John Page

I don't understand your use of the word "meaning" here. That something "is" does not require that it has any meaning.

sweep

If something is a tree, then that means it isn't anything else, true?

so, something exists only because we can separate that thing in question from other things, by definition. Otherwise we perceive a whole and not something separate.

In a way you are right that a thing doesn't have to have meaning to exist, but It does need a separate existence.

John Page

It is what it is, but it may be confered more than one identity (tree, piece of wood, evergreen) by the mind of the observer(s).
It needs to be perceived/detected as separate from its surroundings in order to exist in our minds. Example, we may see a clump of five trees but as we get closer discern an additional tree whose trunk was hidden and branches indistinguishable from the others.

Now, I'm not saying the tree doesn't exist when we're not perceiving it. What I am trying to point out is that in this instance we are fitting/matching the experienced world against templates (axiomatic concepts) in our minds. In this way, our first hand knowledge of what exists is interpreted not only from sense data but through the learned structure of reality.

How would you know a thing is a particular type of thing unless you'd seen and learned that type of thing before (by experiencing and categorizing multiple instances of that thing)?

Cheers, John

sweep

yes, that's along the lines of what I was trying to express. By way of categorisation, and comparison, we can learn of new realities, made possible by the mind (apriori, blah, blah).

Example:

two virus strains. ebola zaire virus and marburg virus. We can only see these under a microscope and they look strikingly similar, but their coding is slightly different. ebola has a mortality rate of 90 percent, marburg of 50 percent. The information about these organisms differs, and the reality confers the figures on mortality. We can't see the different virus strains with the naked eye, but the human mind has enabled through observation, and natural sense, to better understand whats really happening.

So, yes, you are right that our senses are presented with consistent information that yields stability in terms of negotiating the environment. When this information proves inconsistent, a paradigm shift is in order. Thereby existence is only as real as our current means allow.

anyhow, that's enough on real- my bed is waiting, and it's really comfy.

cheers *over and out*

VivaHedone

I'm sorry, when I said 'we' a really meant 'one', in the sense of any person. What I should have said was 'I', as my whole point is that I only know that I exist, and not you or anyone else. Similarly, you (if you exist) only know that you exist, and cannot know that I exist.

I said in the original posting that it seems wise to live life as if the sensations did reflect reality. For instance, if I saw a car racing towards me, I could think, 'I don't know what these sensations are, and therefore cannot know whether there really is a car', and stand still. But I don't, I step out the way, presuming the sensations reflect reality, although there is no evidence for this. The nearest I can get to justifying my actions in stepping out of the way is 'better safe than sorry', ie. the potential consequences of not getting out of the way are more severe than the consequences of getting out of the way. However, this does not sound very philisophical! Is there an entirely logical justufication for acting as if the sensations reflect reality?

When I talk about 'reality', I mean an objective reality, not just reality as we percieve it... but is such an objective reality really possible?

John Galt, Jr.

Are you, Vivahedone, telling me, John Galt, Jr., that I don't know that there is a poster posting as 'VivaHedone' and that said poster has put up a message that includes the following passage. John Galt, Jr.

Theli

VivaHedone...
Ofcourse you know we exists. You are conversing with something you refer to as "you", in wich this "you" actually exists. If "you" didn't exist there would be nothing to converse with.
But what you don't know with 100% certainty is what excacly "you" is. It can be a person, many people, a program in your computer or ghosts and goblins. Be that as it may, "you" still exists.
A sensation always reflects reality. Same logic, if there's nothing there you would never have sensed it.
Are you looking for evidence outside your own observation? What would that be?
Yes, selfpreservation. If you want to live, you should.
If you do have knowledge of cars, as you might have seen cars before you know the dangers of stepping in front of them. And if the observations correlate to that concept then you should stand still and let it pass.

AnthonyAdams45

What is important is not what exists, but what effects me. Our more empiricist friends might be right in arguing that abstract concepts like truth and beauty do not exist, but they effect me, so who cares whether they exist or not? I fear the bogey man in the closet, whether he is there or no. If I outgrow that fear, his actual presence in the closet doesn't matter anymore. Thus, his existence is moot.

Do sensations always reflect reality? I haven't accepted that since the first time I was "two moons" drunk. What matters is that I affected by sensations, even fallacious ones, and so react. Existence seems rather uninteresting in comparison to what affects me. After all, I take for granted Nepal is there, but as it doesn't affect me, the actual existence of Nepal, or its mere construct as a way for geography teachers to torture their students doesn't matter. I imagine the Nepalese feel much the same way about south Florida.

The whole existence issue smells to me of the divine. The medieval thinkers loved to rely on God's necessary existence, or God as the creator of existence, to set the world turning. Even that modern medievalist Tilich gives us God as the ground of "being." I don't care whether something "be" unless it effects me, and then what is important is the effect, not the existence. The false effects me as does the true. The real effects me, but likewise the unreal. Why worry about existence?

John Page

AnthonyAdams45

nietzsche was pretty sure there was no reality.... but let's not quibble over an otherwise humorous remark.