Reality as Construct

[Quid est Veritas?]

How do we determine 'reality'? Is it not that we perceive a world as real via our senses and act accordingly? In essence, peripheral receptors are activated, causing a depolarisation of afferent nerves. This may be pressure causing a leak of sodium, or temperature opening ion gates, or light hitting rods and cones, depending on the receptor, thus initiating an impulse. This goes to centers in the brain, initiating involuntary actions on occasion (such as shivering) and perhaps being ultimately perceived by the conscious mind, an entity of which we have very little physiological understanding. Peripheral nerves may travel via the Spinal cord, where second order neurons may be modulated, so that for instance all pressure is not perceived as a painful stimulus.
Thus sense data is received, resulting in further electrochemical effects in brain synapses and at some unknown point, this becomes consciously known. All of these are modulated though, as pain is.
In the past, people read aloud whenever they read anything for instance, but today we read silently. Augustine was amazed that Ambrose of Milan could read without even softly speaking the words or moving his lips. It was not the norm in his day, where reading was aloud. This is a skill which we subsequently came to teach children as they read, to do so silently. When reading, we activate Wernicke's language area to understand what we are reading, but we also activate Broca's speech area - the latter impulses' effects just get modulated away so that we don't speak the words. This is why in old age or in severe stress, we may start speaking words as we read them, when we didn't intend to. Modulation and inhibitory pathways such as GABA are important.

With this, we construct our world. But we aren't truly perceiving the world, but modulated sensation. This explains why people may perceive phantom pain from non-existent limbs, or something very cold perceived as 'burning'. This also comes into play with perception in another way, for what we are consciously aware of, may be thus altered. There are things like Inattentional Blindness, in which out of place objects are not seen, even if blatantly in front of someone (such as the famous experiments in which no one noticed the man in the gorilla suit). What data is given is thus not necessarily perceived as such.
'Reality' as a simulacrum, is thus held by a conscious mind, who perceives distance or hardness or objects, but can in no way really know if this image he has is truly what there is. He needs to trust his senses, but they themselves are beholden to it and accuracy indeterminable, either by non-volitional modulation or psychologically. In like manner, he cannot even by intersubjective means establish this, as only via the prism of his senses can he establish that others exist, but cannot determine if they are conscious as well, or merely thought to be so. So if their simulacrum matches his, is unknown, since they themselves are merely aspects of his own.

This is not only for concretes, but also abstracts. They are however a priori constructions within in the mind, or derivitive values based on perceived concretes, that cannot be broken down to brute sense data. We can perceive something as hard, but we cannot feel 'hardness' itself as such. Think of mathematics, which is either imageless as pure mental abstraction or perceived of necessity in the form of symbol or language - presented as if really a concrete, in a way. As we act as if speaking when we are reading, so we act as if seeing or moving when imagining or dreaming, and abstract conceptions are bound to physical perception.

We create a stage, a world we are told of matter in curved space upon which forces act and energy is expended; itself scientific ideas wrapped in metaphor. But for all we know, we may be a lone actor strutting his own stage in practiced soliliquy.
What we perceive as our world is really our reified abstraction, a property of mind therefore. If the stage holds true, it is the abstract property derived of depolarisation, of action potential, of electrochemical gradient and chemical reaction. Even the 'I', the self, merely an abstraction, perhaps a process of perception.

Our perception, which is our only way of interacting with a 'reality' as such, is a really just a property of mind. The ancients knew this. For this is why Plato looked to abstract Forms, and the Greek philosophies ultimately to Nous or Logoi of Nature in the Stoic sense; why Mahayana Buddhism teaches that the world is void or Sunya, with perceived reality a property of subsidising mind within the Great Buddha Nature; why the Tao underlies all things.

Unfortunately when discussing such things, our understanding thereof, is itself a part of our simulacrum. It is of the portrait we paint, an abstraction within what we are seeking to describe. This is why the Tao that can be known is not the Tao; why Nirvana denotes a non-duality that is perhaps inexpressible, why forms can only be grasped imperfectly. This is perhaps why Thomas Aquinas said all his theology is but straw.

If a series of soliliquies are being performed, if there is intersubjectivity instead of steady solipsism, then it makes sense to look for that outside my stage. I myself cannot look beyond it, for I see just its plaster and clapboard and its painted characters. If something underlying them all is truly existent, then this would be the ground of Being, supplying the various abstractions. Again the One of Plotinus, the Tao, the Summus Dei, or what have you. Perhaps its purest expression lies in I AM that I AM, a gratuitous self-existence. I need to hear the Author, or the faint applause. Else I am condemned to forever strut my entrances and exits, not knowing if the shadows on the wall my mind creates, are veridical. If not, it is an Acta est Fabula to all my pretension to know. My mutterings might be drowning out the Playwright's line, my concentration leading to unrealised blindness in dazzling stage lights. A line needs to be drawn, or an assumption made otherwise, which of necessity might merely be the tinned score of my lonesome play.
The mystics know this, and mystical experience across the board sounds similar enough that they may be approaching this, with caveat that they aren't merely my own figures.
We only approach one another in the abstract though, in the abstraction of language, in metaphor. It is mythopoeic, it is the oblique approach. As all that we perceive is a construction as such, a creation of reified abstractions, a living metaphor.

For in the beginning was the Word.

 

[mark kennedy]

How do we determine 'reality'? Is it not that we perceive a world as real via our senses and act accordingly? In essence, peripheral receptors are activated, causing a depolarisation of afferent nerves. This may be pressure causing a leak of sodium, or temperature opening ion gates, or light hitting rods and cones, depending on the receptor, thus initiating an impulse. This goes to centers in the brain, initiating involuntary actions on occasion (such as shivering) and perhaps being ultimately perceived by the conscious mind, an entity of which we have very little physiological understanding. Peripheral nerves may travel via the Spinal cord, where second order neurons may be modulated, so that for instance all pressure is not perceived as a painful stimulus.
Thus sense data is received, resulting in further electrochemical effects in brain synapses and at some unknown point, this becomes consciously known. All of these are modulated though, as pain is.
In the past, people read aloud whenever they read anything for instance, but today we read silently. Augustine was amazed that Ambrose of Milan could read without even softly speaking the words or moving his lips. It was not the norm in his day, where reading was aloud. This is a skill which we subsequently came to teach children as they read, to do so silently. When reading, we activate Wernicke's language area to understand what we are reading, but we also activate Broca's speech area - the latter impulses' effects just get modulated away so that we don't speak the words. This is why in old age or in severe stress, we may start speaking words as we read them, when we didn't intend to. Modulation and inhibitory pathways such as GABA are important.

With this, we construct our world. But we aren't truly perceiving the world, but modulated sensation. This explains why people may perceive phantom pain from non-existent limbs, or something very cold perceived as 'burning'. This also comes into play with perception in another way, for what we are consciously aware of, may be thus altered. There are things like Inattentional Blindness, in which out of place objects are not seen, even if blatantly in front of someone (such as the famous experiments in which no one noticed the man in the gorilla suit). What data is given is thus not necessarily perceived as such.
'Reality' as a simulacrum, is thus held by a conscious mind, who perceives distance or hardness or objects, but can in no way really know if this image he has is truly what there is. He needs to trust his senses, but they themselves are beholden to it and accuracy indeterminable, either by non-volitional modulation or psychologically. In like manner, he cannot even by intersubjective means establish this, as only via the prism of his senses can he establish that others exist, but cannot determine if they are conscious as well, or merely thought to be so. So if their simulacrum matches his, is unknown, since they themselves are merely aspects of his own.

This is not only for concretes, but also abstracts. They are however a priori constructions within in the mind, or derivitive values based on perceived concretes, that cannot be broken down to brute sense data. We can perceive something as hard, but we cannot feel 'hardness' itself as such. Think of mathematics, which is either imageless as pure mental abstraction or perceived of necessity in the form of symbol or language - presented as if really a concrete, in a way. As we act as if speaking when we are reading, so we act as if seeing or moving when imagining or dreaming, and abstract conceptions are bound to physical perception.

We create a stage, a world we are told of matter in curved space upon which forces act and energy is expended; itself scientific ideas wrapped in metaphor. But for all we know, we may be a lone actor strutting his own stage in practiced soliliquy.
What we perceive as our world is really our reified abstraction, a property of mind therefore. If the stage holds true, it is the abstract property derived of depolarisation, of action potential, of electrochemical gradient and chemical reaction. Even the 'I', the self, merely an abstraction, perhaps a process of perception.

Our perception, which is our only way of interacting with a 'reality' as such, is a really just a property of mind. The ancients knew this. For this is why Plato looked to abstract Forms, and the Greek philosophies ultimately to Nous or Logoi of Nature in the Stoic sense; why Mahayana Buddhism teaches that the world is void or Sunya, with perceived reality a property of subsidising mind within the Great Buddha Nature; why the Tao underlies all things.

Unfortunately when discussing such things, our understanding thereof, is itself a part of our simulacrum. It is of the portrait we paint, an abstraction within what we are seeking to describe. This is why the Tao that can be known is not the Tao; why Nirvana denotes a non-duality that is perhaps inexpressible, why forms can only be grasped imperfectly. This is perhaps why Thomas Aquinas said all his theology is but straw.

If a series of soliliquies are being performed, if there is intersubjectivity instead of steady solipsism, then it makes sense to look for that outside my stage. I myself cannot look beyond it, for I see just its plaster and clapboard and its painted characters. If something underlying them all is truly existent, then this would be the ground of Being, supplying the various abstractions. Again the One of Plotinus, the Tao, the Summus Dei, or what have you. Perhaps its purest expression lies in I AM that I AM, a gratuitous self-existence. I need to hear the Author, or the faint applause. Else I am condemned to forever strut my entrances and exits, not knowing if the shadows on the wall my mind creates, are veridical. If not, it is an Acta est Fabula to all my pretension to know. My mutterings might be drowning out the Playwright's line, my concentration leading to unrealised blindness in dazzling stage lights. A line needs to be drawn, or an assumption made otherwise, which of necessity might merely be the tinned score of my lonesome play.
The mystics know this, and mystical experience across the board sounds similar enough that they may be approaching this, with caveat that they aren't merely my own figures.
We only approach one another in the abstract though, in the abstraction of language, in metaphor. It is mythopoeic, it is the oblique approach. As all that we perceive is a construction as such, a creation of reified abstractions, a living metaphor.

For in the beginning was the Word.

You have been giving this a lot of thought. Well done on the op, a lot going on there. Some thoughts, Descarte fought in the Thirty years war. Soldiers some times have prolonged periods of waiting, sitting before a pot belly stove he wondered, how can I be sure of what I think I know. The one thing he claimed was undeniable to him was that he was conscious of him sitting there thinking about it. The expression is ego sum ego cognity, translating blandly in the English as, I think therefore I Am. This is from his discourse on 'first philosophy', the foundational epistemology of what would come to be known as science, Isaac Newton would write a book on the same subject, the landmark Principia. Descartes in his discourse would introduce algebra, Newton calculus. Notice Ego Sum, or I sum, or I calculate. Algebra is plane (2 dimensional) Euclidean geometry going in a third direction known as the Z depth.

Kepler early in the 16th century proposed the Y squared, which became the basis for the principles of motion. Newton as a wager challenged two of his Cambridge colloquies to calculate the Y squared in motion. The challenge was to calculate the course of a comet and determine when it will reappear during it's return course. The course is a parabolic curve, incalculable using Euclidean geometry because it changes constantly. Newton had calculated it, publish his findings, and calculate was born in the pages of Principia

How do I know, that's the very essence of epistemology (theories of knowledge). In a an almost comical expression, to know that I know what I know, and not to know what I don't know. It was Spinoza who would insist that God who is creator both of reality and the mind would give us minds that reflect reality as it truly exists. To understand with precision and on a large scale we need tools, mental and physical.

Such a tool is metaphysics, the substantive element that transcends all reality. But I will hold off on that for now, to a theologically oriented Christian it might seem a bit trite since theology starts with transcendent, eternal truth. The thread seems more focused on epistemology.

Grace and peace
Mark

 

[cloudyday2]

I only skimmed the OP, but I had this thought. It may not be totally on-topic.

We know reality is not a product of our imagination, because there is a consistency in the details that surpasses dreams, hallucinations, confabulations, etc. We can't rule-out the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis, but I think we can rule-out the dream hypothesis - unless the dreamer is greater than the human mind (as in Hinduism).

EDIT: In other words, how can it be that our observations of reality consistently conform to differential equations that our too complex to solve in our heads? That means these observations must originate outside our heads IMO.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

You have been giving this a lot of thought. Well done on the op, a lot going on there. Some thoughts, Descarte fought in the Thirty years war. Soldiers some times have prolonged periods of waiting, sitting before a pot belly stove he wondered, how can I be sure of what I think I know. The one thing he claimed was undeniable to him was that he was conscious of him sitting there thinking about it. The expression is ego sum ego cognity, translating blandly in the English as, I think therefore I Am. This is from his discourse on 'first philosophy', the foundational epistemology of what would come to be known as science, Isaac Newton would write a book on the same subject, the landmark Principia. Descartes in his discourse would introduce algebra, Newton calculus. Notice Ego Sum, or I sum, or I calculate. Algebra is plane (2 dimensional) Euclidean geometry going in a third direction known as the Z depth.

Kepler early in the 16th century proposed the Y squared, which became the basis for the principles of motion. Newton as a wager challenged two of his Cambridge colloquies to calculate the Y squared in motion. The challenge was to calculate the course of a comet and determine when it will reappear during it's return course. The course is a parabolic curve, incalculable using Euclidean geometry because it changes constantly. Newton had calculated it, publish his findings, and calculate was born in the pages of Principia

How do I know, that's the very essence of epistemology (theories of knowledge). In a an almost comical expression, to know that I know what I know, and not to know what I don't know. It was Spinoza who would insist that God who is creator both of reality and the mind would give us minds that reflect reality as it truly exists. To understand with precision and on a large scale we need tools, mental and physical.

Such a tool is metaphysics, the substantive element that transcends all reality. But I will hold off on that for now, to a theologically oriented Christian it might seem a bit trite since theology starts with transcendent, eternal truth. The thread seems more focused on epistemology.

Grace and peace
Mark

Descartes' phrase is Cogito Ergo Sum. The o in cogito is the inflection for 'I' in Latin on the verb cogere, ergo is therefore and sum means essentially 'I Am' (as in Civis Romanus Sum of Cicero, "I am a Roman Citizen"). You got it a bit wrong there.
It is a bit different than what I am talking about, and anyway, the phrase presupposes that there is an 'I' thinking, to prove the 'I' exists. It is related though in that it suggests our Cartesian anxiety to look for truth, and how some solipsistic-style thought inevitable.

Similarly, Algebra was invented by Kwarizmi and introduced to mediaeval Europe. I think you were thinking of Analytic Geometry, which was Descartes' application thereof.
The word sum has nothing to do with calculation, but derived from Summation, the epitome or synthesis of known knowledge on a subject (as in the Summa Theologica). Again, unconnected to Cogito Ergo Sum.

The foundational philosophy of Science was lain by Grosseteste and Roger Bacon in the 12th century, but Descartes and later Francis Bacon went a long way to creating the idea of a dualism between mind and body, and mechanising nature.

The thing is that I agree that metaphysics is required to transcend or even actually understand, our world. There is some underlying metaphysics held in most ideas. My point is more that our ways of looking at the world by nature are actually abstractions thereof, so in essence how such abstractions relate to one another makes sense from an understanding of reality being an aspect of mind, and if there is thus more than one such mind in a union of abstractions, it suggests Mind is at play elsewhere too. Where there is smoke, there is usually fire, so...

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I only skimmed the OP, but I had this thought. It may not be totally on-topic.

We know reality is not a product of our imagination, because there is a consistency in the details that surpasses dreams, hallucinations, confabulations, etc. We can't rule-out the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis, but I think we can rule-out the dream hypothesis - unless the dreamer is greater than the human mind (as in Hinduism).

EDIT: In other words, how can it be that our observations of reality consistently conform to differential equations that our too complex to solve in our heads? That means these observations must originate outside our heads IMO.

Well, a lot of the things going on "in our heads" are not voluntary and very complex. There is a deep subconscious system going on. Casual glances at psychology texts will show you how we size up risk, prefer certain people over others, look for mates, etc. without being aware we are doing so. Someone with a symmetrical body will be judged more beautiful, perhaps because of being more healthy, and thus a more desirable mate. Or how people with babyfaces are more likely to be considered negligent. Complex ques are picked up that we don't understand or are even aware of. If so much is going on, why must we be aware of being able to solve a 'complex equation' to actually be able to solve it? In like manner, we need only believe we have done so, or that it exists, but it need not really even be an applicable equation at all.

Think of English Grammar. There are almost instinctual rules we use that we aren't aware of:

The language rules we know – but don’t know we know


But I think you misconstrue. Essentially, I am not saying we invent reality as much as any interaction we would have with it, by necessity, is via an abstraction drawn therefrom. As such, what relation this abstraction may or may not have, is difficult to determine, and intersubjectivity likewise.
For even if it is "from outside our heads", the way it is perceived is "in our heads", from whence it is contextualised and modulated accordingly. We don't see things that may be real, because our brain decides they must be modulated away beforehand; or for instance don't hear a difference in sounds because we do not perceive it to exist, since it doesn't in the home language (R and L in Japanese, or the tonal pitches of Mandarin to Indo-Europeans).
Or how the Sciences are essentially describing abstract mathematical and geometrical models, that are assumed to be 'real' or reflect it, in some manner.
The fact that any relation exists with another person, suggests a commonality, and any such requires abstraction.This suggests Mind is at play here also, as the various traditions from Greek to Chinese to Buddhist to what have you, also concluded.

A dream though is True within it, and outside was a True Dream and only illusionary in relation to something else, which is 'more real'. It is impossible within a dream to determine it is a dream, by the rules the dream itself is operating upon.

Plato's Cave was lurking throughout my OP, but this is what I mean here. The men chained in the cave believe the shadows real, and have no way to conclude they are not, by way of those shadows themselves and their own experience.

Note:
I hate the "brain in vat" idea. I think it puerile. It just assumes there must be matter, there must be a 'brain', so is itself an assumption of materialism which really does not address the issue at hand. It assumes the truth of the sense-data itself, even if not externally derived, which I feel substantially misses the point.

 

[cloudyday2]

If so much is going on, why must we be aware of being able to solve a 'complex equation' to actually be able to solve it? In like manner, we need only believe we have done so, or that it exists, but it need not really even be an applicable equation at all.

Yeah, I was thinking about that possibility too. I had trouble with differential equations in college, so I haven't personally collected measurements from various observers unaware of the equations to see that they conform as expected. Mostly I have nodded my head as people smarter than me have claimed that this happens. LOL Of course a person might dream that he/she methodically solved some differential equations and found that it matches observations. The dreams and hallucinations that I have experienced don't have that character, so I think it is unlikely.

But I think you misconstrue. Essentially, I am not saying we invent reality as much as any interaction we would have with it, by necessity, is via an abstraction drawn therefrom.

Anther thought I had: with science we are essentially using a collectively designed hive mind to overcome the weaknesses of human minds. Science is a collective endeavor. The hive agrees on the proper methods and reasoning and observations must be experienced by multiple observers.

 

[mark kennedy]

Descartes' phrase is Cogito Ergo Sum. The o in cogito is the inflection for 'I' in Latin on the verb cogere, ergo is therefore and sum means essentially 'I Am' (as in Civis Romanus Sum of Cicero, "I am a Roman Citizen"). You got it a bit wrong there.

Maybe the thinking on the semantics were fast and loose, the element of the mind is unmistakable. Tools, mental and physical was my point, the semantics not withstanding. You are rooted and grounded to reality by the mind, the conscious part or your existence.

It is a bit different than what I am talking about, and anyway, the phrase presupposes that there is an 'I' thinking, to prove the 'I' exists. It is related though in that it suggests our Cartesian anxiety to look for truth, and how some solipsistic-style thought inevitable.

If you say so, not really sure where your going with that.

Similarly, Algebra was invented by Kwarizmi and introduced to mediaeval Europe. I think you were thinking of Analytic Geometry, which was Descartes' application thereof.

Of course I'm aware he didn't invent Algebra, that wasn't my point. He applied it to euclidean geometry. My point had more to do with math then it did about philosophy but the major issue I was dealing with was tools, mental and physical. Just some idle thoughts, not really interested in chasing it through the weeds.

The word sum has nothing to do with calculation, but derived from Summation, the epitome or synthesis of known knowledge on a subject (as in the Summa Theologica). Again, unconnected to Cogito Ergo Sum.

That's not what I'm getting from it, the sum of 2 plus 2 is 4, how do I know that? The larger question is who can question it. Whatever else he is dealing with it's the power of the mind to apprehend reality. During the Scientific Revolution it became inextricably linked to math, it was not always so.

The foundational philosophy of Science was lain by Grosseteste and Roger Bacon in the 12th century, but Descartes and later Francis Bacon went a long way to creating the idea of a dualism between mind and body, and mechanising nature.

I don't know much about those guys but I've probably seen their names in bibliographies. My interest was the inductive approach to epistemology which we in modern times we call science. It's interesting that you hit on the idea of scientific dualism because I have never seen more then an organizational difference between the subject and the object. Once you start to see it, it's kind of hard not to see. Ever watch Star Trek, ever see the scientific duality between Kirk and Spock. How about the Next Generation, can you see it there?

The thing is that I agree that metaphysics is required to transcend or even actually understand, our world. There is some underlying metaphysics held in most ideas. My point is more that our ways of looking at the world by nature are actually abstractions thereof, so in essence how such abstractions relate to one another makes sense from an understanding of reality being an aspect of mind, and if there is thus more than one such mind in a union of abstractions, it suggests Mind is at play elsewhere too. Where there is smoke, there is usually fire, so...

Really not sure what your point is about things being abstract, it seems so ambiguise. God doesn't leave us to forever chase ghosts in the fog, there are concrete realities. Before getting into metaphysics a cursory glance at epistemology is advisable.

Loved the OP btw, hoping you can build on it.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[bhsmte]

We all take in stimuli and it gets filtered through our unique psychological filters.

In regards to the same, I believe we all assign what we feel is reality, based on how we filter the stimuli. Some of us have filters that require more confirmation of information than others, depending on how our psychological needs interplay with the same.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Anther thought I had: with science we are essentially using a collectively designed hive mind to overcome the weaknesses of human minds. Science is a collective endeavor. The hive agrees on the proper methods and reasoning and observations must be experienced by multiple observers.

Well, all human activity actually functions this way. Philosophers build on the philosophy of their predecessors, as do Theologians or what have you. We are all beholden to the culture that produced us, whether we embrace it or act in antithesis to it. This still though assumes that our intersubjective experience is somehow valid.

Science though is interesting, in that it is not really as it is popularly described. Certain things, like once off observations of stellar phenomena, or positions in which fossils were found, have to be assumed on honour. This is why hoaxes like Piltdown Man were easy to perpetrate, or why the Royal Society was willing to send Cook to witness the Transit of Venus in Tahiti. It doesn't actually escape the weaknesses of limited intersubjectivity. Especially today, where many studies require massive inset costs or specialised equipment like CERN, that few have access to and can only be used to a limited degree. I know you consider Medicine to be Science, so with EBM, a lot of knowledge is riding on once off studies that will likely never be repeated.
The difference is that the Scientific Halo of respectibility creates the idea of things being far more secure and definite than they really are. It has more then a little whiff of Academic Ossification to it, and makes me think of Mediaeval Scholasticism. Especially in the compartmentalism and specialisation occuring, with most only vaguely aware what people in other branches do, or how their proofs are reached. There is also a distressing tendency to Epitomisation, in which the work of the past is accepted rotely - if Galenic physiology, Galilean and Newtonian Mechanics have taught us anything, this is perhaps dangerous.

 

[Uber Genius]

How do we determine 'reality'? Is it not that we perceive a world as real via our senses and act accordingly? In essence, peripheral receptors are activated, causing a depolarisation of afferent nerves. This may be pressure causing a leak of sodium, or temperature opening ion gates, or light hitting rods and cones, depending on the receptor, thus initiating an impulse. This goes to centers in the brain, initiating involuntary actions on occasion (such as shivering) and perhaps being ultimately perceived by the conscious mind, an entity of which we have very little physiological understanding. Peripheral nerves may travel via the Spinal cord, where second order neurons may be modulated, so that for instance all pressure is not perceived as a painful stimulus.
Thus sense data is received, resulting in further electrochemical effects in brain synapses and at some unknown point, this becomes consciously known. All of these are modulated though, as pain is.
In the past, people read aloud whenever they read anything for instance, but today we read silently. Augustine was amazed that Ambrose of Milan could read without even softly speaking the words or moving his lips. It was not the norm in his day, where reading was aloud. This is a skill which we subsequently came to teach children as they read, to do so silently. When reading, we activate Wernicke's language area to understand what we are reading, but we also activate Broca's speech area - the latter impulses' effects just get modulated away so that we don't speak the words. This is why in old age or in severe stress, we may start speaking words as we read them, when we didn't intend to. Modulation and inhibitory pathways such as GABA are important.

With this, we construct our world. But we aren't truly perceiving the world, but modulated sensation. This explains why people may perceive phantom pain from non-existent limbs, or something very cold perceived as 'burning'. This also comes into play with perception in another way, for what we are consciously aware of, may be thus altered. There are things like Inattentional Blindness, in which out of place objects are not seen, even if blatantly in front of someone (such as the famous experiments in which no one noticed the man in the gorilla suit). What data is given is thus not necessarily perceived as such.
'Reality' as a simulacrum, is thus held by a conscious mind, who perceives distance or hardness or objects, but can in no way really know if this image he has is truly what there is. He needs to trust his senses, but they themselves are beholden to it and accuracy indeterminable, either by non-volitional modulation or psychologically. In like manner, he cannot even by intersubjective means establish this, as only via the prism of his senses can he establish that others exist, but cannot determine if they are conscious as well, or merely thought to be so. So if their simulacrum matches his, is unknown, since they themselves are merely aspects of his own.

This is not only for concretes, but also abstracts. They are however a priori constructions within in the mind, or derivitive values based on perceived concretes, that cannot be broken down to brute sense data. We can perceive something as hard, but we cannot feel 'hardness' itself as such. Think of mathematics, which is either imageless as pure mental abstraction or perceived of necessity in the form of symbol or language - presented as if really a concrete, in a way. As we act as if speaking when we are reading, so we act as if seeing or moving when imagining or dreaming, and abstract conceptions are bound to physical perception.

We create a stage, a world we are told of matter in curved space upon which forces act and energy is expended; itself scientific ideas wrapped in metaphor. But for all we know, we may be a lone actor strutting his own stage in practiced soliliquy.
What we perceive as our world is really our reified abstraction, a property of mind therefore. If the stage holds true, it is the abstract property derived of depolarisation, of action potential, of electrochemical gradient and chemical reaction. Even the 'I', the self, merely an abstraction, perhaps a process of perception.

Our perception, which is our only way of interacting with a 'reality' as such, is a really just a property of mind. The ancients knew this. For this is why Plato looked to abstract Forms, and the Greek philosophies ultimately to Nous or Logoi of Nature in the Stoic sense; why Mahayana Buddhism teaches that the world is void or Sunya, with perceived reality a property of subsidising mind within the Great Buddha Nature; why the Tao underlies all things.

Unfortunately when discussing such things, our understanding thereof, is itself a part of our simulacrum. It is of the portrait we paint, an abstraction within what we are seeking to describe. This is why the Tao that can be known is not the Tao; why Nirvana denotes a non-duality that is perhaps inexpressible, why forms can only be grasped imperfectly. This is perhaps why Thomas Aquinas said all his theology is but straw.

If a series of soliliquies are being performed, if there is intersubjectivity instead of steady solipsism, then it makes sense to look for that outside my stage. I myself cannot look beyond it, for I see just its plaster and clapboard and its painted characters. If something underlying them all is truly existent, then this would be the ground of Being, supplying the various abstractions. Again the One of Plotinus, the Tao, the Summus Dei, or what have you. Perhaps its purest expression lies in I AM that I AM, a gratuitous self-existence. I need to hear the Author, or the faint applause. Else I am condemned to forever strut my entrances and exits, not knowing if the shadows on the wall my mind creates, are veridical. If not, it is an Acta est Fabula to all my pretension to know. My mutterings might be drowning out the Playwright's line, my concentration leading to unrealised blindness in dazzling stage lights. A line needs to be drawn, or an assumption made otherwise, which of necessity might merely be the tinned score of my lonesome play.
The mystics know this, and mystical experience across the board sounds similar enough that they may be approaching this, with caveat that they aren't merely my own figures.
We only approach one another in the abstract though, in the abstraction of language, in metaphor. It is mythopoeic, it is the oblique approach. As all that we perceive is a construction as such, a creation of reified abstractions, a living metaphor.

For in the beginning was the Word.

I'm not an idealist.

I'm am realist.

Although Descartes gave us the most famous description of skepticism as above, why go the extra step to assume that we must be certain of our construct? And if not 100% certain then we need to jettison the whole idea of a real world?

My experiences of an external world, and other people, past events, all can be corroborated through multiple means. So although if taken to extremes I can't prove that I have hands (I could be dreaming or deceived by a demon). But those thoughts have a lot less likelihood than my accurate perception that I have hands.

So we have seen skepticism of the type you have recommended all but disappear from the university in the last 50 years. Properly basic beliefs such as the existence of other minds, and external world, the reality of the past can't be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt but are much more reasonable that their skeptical counterparts.

Theology isn't "but straw," because it doesn't work like a mathematical proof. It isn't meant to. It is a tool to help us make sense of God's revealed truth and the entailments of those truths.

Simarly, God is personal. When we learn to listen to him as believers we can enter into some profound experiences of our maker not available to us through scripture, as the Biblical authors experiences are internal and we don't get to share in the richness of their experiences.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I'm not an idealist.

I'm am realist.

Although Descartes gave us the most famous description of skepticism as above, why go the extra step to assume that we must be certain of our construct? And if not 100% certain then we need to jettison the whole idea of a real world?

My experiences of an external world, and other people, past events, all can be corroborated through multiple means. So although if taken to extremes I can't prove that I have hands (I could be dreaming or deceived by a demon). But those thoughts have a lot less likelihood than my accurate perception that I have hands.

So we have seen skepticism of the type you have recommended all but disappear from the university in the last 50 years. Properly basic beliefs such as the existence of other minds, and external world, the reality of the past can't be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt but are much more reasonable that their skeptical counterparts.

Theology isn't "but straw," because it doesn't work like a mathematical proof. It isn't meant to. It is a tool to help us make sense of God's revealed truth and the entailments of those truths.

Simarly, God is personal. When we learn to listen to him as believers we can enter into some profound experiences of our maker not available to us through scripture, as the Biblical authors experiences are internal and we don't get to share in the richness of their experiences.

I think you are largely missing the point here. The fact of the matter is that our perception of reality is not a direct observation of it, even or especially from the aspect of neurophysiology. Therefore while we treat aspects as if Real, we actually have to do this as a practical matter, but in theory we are still sitting with a simulacrum of reality. This says nothing on whether the world actually exists or not, just that it has to be perceived, even if it does exist, from a mentally constructed viewpoint. (Since our perception of the material is likewise of that construct, there need not necessarily be such, but that is another matter)

So no, it hasn't been banished per se. I consider this quite a fantastic idea to think this. In fact, it has infiltrated our understanding of the mind more and more. As I said in the OP, advanced physics and neurology are of necessity framed in an abstraction which is assumed to be reified, especially its predictive elements. But it really doesn't matter, for people are born either Aristotlean or Platonist as someone once said (can't recall who exactly, but it fits).

Similarly we cannot show something 'more probable'. If you are determining things from within a simulation, the facts of that simulation cannot be used to determine probability if it is one. Probability simply cannot be determined in such a case. But again, that is not what I am talking about at all. It is not that reality may not exist, but that even if it does, we can only access it via a abstraction of it.

Lastly, Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest Theologians of all time, said Theology was but straw. This does not mean it isn't useful or worthwhile. It is because God is fundamentally not fathomable by the human mind. Everything we use is a metaphor, we can't properly explain it. Similarly our conclusions are of necessity set within our own perception and experience. By doing so, we create our own image of who or what God is. An image is not the same as the Living God, so in fact we are constructing an idol of sorts. This is why mystics and even more recent writers like Lewis or Newman, supported the idea that our conception of God needs occasionally to be smashed, lest we set up a Golden Calf and declare it to be "the God that lead you out of Egypt".

 

[cloudyday2]

I think you are largely missing the point here. The fact of the matter is that our perception of reality is not a direct observation of it, even or especially from the aspect of neurophysiology. Therefore while we treat aspects as if Real, we actually have to do this as a practical matter, but in theory we are still sitting with a simulacrum of reality.

When we talk about direct and indirect observation aren't we claiming to know something about the location of the event and the location of the observer? For example, my mind isn't actually limited to my brain. My mind includes your brain and the brains of everybody else on CF and my cat's brain, etc. Just as there are different regions in our biological brain why not consider your brain part of my cat's brain (linked through my brain)? Or why not imagine multiple minds within my biological brain? Or how about a single universal mind that is a function of time and space like a "mind field" - analogous to a magnetic field?

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

When we talk about direct and indirect observation aren't we claiming to know something about the location of the event and the location of the observer? For example, my mind isn't actually limited to my brain. My mind includes your brain and the brains of everybody else on CF and my cat's brain, etc. Just as there are different regions in our biological brain why not consider your brain part of my cat's brain (linked through my brain)? Or why not imagine multiple minds within my biological brain? Or how about a single universal mind that is a function of time and space like a "mind field" - analogous to a magnetic field?

Well, as I said, if you are to salvage an intersubjective view, then reality as perceived by either, has to be reducible to the same abstraction by necessity. So essentially the idea of a Universal Mind, underlying Nous, is exactly what I am talking about. This is what the Neoplatonists said, essentially, that our own reason is but an aspect of ultimate Mind. So a single universal mind, of which our individual minds are but emanations, borrowing the rationality thereof, is an underlying idea of many such systems. For the Rational can only proceed from the Rational. Now a universal mind, suggests a universal Logos does it not? Even if the nature of such, is perhaps too difficult to grasp. A living framework that becomes reified in a sense, whenever we apply our minds to the world as we 'perceive' it. A 'Reality' sitting up and beyond 'reality'.

With the idea of multiple minds within one brain, firstly you are assuming mind to be solely a function of a brain, but even if we were to accept that, each of those minds would have its own Subjectivity and any further relation between them or others, would still require a Universal model within which things would need be perceived. So either all such Minds are within one brain, in which case it is functionally a similar situation anyway, or if multiple brains exist with multiple personages within in, then a Common model of abstraction would still be suggested if the intersubjective is to exist. So the situation would remain analogous.

 

[cloudyday2]

Well, as I said, if you are to salvage an intersubjective view, then reality as perceived by either, has to be reducible to the same abstraction by necessity. So essentially the idea of a Universal Mind, underlying Nous, is exactly what I am talking about. This is what the Neoplatonists said, essentially, that our own reason is but an aspect of ultimate Mind. So a single universal mind, of which our individual minds are but emanations, borrowing the rationality thereof, is an underlying idea of many such systems. For the Rational can only proceed from the Rational. Now a universal mind, suggests a universal Logos does it not? Even if the nature of such, is perhaps too difficult to grasp. A living framework that becomes reified in a sense, whenever we apply our minds to the world as we 'perceive' it. A 'Reality' sitting up and beyond 'reality'.

With the idea of multiple minds within one brain, firstly you are assuming mind to be solely a function of a brain, but even if we were to accept that, each of those minds would have its own Subjectivity and any further relation between them or others, would still require a Universal model within which things would need be perceived. So either all such Minds are within one brain, in which case it is functionally a similar situation anyway, or if multiple brains exist with multiple personages within in, then a Common model of abstraction would still be suggested if the intersubjective is to exist. So the situation would remain analogous.

For atheists, there is an easy solution: the mind doesn't exist.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

For atheists, there is an easy solution: the mind doesn't exist.

...and that is the most amazing thing, ain't it: the mind doesn't exist, yet it "cracked open" the atom. Go figure!

 

[cloudyday2]

...and that is the most amazing thing, ain't it: the mind doesn't exist, yet it "cracked open" the atom. Go figure!

The atom split itself. In fact the atom has been splitting itself for billions of years creating the heat within the Earth's core and so on... See? - no problemo at all for us atheists. (Oops I guess I'm not entirely an atheist though. Now I am a "generic theist" LOL)

 

[Uber Genius]

I think you are largely missing the point here. The fact of the matter is that our perception of reality is not a direct observation of it, even or especially from the aspect of neurophysiology. Therefore while we treat aspects as if Real, we actually have to do this as a practical matter, but in theory we are still sitting with a simulacrum of reality. This says nothing on whether the world actually exists or not, just that it has to be perceived, even if it does exist, from a mentally constructed viewpoint. (Since our perception of the material is likewise of that construct, there need not necessarily be such, but that is another matter)

So no, it hasn't been banished per se. I consider this quite a fantastic idea to think this. In fact, it has infiltrated our understanding of the mind more and more. As I said in the OP, advanced physics and neurology are of necessity framed in an abstraction which is assumed to be reified, especially its predictive elements. But it really doesn't matter, for people are born either Aristotlean or Platonist as someone once said (can't recall who exactly, but it fits).

Similarly we cannot show something 'more probable'. If you are determining things from within a simulation, the facts of that simulation cannot be used to determine probability if it is one. Probability simply cannot be determined in such a case. But again, that is not what I am talking about at all. It is not that reality may not exist, but that even if it does, we can only access it via a abstraction of it.

Lastly, Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest Theologians of all time, said Theology was but straw. This does not mean it isn't useful or worthwhile. It is because God is fundamentally not fathomable by the human mind. Everything we use is a metaphor, we can't properly explain it. Similarly our conclusions are of necessity set within our own perception and experience. By doing so, we create our own image of who or what God is. An image is not the same as the Living God, so in fact we are constructing an idol of sorts. This is why mystics and even more recent writers like Lewis or Newman, supported the idea that our conception of God needs occasionally to be smashed, lest we set up a Golden Calf and declare it to be "the God that lead you out of Egypt".

Read your post thoroughly the first time. You seemed to miss that the origin of you skepticism arises with Cartesian skepticism. It is now know that Thomas Aquinas and the scholastics need to treat apologetics like a math problem with certainty being the goal led to Descartes engaging problems which led to his cogito formulation which led to use being skeptical but I have handled in my first reply why nearly no philosophers are skeptics. Just because we can prove things like an eternal world, other minds, the reality and uniformity of the past, doesn't mean we aren't warranted to beleive they exist. While I do think Mystics help us to perceive certain things we wouldn't, I am not undermining my ability to know anything other than that I exist, to prop up that mystical knowledge. The price seems way to high, and I would be more likely to believe you didn't exist than your argument is true of the real world, opps, I mean the false construct of the world I have in my mind.

Problem with these types of arguments is that we can't limit the destruction of our knowledge to just one or two items. Everything except my (not your) existence must go on this type of skepticism.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Read your post thoroughly the first time. You seemed to miss that the origin of you skepticism arises with Cartesian skepticism. It is now know that Thomas Aquinas and the scholastics need to treat apologetics like a math problem with certainty being the goal led to Descartes engaging problems which led to his cogito formulation which led to use being skeptical but I have handled in my first reply why nearly no philosophers are skeptics. Just because we can prove things like an eternal world, other minds, the reality and uniformity of the past, doesn't mean we aren't warranted to beleive they exist. While I do think Mystics help us to perceive certain things we wouldn't, I am not undermining my ability to know anything other than that I exist, to prop up that mystical knowledge. The price seems way to high, and I would be more likely to believe you didn't exist than your argument is true of the real world, opps, I mean the false construct of the world I have in my mind.

Problem with these types of arguments is that we can't limit the destruction of our knowledge to just one or two items. Everything except my (not your) existence must go on this type of skepticism.

My argument goes back to Plato and beyond. I even referenced the ancients in the OP. It is the idea that the Forms, abstract adjectival things, are essentially more real than our own perceptions. It is Plato's idea of the fact that we require Knowledge of the Knowledge we hold. It is also somewhat akin to Avicenna's floating man argument. Another precedent is Pyrrho's radical scepticism (which denies anything can really be known, even self-knowledge) which Augustine tried to refute in the Enchiridion. Descartes was working from a well-known tradition, but too often everyone thinks thought started at the Renaissance...

Regardless, Cogito Ergo Sum is basically a Petitio Principii. It presumes the 'I' that is thinking and by thinking, proves the 'I'. It is thus quite an unsatisfactory solution of the problem of mind (hence has largely fallen by the wayside - see Nietsche, Kierkegaard or Heidegger, who all have opinions on why it isn't a good answer).

I agree that you cannot limit scepticism, but nor can you ignore it. Lines need to be drawn. As I said, if Intersubjectivity is to exist, then such intersubjectivity must be framed as an aspect of Mind, of abstracts. This in turn suggests that the underlying reality is framed in this way also, or would need to be to be perceived by us at all. Hence Neoplatonic Nous, Stoic Logos, etc.
Else I concur, you are stuck with an absolute solipsism, but even this has grounds to be doubted if it cannot be confirmed elsewhere.

My whole point in starting off with neurophysiology was to try and head off those who would just dismiss what I said as 'of the Mystic'. I know you believe you thoroughly read the OP, which if you did, then I am afraid my slightly convoluted writing style made you suffer a misapprehension. I hope I have clarified myself sufficiently now.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

For atheists, there is an easy solution: the mind doesn't exist.

Yes, you can say that. But then reasoning or knowledge doesn't exist either. So... if that is the case, then no worries, as we don't actually have any existence worthy of the word. It seems a bit far fetched to my own experience, but a lot of 'reality' seems counter-intuitive, though we would thus have refuted almost everything we believe of ourselves and the world though.

 

[cloudyday2]

Yes, you can say that. But then reasoning or knowledge doesn't exist either. So... if that is the case, then no worries, as we don't actually have any existence worthy of the word. It seems a bit far fetched to my own experience, but a lot of 'reality' seems counter-intuitive, though we would thus have refuted almost everything we believe of ourselves and the world though.

If the mind and reasoning and knowledge are so hard to define, isn't this a hint that these concepts don't exist distinct from nature?

I probably mentioned this story, but when I was in college I got to attend a lecture by Richard Feynman. I think that was what his lecture was all about, but I was only a sophomore and didn't quite follow it all. I think Feynman might have been suggesting that computation is an actual physical thing distinct from the mechanism of the computation. Too bad it went in one ear and out the other for me LOL

EDIT: So my point on Feynman is that he seemed to agree more with you than with me.