the nature of reality....

[Iwannaplato]

You've argued you have no grounds to make any sense. Yet you univesalize your conclusions

Universalizing is at the starting point of the process, when I start by agreeing with realism, I start by being a realist.

I think that might be your mistake. Not that it's just yours. It's a pretty common one. We actually start as experiencers and we get told a lot of stuff. But really, no one can get you to start so late in the process.

Realism is universal, because, if reality exists objectively, then it is independent of our subjectivity.

Well, it would include our subjectivty and parts of that reality that are not our subjectivity would interact with those parts of reality we call our subjectivity.

Independent of our subjectivity means it is the same for everyone

I would quibble a lot with that wording. It depends on 'it is the same for everyone' with that tricky preposition in there.

A stone is a stone for everyone, what can be different is what people think. If someone thinks that a stone is a bird, this doesn't turn the stone into a bird, the stone remains a stone. This means that the objectivity of a stone is universal, there are no exceptions, there is nothing particular or specific.
From this universal realist starting point, we are forced to admit the existence of ouselves as well.

This doesn't reflect my process, that so late in the game I am forced to admit my existence.

My existence is objectively universal as well. If I or somebody else thinks that I do not exist, this doesn't cancel my existence. So, at this point of seeing the existence of ourselves, we are still in the context of realism and universalism.
Next step is realizing that, if all of this reasoning comes from me, who's existence has universal objectivity, then all of this reasoning is not universal, because it is entirely depending on my subjectivity, my brain, my particularity. Here, in this step, is the jump from the universal into the particular.
From now on, everything I say has to be considered particular, local, limited.

Unless it's working incredibly well not to limit it to that. I don't feel or recognize any compulsion to do that. Nor do you seem to.

At this point, we deduce that, as a consequence, this particularity has to be applied to the whole process, since the beginning. This means that, when I started by being a realist, actually this was only an illusion.
Now we are at the stage where the destruction comes out as destruction of itself.
In this context you are right, I cannot assume anything about what happens to other people, other brains, other perspectives.

OK.

The problem is that, so far, nobody has been able to give evidence of being in a situation different from mine.

Really. Everything is utterly particular to your subjetivity and at the same time you have never noticed that other people's situations are different from yours? One has to wonder then what evidence you have for your position.

This can be still just another effect of my limitations.
I just see some things from inside my poisoned brain:

I really don't think the use of brain is warrented. That's a kind of objective third person realists conclusion about where experiencing is taking place or something or other. I have sympathy for how hard it is to escape realism in language, but 'mind' certain works better. It's not object focused and can have all sorts of senses without the hard boundaries of 'brains'. 'Experiencing' also seems better.

- so far, nobody has been able to give any evidence of being in a situation different from mine

That doesn't mean your position is correct and you just described realism. That's realism.
You think your inferred conclusion about other minds, people in China and so on, are in the same situation you are.

- I am not alone in this situation: I can see that a lot of other people and philosophers agree with me

Well, by that measure realism does really well. And, frankly, it sounds like a subset of realism.

- I can see a difference between my position and realists: I take into consideration criticism and plurality of perspectives, while they don't.
Are you in a situation different from mine? Why should I think that your brain is not poisoned, like mine, by the simple fact of being a brain, that, as such, cannot think about itself without interfering with itself?

Let's remember that this all came out you saying we can't make sense. You act like you can make sense. I believe I can understand many of the things you are saying. I find me making sense as a model works very well, with, of course those times when I do not make sense. I'm a teacher and I experience people coming to me with goals, me trying to make sense, both me and the other person, seeing those goals met. I have zero evidence that I can't make sense fits my experience. I certainly have evidence that I don't always make sense.

I am not universal, sure; do you think you are in a different situation?

I don't think either one of us is incapable of making sense. But if you are correct about yourself, yes, I think we are in different situations.

[Atla]

Why aren't those conclusions fruit of your poison tree?

They are, definitely: our poison tree is our brain. It works the same way. You can't tell if you are under the effects of your poisoning tree, because the fact of being under those effects makes any thought unreliable. The same way, you can't tell anything about the reliability of what you think, because whatever you say is already under the effects of what you should assess, that is, your brain.
In short, this is the structure:
1) we start by agreeing with realism
2) we see that realism invalidates itself

Many people answer by saying that, since everything is invalidated, then number 2) is invalidated as well. In other words, if everything is invalidated, the invalidation itself is invalid. It is the same criticism when people say that, if everything is relative, then the statement "everything is relative" is relative as well, so it is untenable.

The problem with this criticism is that it doesn't allow us to assume that, as a consequence, something must be non relative, otherwise we are back to point 1) and the process restarts.

So, it might be true that, when I say that nothing makes sense, I am just under wrong effects of my brain. The problem is that this doesn't open any chance for the possibility of anything to make sense, because the conclusion that nothing makes sense was exactly a consequence of the assumption that something can make sense.

In other words, it is true that relativism demolishes itself, but this doesn't give us any hope that something has not been demolished. If something has not been demolished, this very hypothesis would drive us again to the conclusion that everything is relative.

Looks like your issue still isn't with realism or anti-realism. Your issue is with certainty and trying to force linear logic onto the inherently circular human understanding.

Realism is a consistent circular understanding that uses the unprovable axiom that objective reality exists. And it's probably the best circular understanding. Anti-realism is another circular understanding. It's as simple as that.

[Angelo Cannata]

Let's remember that this all came out you saying we can't make sense.

I think this is a point where philosophers, even the greatest ones, misunderstand each other and even each one themselves.
When I say that we can't make sense, I assume it should be clear that we cannot interpret that statement literally. I think that it should be clear that the statement "we can't make sense" makes itself existential. Everybody understands that the statement doesn't make sense literally, cannot be interpreted literally. Rather, it is from the existential context that we can extend it to the literal meaning. If our existence doesn't have any sense, any goal, any motivation, what is the sense of our words? What is the meaning of "sense", what is the meaning of "meaning"?
If we consider the statement "we can't make sense" literally, it is clear that it is automatically self-contradictory and inappropriately dogmatic, universalistic. But we don't have better words to express the contradictions coming from realism.
This is the same misunderstanding that happens when postmodern philosophers say that we are the creators of reality. Everyone can understand that this is not true, it cannot be interpreted in a material sense.
I think that, once we see the contradictions of realism, we need to understand that, from then on, we cannot carry on by giving our words usual and literal meanings. The failure of realism forces us to talk in existential, humanistic, literary, even poetic terms, otherwise we carry on endlessly re-expressing the contradictions of realism in terms that are still realist and, as such, are necessarily literally contradictory, like the statements "we cannot make sense" or "we create reality".
Since we don't have an agreed non-realist language, the only way we have is to change the meaning of words, hoping that some understanding will happen, not only with other people, but with ourselves as well.

[Iwannaplato]

I think this is a point where philosophers, even the greatest ones, misunderstand each other and even each one themselves.
When I say that we can't make sense, I assume it should be clear that we cannot interpret that statement literally.

OK, good. I found it strange since it seemed like you were making some effort to make sense and being successful in the process.

I think that it should be clear that the statement "we can't make sense" makes itself existential. Everybody understands that the statement doesn't make sense literally, cannot be interpreted literally. Rather, it is from the existential context that we can extend it to the literal meaning. If our existence doesn't have any sense, any goal, any motivation, what is the sense of our words? What is the meaning of "sense", what is the meaning of "meaning"?

OK.

If we consider the statement "we can't make sense" literally, it is clear that it is automatically self-contradictory and inappropriately dogmatic, universalistic. But we don't have better words to express the contradictions coming from realism.

The non-literal meaning seems to be along the lines of life as a whole, the lack of the meaning of life in general, an objective purpose, rather than a subjective one.

This is the same misunderstanding that happens when postmodern philosophers say that we are the creators of reality. Everyone can understand that this is not true, it cannot be interpreted in a material sense.

I don't think everyone understands that. And then, it sounds like realism when you draw the distinction implicit when you say 'in a material sense'. That sounds like 'hey everyone knows it doesn't affect the things out there, but our reactions, perceptions of it are flexible, etc.

In the context of antirealism vs. realism I don't feel on solid ground to understand you don't for example, include the material stuff in your statements.

I think that, once we see the contradictions of realism, we need to understand that, from then on, we cannot carry on by giving our words usual and literal meanings. The failure of realism forces us to talk in existential, humanistic, literary, even poetic terms, otherwise we carry on endlessly re-expressing the contradictions of realism in terms that are still realist and, as such, are necessarily literally contradictory, like the statements "we cannot make sense" or "we create reality".

Perhaps when talking about the whole thing: reality, existence, the universe. But in almost every other non-everything context, realist talk and assumptions works fairly well. Of course if one assumes all perspectives are the same, you have a problem, but realists can be flexible enough to get that. Note: I don't say this as an argument in favor of realism. I am reacting to what seemed to be a generalization about communication.

[Trajk Logik]

from the day we are born, we are indoctrinated
with a vision of the country we are born into

Not really. Indoctrination requires the use of language and we are not born knowing a language. We are born with an unfiltered perception of reality that becomes skewed when we use language and depend on elders to inform us of how reality works.

You can become unindoctrinated by seeing politics and religions as what they are - forms of group-think.

It doesn't matter where we're born or who your parents are when it comes to science. Smart phones work the same way in every culture and every country. The science the technology is based on is a reflection of reality regardless of your politics or religion. Reality is that which underlies these subjective and contradicting views of the world - where what has worked for one does not work, or apply to another. A description of the world that encompasses all with differing political and religious views - that works for all regardless of ones political or religious views, is a description of reality. All the rest are just descriptions of your mental state and life history. There are a lot of people that get the two things confused.

[Peter Kropotkin]

Peter Kropotkin: from the day we are born, we are indoctrinated
with a vision of the country we are born into


TL: Not really. Indoctrination requires the use of language and we are not born knowing a language. We are born with an unfiltered perception of reality that becomes skewed when we use language and depend on elders to inform us of how reality works.

K: and here I disagree.. 95% of all communication, not language, but
communication is done non-verbally... and as a legally deaf person, I can
attest to this...and in watching children, I am also a parent, I can say
with certainty, that children a sponges.. they absorb EVERTHING...
all forms of communication.. spoken or not.... and indoctrinations
are not just verbal... standing for the national anthem is a form
of indoctrination...being in churches is a form of indoctrination,
it doesn't matter if you can understand the words or not, just
being there is an indoctrination....
watching how your parents treat each other, that is a form of indoctrination...
for that is how we learn to interact with the other sex.. my parents for example,
fought lot.. I recall my mom chasing my dad around the kitchen table with
a knife...that is a learning experience... meant to be or not,
that is a form of indoctrination....

Now one might say, but Kropotkin, you are stretching the very word
indoctrination into something that it doesn't mean.... the word indoctrination
just means education... and in our indoctrinations, we are most certainly
learning something.... now sometimes the lesson learned is not the
lesson sent, but that is another communication problem meant
for another time...

TL: You can become unindoctrinated by seeing politics and religions as what they are - forms of group-think.

K: perhaps that is true, but that concept is a fairly sophisticated one..
and I am not sure even teen agers get that one.. maybe as a young adult,
twenties maybe, might learn what ''group think'' is, but even then I am not sure...
I grew up in a very sophisticated, wealthy family.. my father at one point,
owned a newspaper, and I didn't learn what ''group-think'' was until much
later in life... the very idea of ''groupthink'' wasn't coined by a psychologist
until 1972.. in the pages of Psychology Today.. an Irving Janis wrote it...
In 1972, I was eighth grade, about to go into high school... so,
maybe by the eighties, I may have heard of ''groupthink'' in my twenties...

TL: It doesn't matter where we're born or who your parents are when it comes to science. Smart phones work the same way in every culture and every country. The science the technology is based on is a reflection of reality regardless of your politics or religion. Reality is that which underlies these subjective and contradicting views of the world - where what has worked for one does not work, or apply to another. A description of the world that encompasses all with differing political and religious views - that works for all regardless of ones political or religious views, is a description of reality. All the rest are just descriptions of your mental state and life history. There are a lot of people that get the two things confused.

K: it does matter a great deal how science and culture work in different cultures..
take someone from say, Saudi Arabia...they are going to have a vastly different
understanding of science and the value of cell phones than someone from the
western cultures, say the US or the UK... reality is vastly different with someone
from Saudi Arabia then from someone from the US...
and that difference lies in the education/indoctrinations we receive
from birth to whenever....even here in the US, we have large sections
of the population being raised with different indoctrinations and with
those indoctrinations, we get vastly different understanding of science,
of technology, of philosophy and of religion, to name a few...

people with hardcore religious education/indoctrinations, approach
science/technology/and cell phones with a very different attitude
than someone a much more secular indoctrination/education...
the very indoctrinations change our perceptions of reality...a whole
lot of people understand the world and science in very different
terms because of their indoctrinations...to many, science and technology is
evil, no other way to put it...and to many science and technology are
not a curse but a blessing and to others, science and technology,
are for like people like me, a great thing, because with science/technology
I can hear, with a hearing aid and, if I could afford it, a cochlear Implant,
which would allow me to hear... but many, many think that a cochlear implant
is violating their vision which is anti-transhumanism... I'm a fan and others
are not....

and the final point is that there is no one complete description that
is agreeable to all, or even some or even one or two....
talk to people and one quickly discovers that everyone, everyone
has a different understanding of reality based on both their
indoctrinations and experiences... my childhood political
indoctrinations were mildly and I mean mild, democratic notions
I shifted to the left when I was radicalized by the election of
Ronald Raygun... I, after some thought, became an anarchist...
and that was due to experience, not indoctrination...
in changing my political affiliation, what changed was my
understanding of what reality is, what science is,
and what technology is....
I approached science differently once I became an anarchist,
and I approached technology differently as an anarchist...

our political and religious understanding does change how reality
is viewed and is acted upon...reality is not neutral....
it too has a bias.. because it, reality is how one views the universe/world
and that view is created by both our indoctrinations and experiences...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

now you may argue that a ''smart phone'' works exactly the same,
regardless of our indoctrinations and reality... but that isn't true...
it is our interpretations that make the reality, not the phone...
the use of a phone is just an interpretation of that phone...
now you will say, the phone works the same, regardless of
the interpretation....is the phone science, technology, magic,
a gift from god? doesn't that impact how we understand
technology? you hold that the operation of the cell phone
is not only rational, but objective... and it isn't... that there
is no such thing as objective, in science, technology, mathematics,
or history.... because what objective looks like, comes from
our indoctrinations and education.... things that are clearly not
objective...

in fact, there is no such thing as objective.... in science or technology...
we human beings infuse everything we do with our indoctrinations
and experiences....everything is an interpretation.. everything....
and there is no escape from that fact... because ''facts''
are just another interpretation, nothing more...

Kropotkin

[Iwannaplato]

Oh, great, you had time to come back to the thread.

You said

as usual, Iwanna is wrong, flat out wrong.

earlier in this thread, and then wrote a post that supported the position I had put forward that was supposedly wrong. I understand that you missed the context of my response to Atla. I understand that Atla's conditional sentence might have been confusing if you didn't read the context. We were reacting to someone who was saying that Nietzsche argued no one could make sense. I disagreed. I think N not only made sense himself, but thought that making sense was possible.

If you actually think Nietzsche did mean that one couldn't make sense, let me know.

[Walker]

I find it interesting that people seem to have very
different views on what exactly is reality...
I have read plenty of people who have described a reality
that I can't even envision, or describe a reality that isn't
even close to the reality I see...

Interesting what you see about MAGA and all that.

*

I see that the nature of reality is that reality must be perceived in order to be known to exist, and reality is perceived through … change/movement/time … which are all three somewhat synonymous.

Just a wee bit o' input.

[Trajk Logik]

Not really. Indoctrination requires the use of language and we are not born knowing a language. We are born with an unfiltered perception of reality that becomes skewed when we use language and depend on elders to inform us of how reality works.

K: and here I disagree.. 95% of all communication, not language, but
communication is done non-verbally... and as a legally deaf person, I can
attest to this...and in watching children, I am also a parent, I can say
with certainty, that children a sponges.. they absorb EVERTHING...
all forms of communication.. spoken or not.... and indoctrinations
are not just verbal... standing for the national anthem is a form
of indoctrination...being in churches is a form of indoctrination,
it doesn't matter if you can understand the words or not, just
being there is an indoctrination....
watching how your parents treat each other, that is a form of indoctrination...
for that is how we learn to interact with the other sex.. my parents for example,
fought lot.. I recall my mom chasing my dad around the kitchen table with
a knife...that is a learning experience... meant to be or not,
that is a form of indoctrination....

Now one might say, but Kropotkin, you are stretching the very word
indoctrination into something that it doesn't mean.... the word indoctrination
just means education... and in our indoctrinations, we are most certainly
learning something.... now sometimes the lesson learned is not the
lesson sent, but that is another communication problem meant
for another time...

Right. You are conflating indoctrination with learning. Observing that a cat makes a different sound and looks different than a dog is not indoctrination. There is a clear difference in taking what other say without observable evidence, or logical validation, as proof of some aspect of reality (ie "God exists"), vs. just using your own senses and logic to put the pieces together and disregarding what others say altogether.

Using your explanation, questioning authority would be a type of indoctrination.

You can become unindoctrinated by seeing politics and religions as what they are - forms of group-think.

K: perhaps that is true, but that concept is a fairly sophisticated one..
and I am not sure even teen agers get that one.. maybe as a young adult,
twenties maybe, might learn what ''group think'' is, but even then I am not sure...
I grew up in a very sophisticated, wealthy family.. my father at one point,
owned a newspaper, and I didn't learn what ''group-think'' was until much
later in life... the very idea of ''groupthink'' wasn't coined by a psychologist
until 1972.. in the pages of Psychology Today.. an Irving Janis wrote it...
In 1972, I was eighth grade, about to go into high school... so,
maybe by the eighties, I may have heard of ''groupthink'' in my twenties...

I agree, as it was not until my late teens that I really started questioning what I was raised to believe. I was only able to get to that point by making my own observations that seemed to contradict, or at least not support, what I was raised to believe. If we were to go with your explanation of "indoctrination" we can never escape some form of indoctrination, as realizing that you were indoctrinated at a young age is just another form of indoctrination.

TL: It doesn't matter where we're born or who your parents are when it comes to science. Smart phones work the same way in every culture and every country. The science the technology is based on is a reflection of reality regardless of your politics or religion. Reality is that which underlies these subjective and contradicting views of the world - where what has worked for one does not work, or apply to another. A description of the world that encompasses all with differing political and religious views - that works for all regardless of ones political or religious views, is a description of reality. All the rest are just descriptions of your mental state and life history. There are a lot of people that get the two things confused.

K: it does matter a great deal how science and culture work in different cultures..
take someone from say, Saudi Arabia...they are going to have a vastly different
understanding of science and the value of cell phones than someone from the
western cultures, say the US or the UK... reality is vastly different with someone
from Saudi Arabia then from someone from the US...
and that difference lies in the education/indoctrinations we receive
from birth to whenever....even here in the US, we have large sections
of the population being raised with different indoctrinations and with
those indoctrinations, we get vastly different understanding of science,
of technology, of philosophy and of religion, to name a few...

people with hardcore religious education/indoctrinations, approach
science/technology/and cell phones with a very different attitude
than someone a much more secular indoctrination/education...
the very indoctrinations change our perceptions of reality...a whole
lot of people understand the world and science in very different
terms because of their indoctrinations...to many, science and technology is
evil, no other way to put it...and to many science and technology are
not a curse but a blessing and to others, science and technology,
are for like people like me, a great thing, because with science/technology
I can hear, with a hearing aid and, if I could afford it, a cochlear Implant,
which would allow me to hear... but many, many think that a cochlear implant
is violating their vision which is anti-transhumanism... I'm a fan and others
are not....

and the final point is that there is no one complete description that
is agreeable to all, or even some or even one or two....
talk to people and one quickly discovers that everyone, everyone
has a different understanding of reality based on both their
indoctrinations and experiences... my childhood political
indoctrinations were mildly and I mean mild, democratic notions
I shifted to the left when I was radicalized by the election of
Ronald Raygun... I, after some thought, became an anarchist...
and that was due to experience, not indoctrination...
in changing my political affiliation, what changed was my
understanding of what reality is, what science is,
and what technology is....
I approached science differently once I became an anarchist,
and I approached technology differently as an anarchist...

our political and religious understanding does change how reality
is viewed and is acted upon...reality is not neutral....
it too has a bias.. because it, reality is how one views the universe/world
and that view is created by both our indoctrinations and experiences...

Kropotkin

This makes no sense. Reality does not work differently in different cultures. What one values has nothing to do with how smart phones work. How much you value a smartphone has nothing to do with the science that the technology is based on. Believing that smartphones are evil has no effect on how smartphones work. You seem to be confusing the map with the territory here. The way one perceives reality is not reality. If it were then you only exist how I perceive you to exist - as a string of words on a computer screen. As a realist, I believe that there is an external world independent of our perceptions and values. I believe that there is a human being that typed the words I see on the screen even though I don't perceive the human, only the words on the screen.

[Peter Kropotkin]

Kropotkin: and here I disagree.. 95% of all communication, not language, but
communication is done non-verbally... and as a legally deaf person, I can
attest to this...and in watching children, I am also a parent, I can say
with certainty, that children a sponges.. they absorb EVERTHING...
all forms of communication.. spoken or not.... and indoctrinations
are not just verbal... standing for the national anthem is a form
of indoctrination...being in churches is a form of indoctrination,
it doesn't matter if you can understand the words or not, just
being there is an indoctrination....
watching how your parents treat each other, that is a form of indoctrination...
for that is how we learn to interact with the other sex.. my parents for example,
fought lot.. I recall my mom chasing my dad around the kitchen table with
a knife...that is a learning experience... meant to be or not,
that is a form of indoctrination....

Now one might say, but Kropotkin, you are stretching the very word
indoctrination into something that it doesn't mean.... the word indoctrination
just means education... and in our indoctrinations, we are most certainly
learning something.... now sometimes the lesson learned is not the
lesson sent, but that is another communication problem meant
for another time..

TL: Right. You are conflating indoctrination with learning. Observing that a cat makes a different sound and looks different than a dog is not indoctrination. There is a clear difference in taking what other say without observable evidence, or logical validation, as proof of some aspect of reality (ie "God exists"), vs. just using your own senses and logic to put the pieces together and disregarding what others say altogether.
Using your explanation, questioning authority would be a type of indoctrination.

K: Indoctrinations are a form of learning/education.. that is the point..
you are ''educating'' children by the use of indoctrinations.. that god exists
is educating children to that.. a form of indoctrination...
a parent telling their children to question authority, if consistently said,
is a form of indoctrination... but let's be real here, few, very few parents tell
their kids that because then the kids will question the parents authority
and that rarely ever ends well..

Trajk Logik" post_id=695715 time=1707746273 user_id=12607]
You can become unindoctrinated by seeing politics and religions as what they are - forms of group-think.

K: perhaps that is true, but that concept is a fairly sophisticated one..
and I am not sure even teen agers get that one.. maybe as a young adult,
twenties maybe, might learn what ''group think'' is, but even then I am not sure...
I grew up in a very sophisticated, wealthy family.. my father at one point,
owned a newspaper, and I didn't learn what ''group-think'' was until much
later in life... the very idea of ''groupthink'' wasn't coined by a psychologist
until 1972.. in the pages of Psychology Today.. an Irving Janis wrote it...
In 1972, I was eighth grade, about to go into high school... so,
maybe by the eighties, I may have heard of ''groupthink'' in my twenties...[/quote]

TL: I agree, as it was not until my late teens that I really started questioning what I was raised to believe. I was only able to get to that point by making my own observations that seemed to contradict, or at least not support, what I was raised to believe. If we were to go with your explanation of "indoctrination" we can never escape some form of indoctrination, as realizing that you were indoctrinated at a young age is just another form of indoctrination.

K: and many people don't escape their indoctrinations...therein lies much
of the worlds problems... people having failed to escape their indoctrinations...
and just as likely they fail to realize they have been indoctrinated...
again, the best example of this is the indoctrination of god... the belief
in god is not a natural belief.. we are educated/indoctrinated into that belief
practically from birth.. therein also lies the terminology of ''WOKE", to be
''WOKE'' is to be aware of one's indoctrinations...when Kant read Human and
''WOKE'' up to another set of ideas, that is ''WOKE'' or when I became
radicalized by the election of Raygun, that is ''WOKE'' to become aware of
my indoctrinations..

TL: It doesn't matter where we're born or who your parents are when it comes to science. Smart phones work the same way in every culture and every country. The science the technology is based on is a reflection of reality regardless of your politics or religion. Reality is that which underlies these subjective and contradicting views of the world - where what has worked for one does not work, or apply to another. A description of the world that encompasses all with differing political and religious views - that works for all regardless of ones political or religious views, is a description of reality. All the rest are just descriptions of your mental state and life history. There are a lot of people that get the two things confused.

K: it does matter a great deal how science and culture work in different cultures..
take someone from say, Saudi Arabia...they are going to have a vastly different
understanding of science and the value of cell phones than someone from the
western cultures, say the US or the UK... reality is vastly different with someone
from Saudi Arabia then from someone from the US...
and that difference lies in the education/indoctrinations we receive
from birth to whenever....even here in the US, we have large sections
of the population being raised with different indoctrinations and with
those indoctrinations, we get vastly different understanding of science,
of technology, of philosophy and of religion, to name a few...
people with hardcore religious education/indoctrinations, approach
science/technology/and cell phones with a very different attitude
than someone a much more secular indoctrination/education...
the very indoctrinations change our perceptions of reality...a whole
lot of people understand the world and science in very different
terms because of their indoctrinations...to many, science and technology is
evil, no other way to put it...and to many science and technology are
not a curse but a blessing and to others, science and technology,
are for like people like me, a great thing, because with science/technology
I can hear, with a hearing aid and, if I could afford it, a cochlear Implant,
which would allow me to hear... but many, many think that a cochlear implant
is violating their vision which is anti-transhumanism... I'm a fan and others
are not....

and the final point is that there is no one complete description that
is agreeable to all, or even some or even one or two....
talk to people and one quickly discovers that everyone, everyone
has a different understanding of reality based on both their
indoctrinations and experiences... my childhood political
indoctrinations were mildly and I mean mild, democratic notions
I shifted to the left when I was radicalized by the election of
Ronald Raygun... I, after some thought, became an anarchist...
and that was due to experience, not indoctrination...
in changing my political affiliation, what changed was my
understanding of what reality is, what science is,
and what technology is....
I approached science differently once I became an anarchist,
and I approached technology differently as an anarchist...
our political and religious understanding does change how reality
is viewed and is acted upon...reality is not neutral....
it too has a bias.. because it, reality is how one views the universe/world
and that view is created by both our indoctrinations and experiences...

TL: This makes no sense. Reality does not work differently in different cultures. What one values has nothing to do with how smart phones work. How much you value a smartphone has nothing to do with the science that the technology is based on. Believing that smartphones are evil has no effect on how smartphones work. You seem to be confusing the map with the territory here. The way one perceives reality is not reality. If it were then you only exist how I perceive you to exist - as a string of words on a computer screen. As a realist, I believe that there is an external world independent of our perceptions and values. I believe that there is a human being that typed the words I see on the screen even though I don't perceive the human, only the words on the screen.

K: and in fact, I agree with you, but the reality of it is that ''perception is reality''
and here we get to the value of philosophy...perception is reality.. what we
perceive is considered to be reality...now, from a philosophical standpoint,
that is wrong, but from a human being understanding that is right..
doesn't make sense but that is the reality of it.. and the point of philosophy
is to get behind the perception, to get to the reality of the situation,
not just the perception...now some may believe that the earth is flat...
that is their perception, but the reality is the earth is round, a ball in
space...and the point of philosophy/science is to get past these
indoctrinations/perceptions to the reality of the world...if we were
to actually get the reality behind the indoctrinations/perceptions,
then we wouldn't actually need philosophy/science...
we would already be at the point of doing philosophy/science
in our everyday lives...seeing the reality behind the perceptions...

and now back to our mythical cell phone...the perception of the
cell phone dictate how we view or comprehend the cell phone...
I am sure some believe that the cell phone is magic of some sort...
it isn't based on science/technology, but is a form of magic by
god...but you might say, but that isn't true.. it is science/technology,
but that isn't the perception of the person in question...
now the question becomes, who is right?

the person who believes that a cell phone is magic,
or the person who believes that the cell phone is
science/technology?

You could write a book with that being your basic underlying
proposition.. for the history of the last 500 years has been this
very battle between the reality of something and the perception
of something... virtually every major action by someone has
been of this battle between perceptions and reality...
for example.. WW2, the ''last great war'' was a war of perceptions...
Germans believed in, had a perception of their world class
greatness which they defined as the ''Aryan'' ideal...
and the rest of us, didn't share that perception...

the idea was the greatness of the ''Aryan'' people, the German people,
was an indoctrination that was never challenged, at least in Germany,
and they acted on that perception/their belief.... and that perception,
true or not, was the basis of the entire War...for we in the west,
had different perceptions/indoctrinations and the WW2, was a battle
over which perceptions/indoctrinations were right..

and who stood over the side of reality, ''the TRUTH?'' Did it even
matter? such things as Wars, revolutions, civil wars, are simply
fighting over whose perception/ideology/indoctrination is the right one...
Wars are really nothing more than a fight between competing
ideologies/indoctrinations/perceptions...when one say, reality is
perceptions, that is the point...what we perceive is the reality..
regardless of whether or not, (and there usually is) the reality
behind the competing perceptions.. but we can use philosophy/science
to reveal the truth behind the competing ideologies/perceptions??
therein lies the point of, the value of philosophy..
to get behind the competing isms/perceptions and
reveal the truth about reality...

you have perceptions and you have the truth behind the perceptions...

what one do you pick/choose?

Kropotkin

[Trajk Logik]

TL: Right. You are conflating indoctrination with learning. Observing that a cat makes a different sound and looks different than a dog is not indoctrination. There is a clear difference in taking what other say without observable evidence, or logical validation, as proof of some aspect of reality (ie "God exists"), vs. just using your own senses and logic to put the pieces together and disregarding what others say altogether.
Using your explanation, questioning authority would be a type of indoctrination.

K: Indoctrinations are a form of learning/education.. that is the point..
you are ''educating'' children by the use of indoctrinations.. that god exists
is educating children to that.. a form of indoctrination...
a parent telling their children to question authority, if consistently said,
is a form of indoctrination... but let's be real here, few, very few parents tell
their kids that because then the kids will question the parents authority
and that rarely ever ends well..

Right. Indoctrination is a TYPE of learning/education, not ALL of learning/education. What is the difference between indoctrination and just learning? I have proposed that indoctrination is the the type of education where one in told what to believe without any evidence - either observable or logical, AND without the power to question it. Learning is the process of integrating observations with logic WITH the power to question other's claims - not for the sake of questioning it, but because observation and logic do not support the claim. There would be no reason to question a claim for which their is observable evidence and is logically sound.

I have raised my children to question authority when it makes sense to do so, not just for the sake of doing it.

Having an open mind is the means by which one avoids being indoctrinated.

TL: I agree, as it was not until my late teens that I really started questioning what I was raised to believe. I was only able to get to that point by making my own observations that seemed to contradict, or at least not support, what I was raised to believe. If we were to go with your explanation of "indoctrination" we can never escape some form of indoctrination, as realizing that you were indoctrinated at a young age is just another form of indoctrination.

K: and many people don't escape their indoctrinations...therein lies much
of the worlds problems... people having failed to escape their indoctrinations...
and just as likely they fail to realize they have been indoctrinated...
again, the best example of this is the indoctrination of god... the belief
in god is not a natural belief.. we are educated/indoctrinated into that belief
practically from birth.. therein also lies the terminology of ''WOKE", to be
''WOKE'' is to be aware of one's indoctrinations...when Kant read Human and
''WOKE'' up to another set of ideas, that is ''WOKE'' or when I became
radicalized by the election of Raygun, that is ''WOKE'' to become aware of
my indoctrinations..

Being "WOKE" in 2024 is just another form of indoctrination. It's being indoctrinated that you are always victim of someone else's actions. I am both a-political and a-theistic. I approach things with an open mind with the intent to learn from others, but if what they say does not make sense (word salad), or is not supported by observations, then I simply reject what they have said. I want to know what others think. I want to subject my own ideas to criticism, so that I might grow and evolve as an individual.

I used to be a Christian, but I decided many, many years ago, that I wanted to seek the truth no matter where it leads me and regardless of my personal feelings and values. I chose to value the truth over my feelings of being right in my assumptions. So, I can say that I changed my mind when the evidence supported something different than what I assumed to be true as a result of my upbringing. Not many people can say that they have done a 180 on their beliefs. Most people have an emotional attachment to being right and cannot bring themselves to accept other ideas that show they might be wrong. They are not interested in truth. They are just interested in maintaining their delusion of being right. They are not here on these forums to learn or grow. They are here to proselytize.

TL: It doesn't matter where we're born or who your parents are when it comes to science. Smart phones work the same way in every culture and every country. The science the technology is based on is a reflection of reality regardless of your politics or religion. Reality is that which underlies these subjective and contradicting views of the world - where what has worked for one does not work, or apply to another. A description of the world that encompasses all with differing political and religious views - that works for all regardless of ones political or religious views, is a description of reality. All the rest are just descriptions of your mental state and life history. There are a lot of people that get the two things confused.

K: it does matter a great deal how science and culture work in different cultures..
take someone from say, Saudi Arabia...they are going to have a vastly different
understanding of science and the value of cell phones than someone from the
western cultures, say the US or the UK... reality is vastly different with someone
from Saudi Arabia then from someone from the US...
and that difference lies in the education/indoctrinations we receive
from birth to whenever....even here in the US, we have large sections
of the population being raised with different indoctrinations and with
those indoctrinations, we get vastly different understanding of science,
of technology, of philosophy and of religion, to name a few...
people with hardcore religious education/indoctrinations, approach
science/technology/and cell phones with a very different attitude
than someone a much more secular indoctrination/education...
the very indoctrinations change our perceptions of reality...a whole
lot of people understand the world and science in very different
terms because of their indoctrinations...to many, science and technology is
evil, no other way to put it...and to many science and technology are
not a curse but a blessing and to others, science and technology,
are for like people like me, a great thing, because with science/technology
I can hear, with a hearing aid and, if I could afford it, a cochlear Implant,
which would allow me to hear... but many, many think that a cochlear implant
is violating their vision which is anti-transhumanism... I'm a fan and others
are not....

and the final point is that there is no one complete description that
is agreeable to all, or even some or even one or two....
talk to people and one quickly discovers that everyone, everyone
has a different understanding of reality based on both their
indoctrinations and experiences... my childhood political
indoctrinations were mildly and I mean mild, democratic notions
I shifted to the left when I was radicalized by the election of
Ronald Raygun... I, after some thought, became an anarchist...
and that was due to experience, not indoctrination...
in changing my political affiliation, what changed was my
understanding of what reality is, what science is,
and what technology is....
I approached science differently once I became an anarchist,
and I approached technology differently as an anarchist...
our political and religious understanding does change how reality
is viewed and is acted upon...reality is not neutral....
it too has a bias.. because it, reality is how one views the universe/world
and that view is created by both our indoctrinations and experiences...

You are confusing reality with values. When I go to Saudi Arabia, my smart phone still works the same way it worked in the U.S. The fact that some of the people I interact with in Saudi Arabia do not value, and therefore do not use smartphones, does not affect how my, or other citizens that do value and use smartphones work. Some people in Saudi Arabia do use smartphones. Some do not. They are not living in separate realities. They just have different values.

Our understanding of something has no effect on how that something works, or it's reality. Does my lack of understanding or knowledge of your relationship with your parents mean that your relationship with your parents does not exist? Or is it that you have a type of relationship with your parents (whatever type that is), and my knowledge of that are two separate things that can coincide once I acquire the knowledge of your relationship with your parents?

Knowledge and understanding are the map, where reality is the territory. My map might be wrong, or it may be right. I can only know which is the case by using my map.

How do you determine if someone is wrong if their understanding and values is their reality? Reality is never wrong. It just is a certain way. Only our knowledge and understanding can be wrong or right. By conflating one's knowledge and values with reality, you are laying the groundwork for one to never be wrong. Statements like, "My truth" are a conflation of one's knowledge and what is real and a means for the delusional to hold on to their delusions without facing the facts that they could be wrong. Knowledge is provisional in that it should be open to change given new observations and reasoning.

TL: This makes no sense. Reality does not work differently in different cultures. What one values has nothing to do with how smart phones work. How much you value a smartphone has nothing to do with the science that the technology is based on. Believing that smartphones are evil has no effect on how smartphones work. You seem to be confusing the map with the territory here. The way one perceives reality is not reality. If it were then you only exist how I perceive you to exist - as a string of words on a computer screen. As a realist, I believe that there is an external world independent of our perceptions and values. I believe that there is a human being that typed the words I see on the screen even though I don't perceive the human, only the words on the screen.

K: and in fact, I agree with you, but the reality of it is that ''perception is reality''
and here we get to the value of philosophy...perception is reality.. what we
perceive is considered to be reality...now, from a philosophical standpoint,
that is wrong, but from a human being understanding that is right..
doesn't make sense but that is the reality of it.. and the point of philosophy
is to get behind the perception, to get to the reality of the situation,
not just the perception...now some may believe that the earth is flat...
that is their perception, but the reality is the earth is round, a ball in
space...and the point of philosophy/science is to get past these
indoctrinations/perceptions to the reality of the world...if we were
to actually get the reality behind the indoctrinations/perceptions,
then we wouldn't actually need philosophy/science...
we would already be at the point of doing philosophy/science
in our everyday lives...seeing the reality behind the perceptions...

and now back to our mythical cell phone...the perception of the
cell phone dictate how we view or comprehend the cell phone...
I am sure some believe that the cell phone is magic of some sort...
it isn't based on science/technology, but is a form of magic by
god...but you might say, but that isn't true.. it is science/technology,
but that isn't the perception of the person in question...
now the question becomes, who is right?

the person who believes that a cell phone is magic,
or the person who believes that the cell phone is
science/technology?

You could write a book with that being your basic underlying
proposition.. for the history of the last 500 years has been this
very battle between the reality of something and the perception
of something... virtually every major action by someone has
been of this battle between perceptions and reality...
for example.. WW2, the ''last great war'' was a war of perceptions...
Germans believed in, had a perception of their world class
greatness which they defined as the ''Aryan'' ideal...
and the rest of us, didn't share that perception...

the idea was the greatness of the ''Aryan'' people, the German people,
was an indoctrination that was never challenged, at least in Germany,
and they acted on that perception/their belief.... and that perception,
true or not, was the basis of the entire War...for we in the west,
had different perceptions/indoctrinations and the WW2, was a battle
over which perceptions/indoctrinations were right..

and who stood over the side of reality, ''the TRUTH?'' Did it even
matter? such things as Wars, revolutions, civil wars, are simply
fighting over whose perception/ideology/indoctrination is the right one...
Wars are really nothing more than a fight between competing
ideologies/indoctrinations/perceptions...when one say, reality is
perceptions, that is the point...what we perceive is the reality..
regardless of whether or not, (and there usually is) the reality
behind the competing perceptions.. but we can use philosophy/science
to reveal the truth behind the competing ideologies/perceptions??
therein lies the point of, the value of philosophy..
to get behind the competing isms/perceptions and
reveal the truth about reality...

you have perceptions and you have the truth behind the perceptions...

what one do you pick/choose?

Kropotkin

A lot of the problems in philosophy are the result of a misuse of language. Word salad and mental gymnastics are parts of philosophy where one's words are not logically sound or contradict observable evidence. Perception is not reality. It is PART of reality. You have perceptions. That is real. But what your perceptions are about might not be an accurate representation of what is real. With that said, your inaccurate perceptions can still cause you to act in real ways and cause real effects in the world. Reality, in this sense, is everything that is causally related. So even if God were to exist, it would exist in the same reality as us - heaven and Earth would be part of the same reality because they are causally related. What happens in one can affect what happens in the other. There is only one reality of which our perceptions, understandings and values are only a part of.

I would not say that our perception of a cell phone affects how we comprehend the cell phone. Perceptions and understanding do not affect how the cell phone works. It only affects how you interact with it - whether you do or not. Your perceptions are affected by your life's history, or experiences. If you are told that cell phones are evil and suck out your soul, then you probably avoid them if you have also been raised to not question authority, or if the authority is a threat of force to not use cell phones. But if you have an open mind and want to investigate the cell phone for yourself, you will find that it is not an evil soul-sucking device.

The thing is people can lie or can be wrong. Given this, it would only be prudent to take what others say with a grain of salt. Other's claims are not proof, but they can be evidence. Other's claims is just another type of observable evidence. But it takes other observations and an integration with logic to then accept the claim as real evidence, or just a delusion or propaganda.

I agree that our ideas and perceptions are subject to the process of natural selection as much as our bodies are. Various ideas and perceptions compete with each other, but only when we have the freedom to question other ideas and perceptions where logic and reason are the only means allowed to filter out the bad ideas from the good ones, can we truly evolve as a species into something better and more enlightened so that we avoid destroying ourselves and becoming extinct.

Philosophy is dependent on science - our observations and current understanding of the world. I doubt Socrates and other dead philosophers would say the same thing he did thousands of years ago if he had access to our current knowledge of reality. Philosophy is the part of our knowledge that allows us to imagine what might be given our current understanding. Much of it is word salad, or a misuse of language and can be filtered out by simply applying logic to the statements being used.