Philosophy: books and discussion

[FlorenceArt]

I'm afraid I have some difficulties getting interested in a debate about the reality of reality. I can, maybe, consider the possibility of the world being an illusion. I guess I know, on an purely theoretical level, that the world I perceive is only a construction of my own brain, not the "real" world. But I don't really "believe" it, deep down. And I would tend to agree with the theory that nobody really can, although I'm getting on a dangerous ground here, because what can I really know of what others sense, feel or think?

If we go at this from Pascal's point of view, I am sure I exist, because I think that I do, so there is something somewhere (let's call it "me" for simplicity's sake) that exists to think that I exist. As for the rest of the universe, if I really invented all this, all I can say is... wow! What an imagination!

[GeoffC]

I suppose one can accept that we, each of us, exist because we interact with surroundings. But yes, our minds are our own, we cannot know how anyone else is thinking.....

my brain hurts ....

[kennyc]

Think Chocolate, it soothes the gyri and suculi

[GeoffC]

assuredly, then I'll go a lie down in a darkened corner and meditate ....

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

I guess I know, on an purely theoretical level, that the world I perceive is only a construction of my own brain, not the "real" world. But I don't really "believe" it, deep down.

I think it's fairly easy to believe - we know that our perceptions only operate on narrow ranges of vision, sight, smell and touch.
Just at that level, we know that what we perceive is only a small fraction of what's going on around us - and what our brain uses to construct a world picture is an incomplete reflection of the real world.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by tompe

What is the point with this argument? You always do simplifications and assumptions when you apply a theory. That does not mean that the theory is in any way less accurate or worse.

Let me add a second reply to to your questioning my argument.

A) It is quite common to make simplifications and to take advantage of assumptions when applying a theory.

In doing so one introduces chaos in the description. How much and of which nature, it is sometimes within one's control, sometimes less so.

In this way, the gap between reality and the predictions of the theory widens, as one uses a week version of the original theory, now contaminated by chaos. By the other hand, the theory can be applied. Good. In some applications this is essential, very useful, beneficial, worth of encomium, and what else. I have absolutely nothing against theories, I just reaffirm the impossibility of seeing through Plato's screen, and therefore the actuality of the metaphor.

B) The fact of applying a week version of the theory does not mean that the theory is in any way less accurate or worse. In fact, in your assertion, the original theory is kept well closed in a drawer.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by luqmaninbmore

It's somewhat different from solipsism. According to solipsism, only I exist. If we are all trapped in illusions, there could still be an external world. We could all be trapped in illusions, but without any access to the external world we would have no way of knowing. Illusion only has meaning when contrasted against reality. If _everything_ is illusion, there is no reality with which to contrast it and concept loses its meaning.

Luqman

In my most extreme flights of fancy, I've pondered the possibility of whether all my apparent thoughts, perceptions, and history could be simply an accidental and momentary arrangement of subatomic particles destined to vanish in an instant; never again to reconfigure in that particular order.

Yeah, I did the 60s!

[TimMason]

Perhaps you should think of your mind in the same way you think of your purse or handbag. It belongs to you, you exercise a large degree of choice over what is in there (but the choice is constrained by factors external to you, such as the need to have a particular set of keys and so on). However, you didn't actually make the purse, nor did you manufacture most of the items that it contains.

In the same way, your mind is a collaborative product. When you were a child, your parents, your school-teachers, your friends, shaped your mind and helped you put things in there - mainly things that they thought you needed. Your mind is as much 'out there' as it is 'in there'.

Take the language that you probably use to do most of your thinking. There is no such thing as a completely private language - it is a symbolic system that depends on shared codes, shared images, in sum shared ways of speaking. You are only able to conceive of solipsism or of illusionism because you are plugged into this code. Indeed, the very concepts themselves are 'out there'; you might say that solipsism is a self-detonating artifice.

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by beppe

Let me add a second reply to to your questioning my argument.

A) It is quite common to make simplifications and to take advantage of assumptions when applying a theory.

In doing so one introduces chaos in the description. How much and of which nature, it is sometimes within one's control, sometimes less so.

In this way, the gap between reality and the predictions of the theory widens, as one uses a week version of the original theory, now contaminated by chaos. By the other hand, the theory can be applied. Good. In some applications this is essential, very useful, beneficial, worth of encomium, and what else. I have absolutely nothing against theories, I just reaffirm the impossibility of seeing through Plato's screen, and therefore the actuality of the metaphor.

B) The fact of applying a week version of the theory does not mean that the theory is in any way less accurate or worse. In fact, in your assertion, the original theory is kept well closed in a drawer.

I'm not sure what you are trying to demonstrate here Beppe, but I know one thing. If the natural philosophers in the 17th century had followed this kind of reasoning, we would still be stuck with Plato and Aristotle to explain reality. We would have a perfect world of ideas and "logical" reasonings, and it would have no relation whatsoever to the real world.

Yes, they (Newton and others) simplified things and made many assumptions, but this allowed them to build theories that worked for many practical purposes, and if they hadn't, the following generations, including Einstein, wouldn't have anything to build on. And if a better, more accurate theory replaces Einstein's, it will be built on his works and those of others, not replace it from scratch. It will improve, reduce the margin of error, continue the journey.

We have a saying in French, "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien", "Better is the enemy of good enough". If you keep trying to reach perfection on your first try, you just won't get anywhere. Any journey begins with a first step. This is true of many human activities, including the pursuit of knowledge.

[Sparrow]

Is there noise in the external world, or is reality silent?

[FlorenceArt]

Quick update on Seneca: I am still reading the Letters to Lucilius. I started with them because the foreword suggested to do so, and I agree with the commentator's opinion. I also have On the Shortness of Life on my Opus and read a few pages on the train tonight. The letters are far more interesting.

On the Shortness of Life is a succession of maxims and statements about how a wise man should live. The letters are a testimony and advice on actually attempting to do so. They talk about the goal, but also describe the road to get there, with its difficulties and triumphs. They give us a glimpse of Seneca as a man trying to live up to his own ideas. I actually enjoy reading them, when On the Shortness of Life strikes me as a bit pompous and condescending, although I agree with many of the ideas.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Is there noise in the external world, or is reality silent?

Interesting question, since noise — in the sense of an auditory experience — is a perception, and perceptions only exist when there is a mind to perceive them. That sounds like something Berkeley might have said, but how else could the thought be expressed? Surely the collisions of molecules, the interactions of sub-atomic particles, and the fluctuations of sound waves all occur regardless of whether an observer is present (unless perhaps one fully subscribes to the most radical aspects of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, i.e. "Does the moon only exist when someone is looking at it?"), but unless there is a mind physically wired to the proper mechanical apparatus to receive and interpret sound waves, "noise" in the sense of an auditory phenomenon has no meaning.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

Quick update on Seneca: I am still reading the Letters to Lucilius. I started with them because the foreword suggested to do so, and I agree with the commentator's opinion. I also have On the Shortness of Life on my Opus and read a few pages on the train tonight. The letters are far more interesting.

On the Shortness of Life is a succession of maxims and statements about how a wise man should live. The letters are a testimony and advice on actually attempting to do so. They talk about the goal, but also describe the road to get there, with its difficulties and triumphs. They give us a glimpse of Seneca as a man trying to live up to his own ideas. I actually enjoy reading them, when On the Shortness of Life strikes me as a bit pompous and condescending, although I agree with many of the ideas.

I'm still reading On Benefits, and am constantly being struck by the similarities and dissimilarities with New Testament writings on the subject, although this may be a personal bias. As you know, scholars don't consider it inconceivable that Seneca may have been in correspondence with Paul, although all known epistles to that effect are nearly unanimously denounced as forgeries. It does seem that stoic philosophy had a certain degree of influence on early Christian thinking.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

I'm not sure what you are trying to demonstrate here Beppe, but I know one thing. If the natural philosophers in the 17th century had followed this kind of reasoning, we would still be stuck with Plato and Aristotle to explain reality. We would have a perfect world of ideas and "logical" reasonings, and it would have no relation whatsoever to the real world.

On the contrary. With the screen Plato tells you that you should not stop searching. And Aristoteles teaches you how.

You might have got this idea by the dogmatic approach of the "ipse dixit" of the dark ages, that prefered to stay in their safe monasteries and read and quote the not fully digested hand copied fragments of the Greek Giants. The dominicans. Mind you Thomas was also a Giant. Not all of them were abjectively obedient to the powers to be, of course. Some were rebels of sort and used their mind to speak up freely. Occam and his friend Marsilio da Padova, both Francescans, were excommunicated by Johan XXII (you see now why he choose XXIII?).Occam insisted that one should pursue knowledge without reference to metaphysics and theology and encouraged scientific research. Blah blah.

Up with Plato and Aristotle, down with system of power.

Yes, they (Newton and others) simplified things and made many assumptions, but this allowed them to build theories that worked for many practical purposes, and if they hadn't, the following generations, including Einstein, wouldn't have anything to build on. And if a better, more accurate theory replaces Einstein's, it will be built on his works and those of others, not replace it from scratch. It will improve, reduce the margin of error, continue the journey.

That's right, we are dwarf on the shoulders of giants. But it seems that for you Plato is an elitist snob, Aristotle an obscurantist, only modern made things of value, especially the much reverd Iilluminists. I just want to make the point that Plato en-planted in everybody's head that reality is a little more unreachable than what one may think or dream. Newton's is a law, not a theory. A theory is a little more complex than a formula however pregnant of implications. It's a conservation law. Imagine something that is conserved over a large enough amount of space and time. Since ever, for ever, everywhere, even before the beginning and after the end. It is childish to expect that sort of ethernal and universal conservation for anything. Just try to imagine something that is conserved through the big bang. Childish. Conservation laws are very useful, but let's not take them for absolute truth.

We have a saying in French, "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien", "Better is the enemy of good enough". If you keep trying to reach perfection on your first try, you just won't get anywhere. Any journey begins with a first step. This is true of many human activities, including the pursuit of knowledge.

Of course. and Plato, and Aristotle, in spite of your slightly jacobin attitude, that does not belong to your generous nature by the way, made some important steps right at the beginning. 1800 years before the great Descartes, Apollonius of Perga developed in most of its sophistication analytical geometry. Mostly through abstract thinking. Luckily for me, the guy who taught us geometry in the first year, loved Apollonius and gave us glimpses of his genius. And of Pappus of Alexandria, practically the father of a very useful and difficult branch of mathematics that goes under the name of projective geometry.

Urray for Plato!

[TGS]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Is there noise in the external world, or is reality silent?

So long as there is something equipped with the sensory apparatus to hear it there is noise - but if there isn't anything so equipped then there isn't noise.