PROVE to me that the world is, in fact, real at all.

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
d3r31nz1g3
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Re: PROVE to me that the world is, in fact, real at all.

Post by d3r31nz1g3 »

Dlaw wrote: November 27th, 2022, 6:32 pm
d3r31nz1g3 wrote: November 23rd, 2022, 5:13 pm That it's a real world with real wars and etc and not a hypnotic deception.
Ok, but the position against the reality of the world is trivial contradiction.

As soon as people discovered astronomy they found that long-dead humans they nevertheless knew to be alive at one time predicted with total certainty and correctness the future position of the celestial bodies. We can out two microscopic corporeal structures in a warm test tube and then talk to the product years later and hear a new and individual perception of the world. Through DNA a biologist can know who your parents are even if you don't.

Again it's a trivial move outside self-obsession and it can be done a hundred ways. I'll bet there were plenty of Japanese people pondering this very question right before their neighbors got fried and they were made catastrophically ill by radiation they couldn't see or perceive in any way.

How about two engineers in Holmdel, New Jersey who went outside, pointed their new antenna at the heavens and heard a noise that shouldn't have been there. Who cared, at that moment, if a Chinese peasant had no perception or this huge change in human knowledge and thought that the world was nothing more than a hypnotic deception? For his great-granddaughter it's an article of faith, as perceptually solid as a rock.
Indeed. But how do you know it's not simply 8,000,000,000 silly billy fart people?
Dlaw
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Re: PROVE to me that the world is, in fact, real at all.

Post by Dlaw »

d3r31nz1g3 wrote: November 27th, 2022, 8:23 pm
Indeed. But how do you know it's not simply 8,000,000,000 silly billy fart people?

I see.

But you've put your foot in it there.

You don't even need a reason to disbelieve that eight billion people of any variety don't create the universe because it's never been possible for eight billion people to do anything in coordination.

At the end of the day, as you know, your argument just turns trivial. You can make up succeedingly ridiculous gods, magic spells and superheroes and the comic book they live in could have them creating an alternate universe. It falls a bit short of a philosophical argument.
Moreno
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Re: PROVE to me that the world is, in fact, real at all.

Post by Moreno »

Pattern-chaser wrote: November 27th, 2022, 11:23 am OK, it's true that we can't know the nature of Objective Reality, so we have to stick to the only reality to which we have access, and that's the one our senses and perception reveal to us, illusory or not. And, within that reality, statistics exist, and statistical theories have been tried and tested, and their predictive value has been confirmed.
Unless it's a simulation (etc.) and they haven't. Calling it reality is also stacking the deck. 'What we have experienced so far' or 'what seems to be reality'.
But once we move outside this reality, we sometimes find questions that we wish to consider, but for which there is little or no evidence, pro or con. Such things are similar to (unfounded) opinions, in that there is no evidence. In such cases, statistics cannot help us, because we are outside the area within which statistics is helpful.
within which it has seemed to be helpful.
Once you move away from evidence, the sand on which we build our beliefs gets softer and less supportive.
But the sand is already soft. If we cannot come up with a percentage about it's being a simulation, we cannot about it's being real.

I am not suggesting that we give up using statistics, just following the implications of not being able to come up with odds about fundamental ontology.
But one thing we can observe, and comment on, is that the probability of such things being correct cannot be quantified. And that's what I'm getting at here.
Yes, I got that. I hoped that was clear. And in practical terms, I do what you are saying - though I am lazy about apply statistics and tend to decide things on a more intuitive level. I am more realizing/pointing out that if we can't estimate statistically about ontology, and given that ontology is the tree from with the fruit of everyday statistics is based on, that is fruit of a poison tree, however much it SEEMS like it has been working.

So, some sort of asterisk or disclaimer, in contexts where one wants to be rigorous, seems appropriate. What can we do? We work with what memory and learning have indicated. It's not about tossing our hands up and not using statistics. It's about recognizing that once we acknowledge we can't come up with percentages around reality at the level of ontology, then what we consider evidence may not be that at all. It may not even have existed at all.

So on the practical level, I will continue to work with the general common sense ontology assumptions for most things, but also keep that asterisk in mind, especially in philosophical contexts.

Imagine if we are in a universe where expectation and habit affect the ontology we experience.
Dlaw
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Re: PROVE to me that the world is, in fact, real at all.

Post by Dlaw »

Moreno wrote: November 28th, 2022, 3:24 am
Pattern-chaser wrote: November 27th, 2022, 11:23 am OK, it's true that we can't know the nature of Objective Reality, so we have to stick to the only reality to which we have access, and that's the one our senses and perception reveal to us, illusory or not. And, within that reality, statistics exist, and statistical theories have been tried and tested, and their predictive value has been confirmed.
Unless it's a simulation (etc.) and they haven't. Calling it reality is also stacking the deck. 'What we have experienced so far' or 'what seems to be reality'.
But once we move outside this reality, we sometimes find questions that we wish to consider, but for which there is little or no evidence, pro or con. Such things are similar to (unfounded) opinions, in that there is no evidence. In such cases, statistics cannot help us, because we are outside the area within which statistics is helpful.
within which it has seemed to be helpful.
Once you move away from evidence, the sand on which we build our beliefs gets softer and less supportive.
But the sand is already soft. If we cannot come up with a percentage about it's being a simulation, we cannot about it's being real.

I am not suggesting that we give up using statistics, just following the implications of not being able to come up with odds about fundamental ontology.
But one thing we can observe, and comment on, is that the probability of such things being correct cannot be quantified. And that's what I'm getting at here.
Yes, I got that. I hoped that was clear. And in practical terms, I do what you are saying - though I am lazy about apply statistics and tend to decide things on a more intuitive level. I am more realizing/pointing out that if we can't estimate statistically about ontology, and given that ontology is the tree from with the fruit of everyday statistics is based on, that is fruit of a poison tree, however much it SEEMS like it has been working.

So, some sort of asterisk or disclaimer, in contexts where one wants to be rigorous, seems appropriate. What can we do? We work with what memory and learning have indicated. It's not about tossing our hands up and not using statistics. It's about recognizing that once we acknowledge we can't come up with percentages around reality at the level of ontology, then what we consider evidence may not be that at all. It may not even have existed at all.

So on the practical level, I will continue to work with the general common sense ontology assumptions for most things, but also keep that asterisk in mind, especially in philosophical contexts.
Moreno wrote: November 28th, 2022, 3:24 am Imagine if we are in a universe where expectation and habit affect the ontology we experience.
We ARE in a Universe where the facts of our monkey selves affect the ontology we experience. Everyone knows an apple is red. People who are red-green colorblind ALSO know an apple is red- or at least they start out that way. But, we can cleverly prove that their experience is different from our experience because of the purely physical, objective condition of their eyes. You can't explain the them the "quale" of red but you can safely assume most everyone who is not colorblind sees the red that you see. Inverted spectra are a lot of hooey. Statistics tell us without fail that one individual Homo sapiens is about the same as another one, the same as one chicken is about the same as another one, one kangaroo, one humpback whale - there's no possibility of special pleading here.

The entire direction of Evolution shows us that organisms tend inevitably towards coordination, imitation and homogeny, from sponges that are really a group of independent microorganisms (or are they?) to Homo sapiens. We create super-cooperative colonies that get larger and larger - just like bees except bees are physically hyper-similar through hormones and we have super-imitative brains. We can think the same things that long-dead humans thought because we take their words at face value. In fact, we can't really help doing it.

We ALSO have the power of creating models of the Universe that do not correspond to the Universe. But the answer is that we couldn't be hyper-imitative if we didn't have the power to create models.

When someone says that they world could possibly be an illusion, they are making up a model. It seems to possibly correspond to the Universe because it's a tautology. The theory that everything is pretty much as we perceive it, to the extent we can be scientific AND refer to multiple, independent observations predicts all kinds of fantastic things we never would have guessed if we said "it's all an illusion"

The belief in a phantom Universe is an ultra-religion. It posits a universal force not in evidence. There are plenty of convincing theories that turn out to be nonsense and the most nonsensical or very often the most all-encompassing.

The universe of illusion is just hyper-narcissism.
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Re: PROVE to me that the world is, in fact, real at all.

Post by Moreno »

Dlaw wrote: November 28th, 2022, 8:18 pm The belief in a phantom Universe is an ultra-religion. It posits a universal force not in evidence. There are plenty of convincing theories that turn out to be nonsense and the most nonsensical or very often the most all-encompassing.

The universe of illusion is just hyper-narcissism.
Well, if I join that religion, I'll mull over your hypothesis.
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Re: PROVE to me that the world is, in fact, real at all.

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Moreno wrote: November 28th, 2022, 3:24 am I am not suggesting that we give up using statistics...
...and neither am I. I am specifically objecting to the quantification of probability when there is no statistical technique, theory, or whatever, to justify the numbers stated. Let's just be honest, and say what we know, not what we would like to pretend that we know? We are grown-ups, most of us, after all! 😉
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Re: PROVE to me that the world is, in fact, real at all.

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Dlaw wrote: November 28th, 2022, 8:18 pm ...you can safely assume most everyone who is not colorblind sees the red that you see.
What is your (philosophical) justification for this assertion, please?



Dlaw wrote: November 28th, 2022, 8:18 pm Statistics tell us without fail that one individual Homo sapiens is about the same as another one...
This one too, please? What technique or theory of statistics is it that tells us this, "without fail"?
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Re: PROVE to me that the world is, in fact, real at all.

Post by Dlaw »

Pattern-chaser wrote: November 29th, 2022, 1:00 pm
Dlaw wrote: November 28th, 2022, 8:18 pm ...you can safely assume most everyone who is not colorblind sees the red that you see.
What is your (philosophical) justification for this assertion, please?
[/quote}

It's inductive. We know that anatomy and physiology are incredibly consistent across a species. All of medicine relies on tests where values fall in narrow range. People fall into a predictable distribution in any scientific test of a population. For color-blindness the anomaly is accompanied with a pretty obvious anatomical difference. Even with brain injuries, most senses are pretty durable. So, it's safe to assume that people see the same thing because the alternative would be an undetectable perceptual difference not associated with any other anomaly.
Pattern-chaser wrote: November 29th, 2022, 1:00 pm
Dlaw wrote: November 28th, 2022, 8:18 pm Statistics tell us without fail that one individual Homo sapiens is about the same as another one...
This one too, please? What technique or theory of statistics is it that tells us this, "without fail"?
Any member of a species is pretty much like the other one. That's what "species: means: members can match their DNA to each other and produce true-breeding offspring.

If I clone a cannabis plant by putting a stem in some medium, I know that the plant produced is going to be almost identical. Not identical, mind you, but almost identical - so cloned stems can be said to be STATISTICALLY identical.

The philosophy can't get too far from the biology.
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Re: PROVE to me that the world is, in fact, real at all.

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Dlaw wrote: November 28th, 2022, 8:18 pm Statistics tell us without fail that one individual Homo sapiens is about the same as another one...
Pattern-chaser wrote: November 29th, 2022, 1:00 pm What technique or theory of statistics is it that tells us this, "without fail"?
Dlaw wrote: November 29th, 2022, 4:58 pm Any member of a species is pretty much like the other one. That's what "species: means: members can match their DNA to each other and produce true-breeding offspring.

If I clone a cannabis plant by putting a stem in some medium, I know that the plant produced is going to be almost identical. Not identical, mind you, but almost identical - so cloned stems can be said to be STATISTICALLY identical.

The philosophy can't get too far from the biology.
You claimed that "Statistics tell us without fail that X", and I asked what the statistics were that achieve this, regardless of what X might be. You have offered a justification for X instead.

What are the statistics that you refer to? And how do they tell us whatever it is that they tell us, "without fail"? It's a simple enough question. No tricks or hidden traps. No subtleties. Just a simple request for information.
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Re: PROVE to me that the world is, in fact, real at all.

Post by Dlaw »

Pattern-chaser wrote: November 30th, 2022, 9:13 am
Dlaw wrote: November 28th, 2022, 8:18 pm Statistics tell us without fail that one individual Homo sapiens is about the same as another one...
Pattern-chaser wrote: November 29th, 2022, 1:00 pm What technique or theory of statistics is it that tells us this, "without fail"?
Dlaw wrote: November 29th, 2022, 4:58 pm Any member of a species is pretty much like the other one. That's what "species: means: members can match their DNA to each other and produce true-breeding offspring.

If I clone a cannabis plant by putting a stem in some medium, I know that the plant produced is going to be almost identical. Not identical, mind you, but almost identical - so cloned stems can be said to be STATISTICALLY identical.

The philosophy can't get too far from the biology.
You claimed that "Statistics tell us without fail that X", and I asked what the statistics were that achieve this, regardless of what X might be. You have offered a justification for X instead.

What are the statistics that you refer to? And how do they tell us whatever it is that they tell us, "without fail"? It's a simple enough question. No tricks or hidden traps. No subtleties. Just a simple request for information.
The Bell curve, dude. Normal distribution. When you've got a huge high spike in the middle of the distribution then you've got a lot of similarity there. The other metric would be DNA. The more sites on the chromosomes are similar, the more similar the creatures. You can posit imaginary situations like the inverted spectrum but unless you can suggest a mechanism for them and find some cause for one individual to be so specifically different from another, you have to conclude that they are most likely to be VERY similar.
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Re: PROVE to me that the world is, in fact, real at all.

Post by owlkinhoot »

Well, I have a bad eye sight and when people look through my left eye, they see blurred vision when I take off my glasses. So um yeah, the glasses are real. And um I'm real. You guys are probably real too. :)

If we were living in say game engine, then I'd say Wow those algorithms for "instincts" as defined by Freud, "desire for morality" as defined by religion, "personality" as defined by psychology and more are so complex and well-written, I'd like to thank God for my desire for some fetishes and well-being and generosity, which I'm driven by. In fact, Life is a Game. Just cheer on and be happy :)

If there's an outlier, it could be unexplainable with science or with religion. In which case, we call it, the joke of God.
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Re: PROVE to me that the world is, in fact, real at all.

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Dlaw wrote: November 30th, 2022, 4:21 pm You can posit imaginary situations like the inverted spectrum but unless you can suggest a mechanism for them and find some cause for one individual to be so specifically different from another, you have to conclude that they are most likely to be VERY similar.
You don't have to conclude anything. In fact, in the absence of evidence, or any other justification, you (we) probably should not "conclude" anything at all. At best, we assume, and carry on, as we so often do. At worst, we make stuff up, and assert its correctness, which I believe is a mistake, a step too far.

Our expectation, fuelled by lifetimes of experience and observation, is that most people are similar. By and large, this expectation is fulfilled much more often than not. But this is (educated) guesswork, not solid reasoning, I think.

And I don't think that you have made your case that statistics tells us anything "without fail".
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Re: PROVE to me that the world is, in fact, real at all.

Post by Dlaw »

Pattern-chaser wrote: December 2nd, 2022, 10:35 am
Dlaw wrote: November 30th, 2022, 4:21 pm You can posit imaginary situations like the inverted spectrum but unless you can suggest a mechanism for them and find some cause for one individual to be so specifically different from another, you have to conclude that they are most likely to be VERY similar.
You don't have to conclude anything. In fact, in the absence of evidence, or any other justification, you (we) probably should not "conclude" anything at all. At best, we assume, and carry on, as we so often do. At worst, we make stuff up, and assert its correctness, which I believe is a mistake, a step too far.

Our expectation, fuelled by lifetimes of experience and observation, is that most people are similar. By and large, this expectation is fulfilled much more often than not. But this is (educated) guesswork, not solid reasoning, I think.

And I don't think that you have made your case that statistics tells us anything "without fail".
The reason it doesn't fail is that it always works and we NEVER see any evidence for things like inverted spectra. There are a lot of things that are invisible to us but there are very few perceptual events that are not tied to anatomy and physiology. And our anatomy and physiology predict how all our senses work.

So I personally have had the experience of not only losing my sense of smell but having my sense of smell start to be wrong and confused. I will sniff something I know the smell of and it will smell completely different.

But guess what - that's actually quite a common thing - particularly with COVID.

Staying with an inverted spectrum you have to ask HOW such a thing would happen. If you can't think of a how and you don't see any evidence it exists you have to conclude ot probably doesn't on that basis. If you're talking about beings whose patterns of growth and development were established in their DNA during 50 million years, that makes inverted spectra even more unlikely. The final nail in the inverted spectrum's coffin is that it's undisprovable.
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Re: PROVE to me that the world is, in fact, real at all.

Post by TabbyLynx »

It is real because it is self evident. Even it this reality were a "computer simulation" or some other type of fantasy, it would still be REAL in the sense that what is happening is happening and exists.
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Re: PROVE to me that the world is, in fact, real at all.

Post by vasiladp »

So as I just started reading philosophy for personal enjoyment, I will try to reply. Asking any responders, kindly,
and in advance, to pose constructive, non-inflammatory criticism.

You can't prove that the world is real. However, the likelihood of it being not-real is pretty slim, but can never be eliminated outright. So I'm interpreting your question probabilistically rather posing the world as it's real or it isn't (exclusive OR used here).

As this is my first post, if I get any thoughtful replies, I'll expand the above.

Regards,

Daniel Vasilaky
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