is possible due to idols (ie again shadows in some manner) of those Archetypes, and thus human thought is inherently very poor next to 'reality'

Does this mean anything else than that there is an objective reality and that human perception is imperfect? If not, the statement is fairly mundane. The talk about idols seems pretty superfluous, though. Human thought and minds seem to be a product of brains, which are a part of this reality. That there is some connection leading from outside matter through senses to brains and minds doesn't seem to require these idols (though I admit that I have not got a good understanding of what they are supposed to be).


-his view of only ONE existing and not a multitude of objects

What does this mean?

-But if we use the mental (non sensory) factor of infinite sets we can imagine, then Achilles can be seen to be locked for an infinity behind the tortoise.

Is this anything but an example of faulty reasoning? Mathematical summation of infinite series clearly show that this is not the case.

-he meant that our senses are creating illusionary input which itself is not part of a 'reality'.

This seems to me to say two things. One is that, again, human perception is imperfect. This is a fairly mundane claim. The other is that human perception is not a part of the physical reality. This claims is fairly absurd and lacking supporting evidence.

-If one supposes that there is some quality or state in the whole of our cosmos which allows the view that there can exist a "reality" (regardless of whether we can pick it up or not, due to our finite manner of thinking, and our bounded sensory input), what would be the least prerequisite for such a "reality" existing?

I am not quite sure if you are talking about our specific reality, or some set of minimum requirements that some sort of arbitrary reality has to fulfil. If it is our reality it seems to me that there necessarily is some quality of the cosmos that allows this view.


-would it be enough for that to have some next level/order of being where "truth" is also a property? So that our own, lesser level, is in the lie, but a next level is a true one?

I am not quite sure what this mean. Reality has certain attributes, one of which is our minds. Certain minds contain certain propositions about reality, which may or may not coincide with it. I don't see a reason to describe this as a lesser level which is a lie. It seems perfectly sufficient to say that the content of our minds is related to the outside reality but that human perception is imperfect.

-Or would more complicated things have to be in place so as to argue there can be something real at all?

Given that there is something at all in place (without discussing what something at all may mean), in what sense does it even make sense to ask this? I don't know what it would mean that the cosmos only contains simpler things than this and nothing is real.

-'the view forming by there being no point of view at all'

Does this mean the same thing as that there is an objective reality? If so, that is a fairly practical assumption. The other alternative seem to me to postulate an infinite amount of conscious beings (is this the same as conscious points of view? If not, what is a conscious point of view?) without providing anything of value.

 

[Perfection]

Reality need not have some specific view associated with it.

The best we can do is demonstrate our theories are isomorphic with reality (i.e. they behave the same way).

 

[Kyriakos]

@Svknoe: To say that 'human perception is imperfect' would imply that it is tied to a 'reality' in some crucial way, yet not able to fully identify it. But even this as a premise is not often accepted in philosophy, for it seems that any object only gets identified as a 'phenonomenon' (meaning literally an 'appearance' of what it is) given it is bound to be viewed through a human point of view (and also, secondarily, the individual human point of view, which at times differs significantly as well).
So if you claim that you identify the reality of something 'imperfectly', you would at least have to argue that what you identify is crucially tied to a reality.


As for the term 'idols', it is a very important one, cause much like there is a clear difference between a human and a doll somewhat serving as an idol of a human form, the Eide are argued by Plato/Socrates to be outside human perception, but idols of them are formed in human thought, as a kind of game of shadows (the allegory of the cave in Plato's Republic is using this metaphor as well). Although it should be noted that some philosophers of the era (the Eleatics) did not consider it evident that even such idols are there to link human thought to something 'real', and that perhaps there is no tie at all to a 'reality' of things for anyone who has a finite point of view.
As for the "Oneness" in the Eleatics: you could try to read on it, even introductory in some philosophy uni sites online. It is, in general, the idea/hypothesis that there is only one being in reality (some kind of spherical, changeless-oneness). Introduced as a notion by Xenophanes and Parmenides, in the start of the 5th century BC.
The Eleatics can sound very mystical at times, but the Platonic work "Parmenides" is a very interesting dialogue.

@Perfection: Is that the topological term? Iirc it means that you form some kind of tied-into view (or shape, in case of topology), in that it can be morphed to the other one (in our case, the 'real' one) in a finite number of steps and thus is to be termed as relatively close to it. But this does not have to actually follow as evident in the case of human perception of phenomena, cause the translation there may not be tied to an actual reality anyway (only to some possibly misleading appearance of it, picked up by the specific human senses, and theorised in human manners).

 

[Smote]

The best we can do is demonstrate our theories are isomorphic with reality (i.e. they behave the same way).

I disagree that this is the best, because it allows for unnecessary complexity. We should also strive for the simplest theory that is isomorphic with reality. For example, the Earth orbits the Sun, instead of coming up with some complicated scheme that involves the Earth being completely still (which may be mathematically doable).

 

[Smote]

The glorious question of the thread

If one supposes that there is some quality or state in the whole of our cosmos which allows the view that there can exist a "reality" (regardless of whether we can pick it up or not, due to our finite manner of thinking, and our bounded sensory input), what would be the least prerequisite for such a "reality" existing? In other words: would it be enough for that to have some next level/order of being where "truth" is also a property? So that our own, lesser level, is in the lie, but a next level is a true one?

Or would more complicated things have to be in place so as to argue there can be something real at all?

In dnd, some beings have an ability called "Truesight" where they can sense things as they actually are, regardless of illusion. If we had "truesight" we could be absolutely sure that there actually was a world out there.

 

[Kyriakos]

^That is cool and all, but given it's an RD thread, maybe don't bring echoes of DnD creatures

 

[Smote]

^That is cool and all, but given it's an RD thread, maybe don't bring echoes of DnD creatures

Is it not a relevant idea? (If I never mentioned dnd at all would it be applicable?)

 

[Borachio]

In dnd, some beings have an ability called "Truesight" where they can sense things as they actually are, regardless of illusion. If we had "truesight" we could be absolutely sure that there actually was a world out there.

But how would we know our "truesight" was true?

This reminds me of the Pure Land School of Buddhism. You can say this mantra "Namu Amida Butsu!" and apparently this enables you to see the world as it truly is. Even if you don't believe it will. Which I thought was great. And tried it out. It works!

Spoiler :

Until I realised that saying anything at all has exactly the same effect.

 

[Perfection]

@Perfection: Is that the topological term? Iirc it means that you form some kind of tied-into view (or shape, in case of topology), in that it can be morphed to the other one (in our case, the 'real' one) in a finite number of steps and thus is to be termed as relatively close to it. But this does not have to actually follow as evident in the case of human perception of phenomena, cause the translation there may not be tied to an actual reality anyway (only to some possibly misleading appearance of it, picked up by the specific human senses, and theorised in human manners).

I'm using it in the category theory sense (I think, I'm not well versed here)

Here's some reading to get a better idea WTH I'm on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomorphism#Relation_with_equality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic-tac-toe#Variations (15s game - Tic Tac Toe Isomorphism)

I would say that if we found an equation that seemed to be isomorphic at the universe at a basic level, we could probably test it well enough to dismiss that there this doesn't mirror the structure of reality and we're under some delusion. The bigger issue is if we know the structure of the universe, are we missing some of its essence?

It's sorta like we can know we're playing the 15s game (see above link) or Tic Tac Toe or something like that, but can't tell which.

I disagree that this is the best, because it allows for unnecessary complexity. We should also strive for the simplest theory that is isomorphic with reality. For example, the Earth orbits the Sun, instead of coming up with some complicated scheme that involves the Earth being completely still (which may be mathematically doable).

That's admirable, but it may be the case that the more complex view might in a certain way be more correct even if we cannot see why. It also runs into the issue that multiple views might be of comparable complexity (for instance different interpretations of quantum mechanics)

^That is cool and all, but given it's an RD thread, maybe don't bring echoes of DnD creatures

His comment was completely appropriate, you're being pompous.

 

[Kyriakos]

I wasn't being actually pompous, but (as it is an RD thread) i will take the 5th on that

Regarding your mention of an isomorphia in tic-tac-toe and the 1-9 number game (15s), from your link:

There is a game that is isomorphic to tic-tac-toe, but on the surface appears completely different. Two players in turn say a number between one and nine. A particular number may not be repeated. The game is won by the player who has said three numbers whose sum is 15. Plotting these numbers on a 3×3 magic square shows that the game exactly corresponds with tic-tac-toe, since three numbers will be arranged in a straight line if and only if they total 15.

It would appear that this is a more concrete case of ties, and not just an overall tied model (or potentially tied model) to some original 'object', cause the tictactoe game is examined to have the exact same mechanics as the 15s one, although they are expressed differently. So it would follow more to say that one is a translation of the Same phenomenon to another field/plane etc. But human examination/models of the physical world do not seem to be even potentially tied to it as direct translations, cause in those you have the complex human way of forming views and senses causing this translation and thus the translation is heavily bound to that (instead of the supposed 'reality' of the external object).

In other terms: if the tictactoe in your example was morphed into the 15s game in the same manner that human perception translates objects, then the tictactoe would be on its actual mechanics a very different game (factoring main other parameters, standing here for the human way of sensing/thinking). While now it is entirely the same in its mechanics with the 15s one

Important Edit:

But i must add that your ending note (that we may be said to 'not know which of the two games we are playing' while playing one of them) sort of pushes aside the unknown factors here, to some non-examined realm of 'not knowing' that is systemically passed over in your paradigm. But this is a move many thinkers have made, ie tried to negate any focus on actually accounting for parts of the system of examination that border unknown parameters (eg, to use a very prominent such parameter, the notion of 'infinity').
For example Aristotle famously moved away from the focus on infinity as something itself a main issue as to how/if at all it is to be examined in direct expansion of a finitely based system (Eleatic/Dialectic), and coined the term "Continuum" ( Συνεχές ), which is still used in the same manner (at least in part of Physics) to connote 'the continuous set that is created by potentially infinitely many parts, themselves potentially infinitely divisible'. Notice the lack of the term "single points", which is what he was moving away from (The Eleatics and the Democritians were very focused on points vs infinity).
Of course another change there is that Aristotle moves further away from a more theoretical examination of both human thought and external objects, by clearly focusing on theoretical models of practically accounting for an external phenomenon (eg counting the point in time an object will pass through position X, and so on).

 

[svknoe]

That's admirable, but it may be the case that the more complex view might in a certain way be more correct even if we cannot see why. It also runs into the issue that multiple views might be of comparable complexity (for instance different interpretations of quantum mechanics)

I think that Smote's addition correct and important. It allows us to distinguish (it terms of 'goodness') between different theories that make identical predictions. It only applies if the two theories actually make the same predictions, so the first problem you mention goes away. The second part is not a problem either, since we are trying to make a theory that is as close to isomorphic with reality as possible. If we have two different theories of similar complexity that make the same predictions it doesn't matter which one of them is 'true'. (I have assumed that they match up to experiment, of course.)

@Svknoe: To say that 'human perception is imperfect' would imply that it is tied to a 'reality' in some crucial way, yet not able to fully identify it. But even this as a premise is not often accepted in philosophy, for it seems that any object only gets identified as a 'phenonomenon' (meaning literally an 'appearance' of what it is) given it is bound to be viewed through a human point of view (and also, secondarily, the individual human point of view, which at times differs significantly as well).
So if you claim that you identify the reality of something 'imperfectly', you would at least have to argue that what you identify is crucially tied to a reality.

I would argue that human perception is tied to reality in a crucial way, for instance by being a part of it, and yet not able to fully identify it. The last part of that statement is the easiest to show. There are many phenomena that our sense do not perceive. We are for instance not able to see radio waves, although they occupy the electromagnetic spectrum, same as visible light. The first part is mostly a practical assumption. If our perception is in no way related to reality, we can't know anything about reality at all. We can make no scientific theories and no predictions about how the world will behave. It is therefore rather hopeless to toss away this assumption, while it has proven valuable so far.

A counterpoint to this would be the possibility of non-empirical knowledge of reality. I have seen neither an example of such knowledge nor a believable claim that is possible.

As for the term 'idols', it is a very important one, cause much like there is a clear difference between a human and a doll somewhat serving as an idol of a human form, the Eide are argued by Plato/Socrates to be outside human perception, but idols of them are formed in human thought, as a kind of game of shadows (the allegory of the cave in Plato's Republic is using this metaphor as well). Although it should be noted that some philosophers of the era (the Eleatics) did not consider it evident that even such idols are there to link human thought to something 'real', and that perhaps there is no tie at all to a 'reality' of things for anyone who has a finite point of view.
As for the "Oneness" in the Eleatics: you could try to read on it, even introductory in some philosophy uni sites online. It is, in general, the idea/hypothesis that there is only one being in reality (some kind of spherical, changeless-oneness). Introduced as a notion by Xenophanes and Parmenides, in the start of the 5th century BC.
The Eleatics can sound very mystical at times, but the Platonic work "Parmenides" is a very interesting dialogue.

The idols remind me of Kant's 'ding an sich'/'ding für mich' distinction.

This 'Onesness' term sounds very mystical to me, though I may misunderstand it. Rather than a question of what is possible to know (which as I understand it, is what the discussion is mostly about), it seems to me to be an unfounded claim about the world.