Realities that exist only in our minds.

[Sidhe]

But a brick continues to exist even if we do not name it. Yes, we can declare it to be a bookend or a doorstop instead of a brick, but its existence as matter in space and time does not change because of the renaming.

"Canada" is different. Yes, there are lands and buildings that comprise Canada, and these lands and buildings will continue to exist if we no longer call them Canada. However, you have a more complex interaction with Canada (assuming for now that you're Canadian): you send taxes to "Canada"; you obey the laws of "Canada" or allow "Canada" to punish or fine or imprison you; you elect the leaders of "Canada" and allow them to enter into agreements on your behalf with other "countries;" you assign value to the "Canadian" dollar and respect its exchange with others. You could do none of these things but for the agreement that we share that Canada exists as an entity.

As a counter-example, take the now-defunct Confederate States of America, what they called the south in the American civil war. For a period of time, some other countries had consensus on the existence of the CSA, signed treaties with them, etc. The CSA even printed its own currency, but when the CSA was no more, that currency had no value. If you had a bunch of Canadian currency, and Canada ceased to exist because a new consensus was formed (think Yugoslavia), the paper of your Canadian currency would continue to exist in physical reality, but would no longer be currency.

This is leading towards ontology so I thought I'd post this, personally from the reading I've done I think the discussion of what existence and what being is in interesting to me, I side with Heidger in that you can have existence with description or words, but not without actual being although some would disagree and Heidegger himself was somewhat criticised.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger

Heidegger was one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, and his ideas have penetrated into many areas. His discussion of ontology has led to his being often cited as one of the founders of existentialism. His ideas inspired major philosophical works, e.g., Sartre's Being and Nothingness, although Heidegger insisted that Sartre misunderstood him. His philosophical work was taken up throughout Germany, France, and Japan and has gained, since the 1970s, a fair following in North America as well. Heidegger's work was scorned and dismissed, however, by many of his contemporaries, such as the Vienna Circle, Theodor Adorno, the Hegelians, and Anglo-American philosophers such as Bertrand Russell and A. J. Ayer.

Heidegger's philosophy refused to recognize concepts such as consciousness, subjectivity, ego, the mind or other fact-value distinctions, because he saw them as fundamentally immeasurable, indefinable and easily subject to multiple interpretations. For example: consciousness vs. "what?" Ego as opposed to "what?" He criticises our reliance on modern science and our subjugation to technology, and he did not see the point to include an "ethical" dimension to his theory; he suggested that "ethical" dimensions are purely "subjective" and only result in a fundamental misunderstanding of his holistic unified experience of "being in the world" which he called dasein.

Heidegger's philosophy also has been read as opening up the possibility for dialogue with traditions of thought outside of Western philosophy, particularly East Asian thinking. This is an ambiguous aspect of Heidegger's philosophy, because such notions of his as "language as the house of being" precisely seem to rule out such a possibility. Eastern and Western thought literally and metaphorically do not speak the same language. However, certain elements in Heidegger's later work -- particularly the dialogue between "a Japanese and an Inquirer" in On the Way to Language -- do show an interest in such a dialogue occurring. Heidegger had contact with a number of leading Japanese intellectuals of his time in the Kyoto School. It has been claimed that a number of elements within Heidegger's thought bear a close parallel to Eastern philosophical ideas, particularly with Zen Buddhism and Daoism.

Although my basic understanding is pale and uninteresting I hope some of the more learned philosophers might enlighten us as to what they consider is at essence existence and what we would describe as real, me I think words are a framework not an essence of existence, and a poor one at that, I think to really get to the core of what is an isn't you need to look what underlies what you believe to be real, and why the self or the collective comes to these conclusions, to look at the world in terms of both literal intepritation of language and phenominology: something that happens that might not be easily explained by direct interpritation but none the less is part of human conciousness and nothing more abstract. Although I do think the abstract is a key way to find our way to the distinct truths behind our conciousness. utterly fascinating topic and one I think I will sit back and watch on as my understanding is simple and without real depth.

I agree. A person can change their perception, and thus change their reality. A group of people can change their perception, and make a whole new reality.

Not exactly, their reality may be false and founded on misconception, it's only a new reality if it agrees to reality as we know it, their must be at least some objective construct that denotes reality, to get under the surface you need to find what it is that makes your reality a definable term even if it may be fleeting, we all know how real some arguments are no matter how logical or perceptive they sound, is that really real? Hehe good luck.

 

[Veritass]

Although I do think the abstract is a key way to find our way to the distinct truths behind our conciousness. utterly fascinating topic and one I think I will sit back and watch on as my understanding is simple and without real depth.

Oh, don't just sit back and watch. What fun would that be?

I don't even want to go down the philosophical trap of "Do I exist?" and "Do you exist?"

The Orwell "1984" example is a good one, though it went a little awry in discussing where the past exists. (If the past exists in records and in minds, and we control the records and the minds, then we control the past.) The discussion there was whether Winston could change the fact of whether they had always been at war with a particular country.

I am talking about the present, and the present is malleable. The leadership of a country X can decide they are at war with country Y, and at that moment of consensus, they become at war with that country. Nothing has yet changed in physical reality, but a new entity, this war, has been created.

Bozo was quite right is saying the words have power. The big issue of the day is who is giving the various meanings to our words. From the musical "Wicked":

"A man's called a traitor, or liberator.
A rich man's a thief, or philanthropist.
Is one a crusader, or ruthless invader?
It's all in which label is able to persist."

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Actually, "Canada" isn't even really a collection of buildings et al at all. It is just a word, and words in turn are just series of electric impulses in the brain, or certain patterns of sound waves, or certain configurations of electricity in digital form, or ceratin groupings of ink or other substances on a writing medium. That's all, as far as the universe is concerned.

 

[Kyriakos]

Definately our notions of anything are entirely objective, and so is our understanding of being human, part of an external world, distinct etc.

However apart from that inevitable objectivity there is the ability to form platfroms of objectivity.
For example we do not have the same notion of an utero, or of spermatozoa, or of a fallopian tube, but this does not alter the fact that there is a state called ecto-uteral impregnation. This is when an egg is impregnated while it is still inside one of the fallopian tubes, and thus it never reaches the part of the utero (i do not know its name in english) where a normal pregnacy can evolve. This causes a very serious problem inside the fallopian tube, which can burst from the size of the growing embryo.

Although our individual understanding of any and all notions particular to a fallopian tube bursting are entirely objective, neverthelsess we form another form of understanding, that which can dwell on the level of 'medical knowledge' and thus we can so to speak "save that information" there. In this way we can have scientific thought and knowledge spread.
At any rate this knowledge spreads without being checked by philosophical examination, but it is obvious that this does not make it any less important, or indeed usefull

Since i am very involved with the issue of consciousness, the ego, the notion of being human (which in my view is not really fundamental in one's life, since no one is primarily a human being since he is mostly an ego inside a world of personal consciousness), i am fond of such discussions, but it must be noted that science or scienitific thought is not at risk by them. It can be examined more closely in their light as well, but not so as to be attacked.

 

[Sidhe]

Oh, don't just sit back and watch. What fun would that be?

I don't even want to go down the philosophical trap of "Do I exist?" and "Do you exist?"

The Orwell "1984" example is a good one, though it went a little awry in discussing where the past exists. (If the past exists in records and in minds, and we control the records and the minds, then we control the past.) The discussion there was whether Winston could change the fact of whether they had always been at war with a particular country.

I am talking about the present, and the present is malleable. The leadership of a country X can decide they are at war with country Y, and at that moment of consensus, they become at war with that country. Nothing has yet changed in physical reality, but a new entity, this war, has been created.

Bozo was quite right is saying the words have power. The big issue of the day is who is giving the various meanings to our words. From the musical "Wicked":

"A man's called a traitor, or liberator.
A rich man's a thief, or philanthropist.
Is one a crusader, or ruthless invader?
It's all in which label is able to persist."

Oh I wont, I never wanted to lay a trap, you misinterprit my intentions, all I wanted to say is that now and in the present, there is a profound philosophical debate into what constitutes our perceptions of our reality. I was trying to get at the fundementals of the way people think. i.e a man is x( a word) according to y(another word) but what is he really, surely there is a conception, but is this a reality? Is our perception any more real because we label him? Or does it run deeper, can we concieve of the world in words alone, or do we need a better language?

Do I exist is a point, but it is beside the point, because we need to accept we do and that we have some sort of interpritation on existence, without it, it's philosophical hand waving and it's been explored by the existentialists, I think therefore I am, and...

 

[warpus]

But a brick continues to exist even if we do not name it. Yes, we can declare it to be a bookend or a doorstop instead of a brick, but its existence as matter in space and time does not change because of the renaming.

"Canada" is different.

Semantics.

There is no fundamental difference.

 

[Veritass]

@Varwnos: The term we use is "ectopic pregnancy." This falls in the second level of reality I mentioned above, in that this condition occurs or exists whether we name it or not. We are just giving a specific name to the occurance, because it is more efficient and more specific to say she has "an ectopic pregnancy," than to say she has "that problem where the big eggy thing and the little swimmy thing get together and start to divide, but the dividing thing doesn't get down to the blood-wall place it normally goes but implants in the tube thing instead."

@Sidhe: I'm trying to keep the discussion less philosophical and more practical. Just like in the "free will" argument that goes back and forth sometimes, we get down to the practical aspect where we have to assume and act like we have free will even if there is some greater truth that we don't understand where we don't actually have free will.

Same for defining this type of existence. I'm not going to even try to argue that Canada does not exist. I am sure that it does exist; I am just trying to uncover where and how it exists. Take Israel, for example. The Arab states make a case for obliterating it, which means they all agree that it currently exists. But where are how does it exist? It exists because of a treaty agreement granting its existence.

You can't just blow up Israel. Granted, with enough nuclear weapons you could make the land just a bunch of scorched earth. Israel does not exist as merely this parcel of land, but as a concept and an agreed-upon idea. This is the same as trying to change Palestinian minds through firepower. While I support the use of firepower to limit damage, the real battle for this area will have to be in the hearts and minds of people.

Maybe it will take enough firepower to make the Arab states back down. Maybe Israel will become scorched earth. I believe much of the real war is the war in the media to try to affect world-wide consensus regarding this area.

 

[Veritass]

Semantics. There is no fundamental difference.

Would you care to address any of the ways where I tried to show how it is actually different?

 

[Kyriakos]

While you could argue that something exists even if you are not aware of it (as indeed it does), at the same time it does not exist in your own world of consciousness. Japan, for example, did not exist for the ancient greeks.
The fact that we can form an abstract notion of something which could exist without having been seen by us reveals that there is the capacity for such a thought-formation. The actual thought-formation itself, however, did not appear because it could be utilised in the future, in the more elaborate linguistically form of 'speculation', 'imagination', 'quest for the truth'. It was formed for entirely different reasons, in a very distant past. It is highly probable (if not entirely certain) that all human abilities were formed for the simple goal of survival, and that at some level they are very much linked to that basic goal, nomatter what other abilities they can allow for.
No one has the same view as anyone else on anything. We have different ways of seing any form, different scales of examination of it, different scales of comparissons of it, different tendancies for conclusion of such comparissons and examinations.
In the world of art it is very straightforward to notice that many artists use entirely objective symbolisms (ie use symbols which appear to have a bigger meaning for them than for others). Others try to find more universal ones, and at some level almost all symbols can make us feel something, since the pathways of thought allow for multiple emplanations of anything which is seen as vague.
The human calculator (the brain) had to allow for such objectivism so that it would not be threatened with collapse everytime we were faced with something not yet 'understood'. It would be a great danger to be faced with such 'uknowns', nomatter that obviously every person on a daily basis is faced in reality with a vast number of uknowns since no one is familiar with all knowledge in any field. Still we can survive without being crushed by such impressions of our own limited understanding of the world, and that in itself is a very impressive mental trick

 

[Ayatollah So]

It's interesting, I guess, to think about the fact that Canada would fall apart as a nation if everyone suddenly stopped naming or conceiving of it. But Erik has a point that I like, which I would express a little differently. I don't think these points about "levels of reality" show that any of these things are less real than others.

All truths have one foot in "words" and one in "world". Instead of Heidegger, who I admit I don't understand, I offer Tarski. As Tarski pointed out in a profound tautology (yes, such things are possible), "Snow is white" is true iff snow is white. And similarly for any other proposition-stating sentence. No matter how objective the subject-matter, every true sentence is built with words whose meaning is a matter of convention. And conversely, no matter how conventional the words in a sentence, it will be flat-out true if the conditions are right.

 

[Veritass]

The fact that we can form an abstract notion of something which could exist without having been seen by us reveals that there is the capacity for such a thought-formation. The actual thought-formation itself, however, did not appear because it could be utilised in the future, in the more elaborate linguistically form of 'speculation', 'imagination', 'quest for the truth'. It was formed for entirely different reasons, in a very distant past.

I believe one of the greatest human abilities is the ability to create the idea of something that does not exist, and then create that thing in the world. This applies to inventing something and then building one in physical reality. It also applies to creating the idea of a social structure, and then creating its counterpart in life. I am not sure what you mean by "It was formed...in a very distant past."

The human calculator (the brain) had to allow for such objectivism so that it would not be threatened with collapse everytime we were faced with something not yet 'understood'.

Surely even animals have the ability to react to things that they do not understand. They probably cannot react as effectively, as we have more experience and more abstract thinking, so we can come up with more creative responses.

 

[Veritass]

As Tarski pointed out in a profound tautology (yes, such things are possible), "Snow is white" is true if snow is white. And similarly for any other proposition-stating sentence.

I will be the first to agree with you that all language is metaphor, and I have stated so in other threads. The word "chair" is not a chair, etc. That is all dealing with the second level of reality in my original post: the reality of naming things and coming to agreement on their names. Snow is white for either the right definitions of "snow" and "white" or for the right circumstances. By the way, compressed crystallized snow in glaciers is a beautiful light blue.

Beyond that, there is an entire declarative and creative ability of humans to invent things, as shown by Civ. We as humans invented currency and the corporation, both of which have no counterparts in any physical reality. These inventions only exist in our ongoing creation of them linguistically and socially. If we changed our minds tomorrow, we could take them out of existence.

Not to go too far afield, but I believe that this unique creative ability is what is meant by humans "...being created in God's image."