Reality vs Appearance

[Nick_A]

I believe that the long term survival of humanity will require enough people who value reality over appearance. As of now it seems that the reality of the human condition as it effects us is irrelevant and appearance is everything.

“Imagination is always the fabric of social life and the dynamic of history. The influence of real needs and compulsions, of real interests and materials, is indirect because the crowd is never conscious of it.” ~ Simone Weil

According to Tolstoy there is nothing new in this:

“With the development of the press, it has now come to pass that so soon as any event, owing to casual circumstances, receives an especially prominent significance, immediately the organs of the press announce this significance. As soon as the press has brought forward the significance of the event, the public devotes more and more attention to it. The attention of the public prompts the press to examine the event with greater attention and in greater detail. The interest of the public further increases, and the organs of the press, competing with one another, satisfy the public demand. The public is still more interested; the press attributes yet more significance to the event. So that the importance of the event, continually growing, like a lump of snow, receives an appreciation utterly inappropriate to its real significance, and this appreciation, often exaggerated to insanity, is retained so long as the conception of life of the leaders of the press and of the public remains the same.” ~ leo Tolstoy

Of course now with the internet the effect of appearance taking the place of reality in our psych is even greater. Can we survive it? I doubt it since the experience of reality and opening to objective human meaning and purpose is not wanted. It is rejected in favor of glorifying self serving appearance made even more attractive through media. How long can Man survive glorifying illusion until Society hits bottom and the lie is exposed?

[Angelo Cannata]

Whatever you consider “reality” can be considered “appearance” related to your mind, by anybody else. So, your appeal to reality for survival is too exposed to relativism to maintain a fruitful meaning.

[Nick_A]

Whatever you consider “reality” can be considered “appearance” related to your mind, by anybody else. So, your appeal to reality for survival is too exposed to relativism to maintain a fruitful meaning.

Are you suggesting that a person is incapable of realistically experiencing the external world and is instead limited to interpretations based on imagination?

[Angelo Cannata]

Yes, I suggest this, but not as an alternative way of thinking; I suggest this as a result of assuming that we can experience reality.

If we assume that we can experience reality, then we must assume that we can experience something that is universally certain, independently from subjective perceptions.

If we assume this, we must assume that we can think to something that is independent from our thinking. This appears to be impossible: as soon as we think to anything, we cannot make it independent from our thinking.

So, we don’t know if something independent from our thinking is possible, we don’t know if it exists. Perhaps it exists and this would mean that we can think to things that are real, independent from us. But it appears impossible to us to know if this happens or does not happen.

That’s the problem: assuming the possibility of certainty has the consequence of bringing us to uncertainty. That means that the concept of certainty is only apparently possible; if we reflect thoroughly on it, we see that it is contradictory, because it brings us to uncertainty.

So, trying to gain agreement about something that we should consider independent from us appears to be an impossible job.

I agree, on the basis of my instinctive sensibility, that we should look for agreement on something that helps us to live better. But I don’t see how we could reach any agreement by looking in the direction of something to be considered real vs apparent, that is, independent from our perception. It seems to me an impossible quest. I think that we must search, but towards directions that should be different from certainty.

[jayjacobus]

Light waves hit objects and are converted into different wave lengths which hit the eye and are turned into sense data which are processed by the brain and become appearances which are perceived by consciousness and action is taken which has the desired effect in realty. And all senses confirm what each sense provides. For many years I never considered that reality was not real. This is because reality fit with what I did.

Is reality certain or circumstantial or an illusion? Based on the evidence it is perfectly circumstantial and i can say that makes it certain. Where is the uncertainty; in the interpretation or in the processing?

[Nick_A]

Yes, I suggest this, but not as an alternative way of thinking; I suggest this as a result of assuming that we can experience reality.

If we assume that we can experience reality, then we must assume that we can experience something that is universally certain, independently from subjective perceptions.

If we assume this, we must assume that we can think to something that is independent from our thinking. This appears to be impossible: as soon as we think to anything, we cannot make it independent from our thinking.

So, we don’t know if something independent from our thinking is possible, we don’t know if it exists. Perhaps it exists and this would mean that we can think to things that are real, independent from us. But it appears impossible to us to know if this happens or does not happen.

That’s the problem: assuming the possibility of certainty has the consequence of bringing us to uncertainty. That means that the concept of certainty is only apparently possible; if we reflect thoroughly on it, we see that it is contradictory, because it brings us to uncertainty.

So, trying to gain agreement about something that we should consider independent from us appears to be an impossible job.

I agree, on the basis of my instinctive sensibility, that we should look for agreement on something that helps us to live better. But I don’t see how we could reach any agreement by looking in the direction of something to be considered real vs apparent, that is, independent from our perception. It seems to me an impossible quest. I think that we must search, but towards directions that should be different from certainty.

If I understand you correctly you are saying that we will always be limited intellectually by specialization as described by Tolstoy. We will lose the big picture from being fixated on details. We lose the concept of the forest by focusing on the trees. We may be limited intellectually in this way but must we also be limited emotionally and in our ability to realistically value? Simone Weil wrote that we live in imagination as described by Plato in his cave analogy?. I believe The biggest obstacle to realistically experience the external world is the tendency to defend our attachments.

"Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached. There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too." Simone Weil

If true, it isn't a matter of thinking differently because in reality our thoughts defend our emotional attachments. Politics, advertising, secularized religion, progressive education etc. all seek to create attachments through indoctrination. As a result we lose our ability to objectively "value" and become limited to arguing subjective values created by societal indoctrination.

Of course some people become capable of emotional detachment raising the question of how they did it and also if a society as a whole can learn by experience to value emotional detachment in order to as Simone wrote live by "The influence of real needs and compulsions, of real interests and materials" as opposed to those created by imagination which govern our lives

[Angelo Cannata]

Light waves hit objects and are converted into different wave lengths which hit the eye and are turned into sense data which are processed by the brain and become appearances which are perceived by consciousness and action is taken which has the desired effect in realty. And all senses confirm what each sense provides. For many years I never considered that reality was not real. This is because reality fit with what I did.

Is reality certain or circumstantial or an illusion? Based on the evidence it is perfectly circumstantial and i can say that makes it certain. Where is the uncertainty; in the interpretation or in the processing?

Everything you said is filtered by our brains: the content of what you said, the experiences that you described, this message that you wrote; moreover, it is filtered by my brain, since I read and understand it by using my brain.
Since every experience is filtered by our brain, we have no way to establish anything about its reality: everything is exposed to the suspect of being a dream, or an illusion, or a self-deception.

[Angelo Cannata]

... emotional detachment ...

Any kind of detachment gives us some relative independence from our subjectivity. Relative independence, never absolute independence.

[Walker]

... emotional detachment ...

Any kind of detachment gives us some relative independence from our subjectivity. Relative independence, never absolute independence.

Equanimity rather than disassociative independence is the consequence of proper detachment, as the former excludes nothing that the world offers, and the latter excludes what doesn’t fit with the purpose, the plan, the program.

[Nick_A]

... emotional detachment ...

Any kind of detachment gives us some relative independence from our subjectivity. Relative independence, never absolute independence.

Isn't that the basis for indoctrination into selective attachments?

Would you agree that we don't experience the external world; rather we interpret it. This tendency serves as the basis for stage magic. The magician is able to create an illusion because of our tendency to interpret what we see.

Our acquired negative emotions value what we interpret. So anyone truly concerned with experiencing physical realities and objective values natural for emotional detachment must confront their tendency for both sensory and emotional self deception. It isn't that it cannot be done but rather that it isn't wanted. Self deception from valuing appearance is more egoistically satisfying

[QuantumT]

Forget extinction. Humanity will survive, as long as we are entertaining to watch, anyway.
And the shallowness of the internet generation is so damn extreme, it's actually funny!
"Selfie deaths"?

[Nick_A]

Dr Maurice Nicoll wrote of Karma Yoga. Read this paragraph and if you are honest, you will have to admit how the idea is rejected in this day and age. It takes the fun out of arguing and complaining used to establish our self justification and self esteem. Would you be capable of practicing karma yoga even if you intellectually appreciated its value? Yet without such efforts don't we just remain slaves to appearance at the expense of the reality of what we are and can be as human beings?

"The essence of the idea of Karma-Yoga is to meet with unpleasant things equally with pleasant things. That is, in practicing Karma-Yoga, one does not seek always to avoid unpleasant things, as people ordinarily do. Life is to be met with non-identifying. When this is possible, life becomes one's teacher; in no other sense can life become a teacher, for life taken as itself is meaningless, but taken as an exercise it becomes a teacher. It is not life that is a teacher, but one's relation through non-identifying makes it become a teacher. Nothing can change being so much as this practice - namely, to take the unpleasant things in life as an exercise.................."