What Are The Ramifications Of Not Being Able To Access Reality?

[Terrapin Station]

Sure, it can cause problems, but how one interacts with other people is a separate issue.

How on earth is it a separate issue??!
What is the dividing line?

I can't grasp why this wouldn't be obvious to you.

Say that you live in a society that (a) publicly (at least) expresses a belief that P, and (b) has made it illegal to claim that not-P, so that anyone claiming not-P is executed.

Now, you are skeptical that P, and you've done your own research that leads you to conclude that in fact, not-P.

But you're aware of (b), obviously. So in your social interaction, you don't express your belief that not-P.

Hence, whether P or not-P is the case, and your belief to this effect, is separate from your social interaction with others about P. When you socially interact with others, you say, "Oh, yes, definitely P!" Because you don't want to be executed.

How would that separation not be obvious?

[Papus79]

I think some of the social anxiety over technology is that we might be getting to the place where nuclear deterrents and mutually assured destruction might be climbing down from something superpowers worry about to something states, cities, and eventually individuals worry about.

Which seems to have been the default in the Old West, for example.

The idea of a war of all against all has been around for some time. Here from Hobbes:

In chapter XIII of Leviathan,[14] Hobbes explains the concept with these words:

Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called War; and such a war as is of every man against every man.[15] [...] In such condition there is no place for Industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continual Fear, and danger of violent death; And the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.[16]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellum_om ... ntra_omnes

Oh, I agree on Hobbes but I meant that slightly different. I mean Dr. Strangelove, the end of humanity caricature of the USA / USSR nuclear standoff, will be climbing downward in terms of the financial assets and power needed to make the human race go extinct. The Old West was people doing what they've done for all of time - deterrence through individual and group capacities for violence. Individual and group capacities for making humanity go extinct and even finding ways to hold the whole world and all of humanity hostage for certain game-theory benefits is what's new.

[baker]

How on earth is it a separate issue??!What is the dividing line?

I can't grasp why this wouldn't be obvious to you.

Say that you live in a society that (a) publicly (at least) expresses a belief that P, and (b) has made it illegal to claim that not-P, so that anyone claiming not-P is executed.

Now, you are skeptical that P, and you've done your own research that leads you to conclude that in fact, not-P.

But you're aware of (b), obviously. So in your social interaction, you don't express your belief that not-P.

Hence, whether P or not-P is the case, and your belief to this effect, is separate from your social interaction with others about P. When you socially interact with others, you say, "Oh, yes, definitely P!" Because you don't want to be executed.

How would that separation not be obvious?

Because what you're describing is just the external face of the issue. This external face is easy enough to navigate.

Adapting, pretending, suppressing one's expression of one's authenticity for the sake of social wellbeing, and even for the sake of mere survival, eventually takes a toll on one, internally. That E pur si muove longs to be said, in some relevant context, and not just kept private, in fear of the punishment it could trigger from others.
This is sometimes the reason why people end up being willing to die for their beliefs.

Unless a person has a massive ego or some skill that I don't know of, that suppression of one's authenticity will fester inside. A massive ego can make it possible for a person to despise others and consider them inferior, thus making it easier to navigate the differences one has with them. But without such an ego?

[Terrapin Station]

I can't grasp why this wouldn't be obvious to you.

Say that you live in a society that (a) publicly (at least) expresses a belief that P, and (b) has made it illegal to claim that not-P, so that anyone claiming not-P is executed.

Now, you are skeptical that P, and you've done your own research that leads you to conclude that in fact, not-P.

But you're aware of (b), obviously. So in your social interaction, you don't express your belief that not-P.

Hence, whether P or not-P is the case, and your belief to this effect, is separate from your social interaction with others about P. When you socially interact with others, you say, "Oh, yes, definitely P!" Because you don't want to be executed.

How would that separation not be obvious?

Because what you're describing is just the external face of the issue. This external face is easy enough to navigate.

Adapting, pretending, suppressing one's expression of one's authenticity for the sake of social wellbeing, and even for the sake of mere survival, eventually takes a toll on one, internally. That E pur si muove longs to be said, in some relevant context, and not just kept private, in fear of the punishment it could trigger from others.
This is sometimes the reason why people end up being willing to die for their beliefs.

Unless a person has a massive ego or some skill that I don't know of, that suppression of one's authenticity will fester inside. A massive ego can make it possible for a person to despise others and consider them inferior, thus making it easier to navigate the differences one has with them. But without such an ego?

Your response here in no way suggests that you don't or didn't understand the logical distinction. Rather, you're bringing up psychological issues that you believe are an upshot of behaving in a way that acknowledges the logical distinction that was made.

[Count Lucanor]

A dream may be experienced like any other experience, but it is generally considered to be a subconscious experience - not a conscious experience - and it is commonly differentiated from physical reality.

All of these considerations are dependent of a conception that already acknowledges a distinction between reality and non-reality, having assigned reality to an independent domain accessed by conscious experience. That applies even for metaphysical or epistemological solipsists that do not adhere to the belief that there's something real beyond their conscious experience or remain skeptical about it. Those who acknowledge physical reality are just another group of people that are not solipsists, but in any case, whatever anyone thinks is the real thing, that reality is thought to be accessible.

John could experience "cogito, ergo sum" in a dream, and feel that he is conscious and that what he is experiencing is real, only to wake up and realise it was "just a dream" - not real - he had been sleeping, not conscious in the normal sense of the word.

Evidently, John is a realist who believes in the existence of an objective world accessible to his consciousness, a conception which allows him to make a distinction between real and not real, to conceive a sleep mode, etc. He obviously reached the conclusion that some of his experiences occur only in his imagination and that these experienced events (called dreams) are not direct, real time perceptions of actual events in that world he happens to know already as existing objectively. John is either a dualist, or a material monist. Otherwise he would not be able to conceptualize the idea of a "dream" as something distinct from experiencing the real world. He will use the concept "dream" to differentiate from real, actual events, occurring in an independent world that he still believes is real. If the thought there was no such distinction of events in his experience, there could not be any sleep state to talk about.

After waking out of a dream, he may feel that he is now fully conscious and experiencing reality, but how can he be so sure (especially if he has experienced dreaming within a dream before)?

He is indeed sure that he is experiencing some reality, he believes his experience is real. What is the nature of that reality is something else.

How can he test how conscious he is? If he is experiencing something, he can know that he exists, at least as an experiencer, but what can he know about the reality of what he is experiencing?

Those tests, from the point of view of John, will have very little to do with knowing "how conscious he is". That wording comes from an independent observer of John that may be implying the existence of an objective reality in which John is immersed and that John may be more or less in contact with, thus the expectation of some degree of consciousness of it. It wouldn't make much sense to suppose the observer would be talking about a degree of consciousness from John of his own conscious experience.

Once John acknowledges his experience is real and the events in it behave independently of his will, he has given the first necessary steps to know what reality is all about.

If 'reality' is defined so that any experience (including dream) qualifies as reality, and no experience can qualify as non-reality, then reality becomes insignificant. There needs to be some differentiation between reality and non-reality for either to have significance.

All that is needed for non-reality to have a meaning is that reality is conceived. The nature of reality can be conceived in several ways and each conception will define its attributes, so that for some what is experienced is all there is, that's what reality is, without any reference to an independent world beyond conscious experience. But for some others, reality comprises the conscious experience and a domain of things existing independently of that consciousness.

Each individual may construct their own model of reality from their experiences, and have some access to this. After communicating with others, it may appear that 'reality' can be divided into: private internal reality (dreams, thoughts, etc) which no one else seems to have direct access to; and public external reality which others seem to be able to access (although others may process this differently).

For an individual to acknowledge the possibility of the existence of "others", this implies an ontological commitment to a conception of reality where there are objects (subjects) independent of himself and which he can interact with. This individual is a realist about other individuals, a conception allowing him the distinction between his private experience and the private experience of others, which he recognizes as real. For a metaphysical solipsist, ontologically speaking, there may be only the private reality of his thoughts and there would be no others. For an epistemological solipsist, there might be an independent domain with others, but this would not be directly accessible, unlike his private thoughts, which he stills acknowledges as being real.

External reality may be processed into internal reality with varying degrees of accuracy.

As I said, this commitment to a view where there is an external reality distinct from an "internal" reality is already a form of realism where the domain of the real is accessible to conscious experience.

What are the ramifications of not being to directly access someone else's model of reality?

The ramifications are that, having to use our own model of reality, we test it to see indirectly how it plays out and arrive to inferences. We usually start from the assumption that the others have a similar model of reality as ours and operate accordingly. From these interactions we build a model of how the world in general actually works.

[Papus79]

I suggest Age of Innocence. Then we can compare which one is more brutal.

BTW, I watched it this evening. We'll have to compare notes on what hit you which way.

[Papus79]

One immediate thought - I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Match Point - the wind-up reminded me a bit of that but with much less of a twist.

[baker]

Your response here in no way suggests that you don't or didn't understand the logical distinction. Rather, you're bringing up psychological issues that you believe are an upshot of behaving in a way that acknowledges the logical distinction that was made.

I do not believe that the way one handles everyday problems (esp. those with other people) is somehow indepedent of or separate from one's conception of reality.

[Terrapin Station]

Your response here in no way suggests that you don't or didn't understand the logical distinction. Rather, you're bringing up psychological issues that you believe are an upshot of behaving in a way that acknowledges the logical distinction that was made.

I do not believe that the way one handles everyday problems (esp. those with other people) is somehow indepedent of or separate from one's conception of reality.

Sure, so then you'd think the two are identical. So how would you explain when someone personally believes that not-P, but publicly asserts that P, because they know that publicly asserting not-P is likely to cause more problems than it's worth? You'd have to claim that this is not possible, or otherwise, with respect to P at least, how someone interacts with others can be different than what they believe is the case.

(And this would suggest that you don't at all understand manipulation, which would make you an easy victim of the same.)

[baker]

Sure, so then you'd think the two are identical. So how would you explain when someone personally believes that not-P, but publicly asserts that P, because they know that publicly asserting not-P is likely to cause more problems than it's worth?

That's the crucial part that isn't always self-evident.

Giordano Bruno, for example, surely knew full well what fate awaited him for what he taught. Yet he did it anyway. Did he do it because he thought it was worth it anyway?

(And this would suggest that you don't at all understand manipulation, which would make you an easy victim of the same.)

Gee, thanks!


I've been working on summarizing our discussions on this to post a thread, but the discussions themselves are halting me from it!

[Terrapin Station]

Sure, so then you'd think the two are identical. So how would you explain when someone personally believes that not-P, but publicly asserts that P, because they know that publicly asserting not-P is likely to cause more problems than it's worth?

That's the crucial part that isn't always self-evident.

Giordano Bruno, for example, surely knew full well what fate awaited him for what he taught. Yet he did it anyway. Did he do it because he thought it was worth it anyway?

(And this would suggest that you don't at all understand manipulation, which would make you an easy victim of the same.)

Gee, thanks!


I've been working on summarizing our discussions on this to post a thread, but the discussions themselves are halting me from it!

The comment and question weren't just rhetorical. So yes/no, you're claiming that personal belief and public interaction are always identical?

[baker]

The comment and question weren't just rhetorical. So yes/no, you're claiming that personal belief and public interaction are always identical?

Uh.
I am not claiming that personal belief and public interaction are always identical.

Why 1. a person chooses to publicly say one thing, while privately believing another, and 2. how they internally manage this dichotomy, is what interests me.

[Terrapin Station]

The comment and question weren't just rhetorical. So yes/no, you're claiming that personal belief and public interaction are always identical?

Uh.
I am not claiming that personal belief and public interaction are always identical.

Okay, so if they're not identical, then at least with respect to some P, how one handles everyday problems (esp. those with other people) is somehow indepedent of or separate from one's conception of reality. The only way that they're not somehow separate is if they're identical.

[baker]

Okay, so if they're not identical, then at least with respect to some P, how one handles everyday problems (esp. those with other people) is somehow indepedent of or separate from one's conception of reality. The only way that they're not somehow separate is if they're identical.

It depends on what one's conception of reality is.

On the one end, we have the monotheist who believes that he was inspired by God to teach something, so for him, the public and the private are the same, and he's willing to die for what he teaches (his conception of reality (a conception which he believes to be inspired by God) includes the possibility that people will not respond favorably to his teaching, so concern for his own wellbeing never comes up to begin with).

Somewhere else in the system is the conman. What is the conman's conception of reality? I don't know, I can only guess. On the one hand, he must have a solid understanding of how people usually function, because otherwise, he could not take advantage of them. In his conception of reality, he probably doesn't concern himself with whether people are inherently good or bad, or whether the universe is welcoming to humans or not. He probably believes that people are inherently exploitable and that his own wellbeing is more important than that of anyone else. But virtue, integrity must have no place in his conception of reality because they would poison his belief in exploitability.

[Terrapin Station]

Okay, so if they're not identical, then at least with respect to some P, how one handles everyday problems (esp. those with other people) is somehow indepedent of or separate from one's conception of reality. The only way that they're not somehow separate is if they're identical.

It depends on what one's conception of reality is.

On the one end, we have the monotheist who believes that he was inspired by God to teach something, so for him, the public and the private are the same, and he's willing to die for what he teaches (his conception of reality (a conception which he believes to be inspired by God) includes the possibility that people will not respond favorably to his teaching, so concern for his own wellbeing never comes up to begin with).

Somewhere else in the system is the conman. What is the conman's conception of reality? I don't know, I can only guess. On the one hand, he must have a solid understanding of how people usually function, because otherwise, he could not take advantage of them. In his conception of reality, he probably doesn't concern himself with whether people are inherently good or bad, or whether the universe is welcoming to humans or not. He probably believes that people are inherently exploitable and that his own wellbeing is more important than that of anyone else. But virtue, integrity must have no place in his conception of reality because they would poison his belief in exploitability.

You're making this more complicated than it needs to be. Again, "with respect to some P"--just some simple claim.

A classic example is this: your wife asks "Does this make me look fat?" You think "Yes." You say, "No" (at least unless it makes her look unusually fat).