Is anything "Real"?

[cheddarsox]

Is anything REAL?

this was brought up by some other threads on MW lately. Is there any such thing as Truth, I mean something that IS, no matter what we believe or understand about it (or don't believe or understand about it).

Or is everything just a matter of perspective?

I do believe that thoughts are made of the same stuff as the rest of the universe, and that they affect things, but I think that there are some things that are not just a matter of what we believe about them, that they have some objective reality beyond our belief or understanding of them.

Any thoughts on that?

[Novembers River]

Really interesting question.

I think there is some sort of truth or absolute reality out there, but I'm doubtful humans will ever come to know or understand it.

In life we humanize everything, simply because it's the only way we can relate. But does that mean our experiences are "real" or simply an assumption of what is real based on the fact that it's all we know?

[airmist]

Descartes

I think therefore I am.

Airmist

I think therefore I'm f-----.

Somehow, I don't think this is quite as serious as Cheddar or Novembers deserve; I'll go back to lurking.

[lizea]

Hmm... If I really think about it, I don't think there is any absolute truth out there. It's like there isn't one right religion. There is a religion that is right for one person at one point in their lives. But there isn't a religion that will work for everyone all the time. I think it kind of goes the same way with reality. I think everything is kind of warped by what we believe. Take an eating disorder. Some people see what an anorexic person strives to look like as ugly, but to that person it is beautiful. I think everything is like that. That may have been a bad example, but it was just the first thing I though up... I will have to devote more time to this.

[airmist]

Being curious as to what might be easily available online and also having been interrupted by a phone call, I found the following:

http://www.iep.utm.edu/o/objectiv.htm#SH2a

It is an article from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy which gives a very brief introduction to the question of knowledge of "reality" and the issues of objective versus subjective knowledge as such are being debated today. It might be of interest.

I avoid the question of reality from a philosophical perspective because it has gone beyond me. However, I act as if what I know is real. It works. That includes spiritual beliefs which I know aren't provable, and may not be real, but work. What I know to be the truth, may not be tomorrow. I can only live in today with what is real for me today. That is not to sound at all frivolous about what I believe to be real. I only mean to say I understand it may change. Does that mean there is no objective reality? No, I may not be able to know it subjectively, but I can believe it. I'm not sure I'm making any sense, so I'll stop. I just didn't want to leave my earlier post sounding disrespectful of the very deep questions posed.

[cheddarsox]

However, I act as if what I know is real. It works. That includes spiritual beliefs which I know aren't provable, and may not be real, but work.

I'll check the article later, I have to leave for work in a few minutes, but I want to comment on this part.

Often I hear people say that when it comes to spirituality, whatever you believe is true "for you", and "works for you". But I have not found it so in my own life. I have left faiths because, no matter how hard I believed and practiced...they didn't "work".

I am a pantheist, not because I chose it as the most interesting, fun, deep, rational, etc, but because it works.

I don't disbelieve others when they say things "work" for them, and I am willing to accept that I am simply not gifted in some areas, hence, I can't make them "work" for me. But it seems to me that even in spiritual matter, there is some basic reality.

I know of people who say they are so gifted magically and spiritually that they don't need to eat or sleep. But, they often talk of it over a meal....Or people who say they've been alive for 460 years...but their license gives their date of birth as 1979...

Maybe they are speaking of a different plane of reality. Some people seem to be hooked into some other plane of existence that they swear is more real than this one I live on...more real, by being constantly mutable and anything they want it to be.

I'm very "grounded" I live on earth, in a physical body, my mind/soul/spirit are a function of my brain and will cease when my physical body dies. I eat, sleep and have to work to earn my keep. Fairies don't find my keys for me, the gods don't provide new jobs for me, and the goddess didn't make my childbirths easy and pain free.

Maybe I believe in reality a little too much. Lol.

cheddar

[Eleisawolf]

Cheddar,

Forcing yourself to believe something and actually believing it are two different things.

I think what Airmist is saying (correct me if I'm wrong, Airmist) is that if you treat what you truly believe as truth, whether you have proof of it or not, then it works. What you truly believe in, deep in your soul, is reality.

You can't make work that which you don't truly believe in. That's why everything you tried before Pantheism didn't work for you, I would bet. Because none of them really fit what you actually believed. Then again, I can't tell you what you actually believed at the time, but it seems to me you were trying to make yourself believe something that really didn't reflect reality to you.

Other beliefs fit other people because they reflect reality as percieved by those people... but they never fit your reality, so how could they work for you?

It gets even more complicated: as we change, so do our deeply held beliefs. Then, perhaps, what might have fit once won't fit anymore.

My brain is tired... I can't really go further than this. But I hope this points to what I'm trying to say as well as I hope it does.

Peace

[cheddarsox]

I understand what you are saying.

What still puzzles me is that when I was young, I had no reason to doubt what I was told in my faith of origin. I do think I actually believed it...and it still didn't "work"...hence my developing unbelief in that, and belief in What Is.

That is what makes me think there is objective reality, because sometimes all the belief one has still isn't enough...and I've heard that from many others as well.

I recall being shocked in the deepest way that my beliefs did not prove true. And also being shocked in the deepest way when I discovered what I feel is the truth about the Divine. I didn't expect it.

So in my experience, my belief seems to follow what I experience, rather than my experience following my beliefs.

[Windsmith]

What still puzzles me is that when I was young, I had no reason to doubt what I was told in my faith of origin. I do think I actually believed it...and it still didn't "work"...hence my developing unbelief in that, and belief in What Is."When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things." 1st Corinthians 13.11

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, too. I had no reason to doubt my faith of origin because I was never told that doubt was an option. This is how my parents raised me. If I didn't know I could rebel, if I didn't know I could whine and plead to stay up past my bed time, if I didn't know there was such a thing as stage fright - I wouldn't do it, and I wouldn't experience it. Even growing up as I did in an interfaith household, I was never presented the option that my religion might be wrong, or that some other religion (like my father's, for example) might be right. It worked for me because I didn't expect much from it, so it couldn't let me down. Only as I grew and developed my ability to question did those beliefs start to let me down because they couldn't answer my questions.

Is anything real? I thought about this all morning, and the ironic thing is that the best I could come up with is that I believe there are objective truths. Certainly there are things that no one's been able to argue against in a convincing way - if you jump off a building, gravity will always pull you to the ground. If you smash your car into a tree, Newton's third law dictates that the tree will smash back - every time. But are either of those things "real"? I mean, what is gravity, anyway?

I was thinking about your onion example from the other thread. Onions grow in the ground. That is Truth. But what about taste? Your truth may be that onions taste disgusting. My truth may be that onions are the most delicious vegetable in the world. How can we both be right? But then again, how can we both be wrong. And where's the line between the taste of onions and ESP? I've never had anything like a psychic experience, and I've yet to see any scientific evidence that supports its existence, yet there are people who swear they have it (and not just to make themselves look good; I'm talking about actual conviction here). Who's to say that I'm right in denying its existence just because science backs me up? Today's science could be tomorrow's cat-box liner.

I know I'm just answering your questions with more questions, which is a crummy thing for me to do, but I don't have anything definitive to offer. Because while "If it works for you, it's true" strikes a very dissonant chord with me ("yellow + blue = purple" works pretty well for me, but that doesn't make it true), but maybe the belief that there is such a thing as "truth" is just that, too - a belief.

[airmist]

I'm very "grounded" I live on earth, in a physical body, my mind/soul/spirit are a function of my brain and will cease when my physical body dies. I eat, sleep and have to work to earn my keep. Fairies don't find my keys for me, the gods don't provide new jobs for me, and the goddess didn't make my childbirths easy and pain free.

Maybe I believe in reality a little too much. Lol.

cheddar

I agree with that Cheddarsox. I believe in reality, I think I'm understanding from a little reading that philosophically, objective reality can't be proved by subjective people. I still choose to believe what works.



I think what Airmist is saying (correct me if I'm wrong, Airmist) is that if you treat what you truly believe as truth, whether you have proof of it or not, then it works. What you truly believe in, deep in your soul, is reality.

You can't make work that which you don't truly believe in. That's why everything you tried before Pantheism didn't work for you, I would bet.

Peace

Does it work because I believe it or do I believe it because it works? I KNEW I should have stayed lurking. Thank you though for trying to make some sense of my post. I did confuse a couple of different points. I meant to say, I have abandoned thinking about objective truth or "reality" from a philosophical point of view. However, some things work as if they are real such as the pain of childbirth and gravity and running head on into a tree. My spiritual beliefs are "real" for me, ie, they too work, but I'm not saying they are "real" in the philosophical sense. When I ask my spiritual source (our pantheistic divinity) for help, I get it. Do I get it because I believe I will? I don't care. That too is what I meant by it works.

I had no reason to doubt my faith of origin because I was never told that doubt was an option...I was never presented the option that my religion might be wrong, or that some other religion (like my father's, for example) might be right. It worked for me because I didn't expect much from it, so it couldn't let me down. Only as I grew and developed my ability to question did those beliefs start to let me down because they couldn't answer my questions.

I too was raised in a family that believed its RC dogma as if it were reality. It changed over time as those beliefs didn't match mine anymore. I don't define reality by what I believe. I can't prove reality; I must act as if what I believe is real for me. That may be of interest to others or it may be delusional, like I'm 460 years old and don't eat.

I swear to the god I don't believe in I'm going back to lurking. Thanks for reading!!

[Diotima]

Some things are real, but can we tell the difference between them and things that are unreal? What are the connections between one's perceived reality and what exists independently from the observer?

These questions have floated around for a long, long time (Kant and bishop Berkeley come to my mind...)

Me? When someone asks me to "accept the realities of life", I usually happily tell that someone that I don't believe reality exists. And I can prove it logically. On the other hand, existence exists and therefore some things are probably real...so in the end, it seems, the question turns out to be more epistemic than metaphysical one...

Oh, and sadly, Descartes was wrong in his famous thought "cogito ergo sum" (I think therefore I am). Turns out, he didn't manage to prove his existence after all, only that according to his perceptions, there seems to exist thinking...

[cheddarsox]

Some things are real, but can we tell the difference between them and things that are unreal? What are the connections between one's perceived reality and what exists independently from the observer?



Good point. I know I have a lot of "trouble" in discerning reality from my mind, and I probably always will. Because I can only conceive that which I can wrap my mind around.

At this point, I'd be happy if I could just get a handle on what other's take as reality, and not feel so distant from my fellow human beings.

Even if it's not real, if we all act/think it is...well...it's a place to start.

[Nyctale]

Nothing is real unless I believe it is. :spinnysmi

[cheddarsox]

Nothing is real unless I believe it is. :spinnysmi

But what about things you don't know about, and then learn about? were they not real until you found out about them?

[Fiamma]

Heh...take a look at the movie Passion of Mind, or The I Inside for a bit of a mindbend on this one (Passion of Mind is FAR better though)

Is anything REAL?

this was brought up by some other threads on MW lately. Is there any such thing as Truth, I mean something that IS, no matter what we believe or understand about it (or don't believe or understand about it).

Or is everything just a matter of perspective?

I do believe that thoughts are made of the same stuff as the rest of the universe, and that they affect things, but I think that there are some things that are not just a matter of what we believe about them, that they have some objective reality beyond our belief or understanding of them.

Any thoughts on that?

[Windsmith]

Nothing is real unless I believe it is. :spinnysmiI wish things worked like that! Think of all the things I'd stop believing in....