Jump to content

President President

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    423

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by President President

  13. A Literary Discourse

    in World Affairs (IC)

    Posted · Edited by President President

    What is reality?

    Reality can be summed up in many ways. The most simply way to define it, however, is a person’s belief of what is to be. If a person believes that they see a butterfly, then in their mind they have. If a person believes they read a book, then in their mind they have. If a person believes they live in a free country, then in their mind they do. This is your reality.

    This subjective view of reality isn't sufficient. If I believe I am a chicken when it is evident that I am a man, am I a chicken or a man? I would maintain in loud clucks that I am a chicken and strenuously deny the the protests of others when they point out that I am man with a rubber glove on my head sitting on some broken eggs which I obviously bought from Sainsbury's judging by the plastic bag on the ground next to me.

    That being said, the pretense is that reality is defined by our own minds. What we choose to believe, in effect, produces the world that we live in. The taste of chicken defines whether it is good or bad, while the aroma of a rose makes it luminescent in our minds. For example, a blind person defines reality through what he can taste, smell, hear, or feel. Their mind does not see color, or the fireworks on a holiday. However, they believe from what others tell them that they do exist, that things can take different hues, that a stop sign is indeed red, and that the heat they feel on their arm is indeed the warmth of sunlight.

    I don't like your attitude to my brother chickens, young man. Apart from that, aromas seldom luminesce anywhere. Most blind people tend to define the world in terms of stupid people feeding snacks to their guide dogs at pedestrian crossings and asking them if they can smell what colour of jumper they're wearing. However, amusing as it is to go on like this I need to point out a very deep flaw in your argument. If I assert that the Germans won the Second World War and as offer as proof a painting of Hitler rolling across the Brooklyn Bridge in his limousine, would it be so in reality? The picture exists, so if we accept your premise, then the Germans did indeed win the Second World War and I really need to get working on a translation of all this nonsense.

    We can clearly see, therefore, that our vision of reality is heavily influenced by what others believe. Your vision of the reality of events around the world is defined by what you read in the newspaper or online, and what you see on the television (but of course, it is what a blind person hears on the TV). You have learned through school the history of your respective country, who was the first leader, how it was started, the ideals that went into it. However, you have not actually experienced these things for yourself. Therefore, your reality is defined by what is told to you as well.

    We can clearly see that I'm a chicken and you have a thing about blind people. I'm the last chicken to judge, but I think you need help. Our 'vision of reality' could indeed be a kind of construct created in the mind out of a mish mash of external influences and internal processes but you haven't shown that what results is True and Truth is a very important philosophical concept.

    We can define reality in two parts: What we personally see, touch, taste, feel, or hear, and what we believe someone else saw, touched, tasted, felt, or heard. The Known and the Believed. Since we have gotten these two definitions of reality out of the way, we can continue with our discourse.

    I don't know whether this is about Theories of Mind or Epistemology. I know it's dodgy. There's even some political theory in there somewhere.

    To be serious for a moment - and believe me, a moment is all it will take - by the definition here we can only really know what we ourselves experience. The idea of 'the Believed' is nonsense if you accept 'the Known.' You may Believe that George Washington was the first president of the United States of America but by your own definition you cannot Know that to be true. You may likewise Believe that life exists on Mars, but you cannot Know it to be true. I may have stepped ahead here and gone into the concept of philosophical knowledge and truth like a townie in a field where cows have until very recently been kept. There may be cow-poo on my expensive philosophical loafers. Except I am a chicken and I don't have any loafers. I keep forgetting that.

    I don't consider these definitions of reality to be sufficient to their purpose, so I can't really in good conscience continue with the discourse until the problem of Truth is addressed.

    Edited for spelling.

×
×
  • Create New...