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From: sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode)
Newsgroups: sci.misc,talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: The nature of reality.
Message-ID: <356@thirdi.UUCP>
Date: 19 Mar 88 21:33:51 GMT
References: <2868@gryphon.CTS.COM> <343@thirdi.UUCP> <732@actnyc.UUCP>
Reply-To: sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode)
Organization: Institute for Research in Metapsychology
Lines: 80
Keywords: reality credibility validity
Summary: Realities are more or less credible, not more or less valid.

In article <732@actnyc.UUCP> jsb@actnyc.UUCP (The Invisible Man) writes:

>In article <343@thirdi.UUCP> sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) writes:

>>Reality is the totality of what exists.

>>For an individual person, reality is the totality of what exists for him. Thus
>>different people have different realities, though realities may intersect
>>to form consensual or interpersonal realities.

>Does this mean that someone who thinks he's Napoleon has as 'valid' a reality
>as I (or you?) or are we assuming some sort of "majority rules" principal?

I wasn't talking about "validity".  I was only pointing out that reality is
what exists for a person.  I think what we normally think of as "validity" is
really "credibility", and it refers to the possibility of getting others to
agree, not to a standard of correspondence with some absolute standard.  A
person with a very credible reality would have an easier time getting
agreement from others than one with a less credible reality.  A major aspect
of credibility is conformity to what others already believe.  Another is
logical consistency.  Another is aesthetics.  But I think it is relatively
meaningless to speak of the "validity" of a reality.

>But what I think you're
>really saying is that the validity of everyone else's reality depends on whether
>it corresponds to yours; i.e the answer to G. Gleason's question is that *you*
>define reality (though you might qualify that as *your* reality).

I think people naturally tend to apply, as a first shot, the criterion of
whether a presented reality corresponds to theirs, and they tend to reject
those that don't.  But the saving grace is that if a credible reality is well
presented, people can change their minds and have a different reality.  But the
viewpoint that *my* reality is in some sense an *absolute* reality is a form of
ideological imperialism.  I think anyone who asserts an absolute reality is
being such an imperialist.  It is really only *his* reality, but in asserting
it as absolute, he is trying to enforce it on others.

>Or maybe you're saying whatever a person believes is what she believes, which
>is a tautology which makes it both unfalsifyable and contentless.

Definitions are always unfalsifiable and contentless (I think).  I was just
giving a definition of the term, "reality".  Naturally, by making the
appropriate substitution, you can turn any definition into a tautology.

>But the interesting question is why do these realities, which *may* intersect,
>seem to have so much in common?  Or is this merely a feature of *my* reality?

I think it is because *people* have so much in common.  There are certain rules
that most people follow in organizing their worlds -- such as that of logical
consistency, the pleasure principle, trying to create a simplicity and an ease
of operation, much as one would try to do in designing the front end of a
computer program.  So they will tend to agree of things that promote these
characteristics in their worlds.  Nelson Goodman goes into this notion in his
excellent book, "Ways of World-Making".

>>Whether there is an "objective reality" that exists outside of the reality of
>>individuals is an unprovable question and should therefore be ignored.

>This is the same kind of "unprovable" as the heavily debated question of what
>is conciousness as distinguished from its behavioral manifestations.

Consciousness in oneself does not require proof, since it can be *experienced*
and, in fact, is a necessary condition for having any experience at all.
Consciousness in others, similar to what we experience, cannot be directly
experienced (absent telepathy) and therefore must be proved -- e.,g., by
behavioral means.

>Turing's point was that the question of machine intelligence is only a
>meaningful question on the behavioral level.

Certain logical positivists notwithstanding, something can be *meaningful*
without being *provable*.  I can get an idea of what it would mean for a
machine to be intelligent without being able to prove it.
-- 
"Absolute knowledge means never having to change your mind."

Sarge Gerbode
Institute for Research in Metapsychology
950 Guinda St.
Palo Alto, CA 94301
UUCP:  pyramid!thirdi!sarge