Is Humanity the Standard Bearer of Reality?

[Iwannaplato]

First we do not see reality like that photo presents.

So the, "reality," you see is different from the, "picture," but you also think you see the picture as it is, but since the picture is just another element of reality you must not see that as it really is either. How can you possibly know the picture you think you see is not like reality as it actually is, since you cannot see either as they actually are?

I see a photo of a street and a street very differently. My vision never presents all the facets of the street (from that vantage) in focus at the same time. Nor is it static, the street (with cars, etc). And while, yes, I don't see the whole photo, all its parts, at the same time, I come much closer to that, because it is small and two dimensional. When we look at a street we do build up something (perhaps also from memory if we know that street) a kind of internal photo along with the shifting, zooming and out experience of the street we have while there. The moving in and out of paying attention to portions of the street and then thinking about other things. I never have an experience of standing on a corner and seeing a street the way I see the street in the photo. Now I could come closer, and make that a goal. To try to not focus on parts and see the whole all at once, which is much more likely with the photo, but it will still never be the same as looking at the small photo I had on my screen, which was all in focus, as the street is not for me. In the two dimensional photo everything in the photo is actually the same distance from my eyes. So it is all in focus, my lenses do not need to adjust to now focus on something in the foreground or something in the background. I do not have to internally built up an overview, the overview is always there, while I am looking at the photo, 6 or 8 inches from my face.

And no I do not see the picture as it is. But I see the things represented in the photo, that scene, differently from how I see the scene if I am on that street.

You are seeing me make different claims than I was making. I think some peope think that when they look at a street they see it like a camera sees the street. This overall in focus image. They don't.

[Gary Childress]

It is obvious bacteria and viruses are distinctly different from animals with senses and the typical brain.
However, bacteria and viruses as living things [they cannot be like rocks] have some kind of very basic proto-'sense' which evolved to the human brain at present.

Mechanomicrobiology: how bacteria sense and respond to forces
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-019-0314-2

Granted, they are not like rocks, they have metabolism and such. However, are the most fundamental organisms "self-aware"? For example, if a virus has awareness vis a vis having cellular metabolism or whatnot, then it seems like it would be the case that every single cell in my body should be self-aware independently of my brain. Self-awareness surely must be something that is created by a brain. Viruses especially seem like very basic organisms that merely replicate themselves in a host. My point with rocks is that the behavior of a virus seems like it may not be much more than inanimate processes (albeit relatively sophisticated ones). I wouldn't think a virus needs awareness to replicate itself. I would think it just behaves according to biological mechanisms and relies on brute numbers and chance probability to reproduce. I wouldn't think that alone would constitute any kind of awareness.

It's certainly possible that micro-organisms have awareness but it also seems possible to me that they may not. And since intentionality or qualia are knowable only in the first person, I suspect that we may never know for sure.

BTW, I've seen a lot of commotion from neuroscientists claiming to have proven various things about consciousness, but on further inspection, they usually seem to rest on speculation. There was a stir about "micro-tubulars" or something and there was a group of neuro-philosophers/scientists who speculated that they were the connection between consciousness and the brain or something like that, however, it doesn't appear that there is solid evidence of it from what I've read. I believe with Chalmers that consciousness is a potentially unknowable black box. It can't be seen or measured or anything by an outside observer.

I am not claiming viruses and bacteria has self-awareness and consciousness - that would be ridiculous.

What I am saying is, since they are living things and not non-living things, they have some sort of basic proto-sense i.e. sensing mechanism.

The main point related to the OP is, there is some relation between their basic proto-sense and the environment and reality they are in which is relatively different from other more advance living things.

I see.

[Advocate]

Reality is consensus experience. A bird or an amoeba senses the same reality at a different resolution with different senses. We are the standard bearer only because we are the ones who use language to express that experience to others.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Reality is consensus experience. A bird or an amoeba senses the same reality at a different resolution with different senses. We are the standard bearer only because we are the ones who use language to express that experience to others.

How do you know they are sensing the same reality?
Reality is always in flux where change is the only constant.

Note humans are almost like chimps who share 98% of the human genes.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news ... udy-finds/

Human intelligence is thus relatively not that far off from those of the chimps.
Therefore the human interpretation of reality is limited to that extent.

Note the progressive humanity realization of reality from Newton to Einstein to QM and other possibilities in the future.

It is possible for human liked aliens who are 100x more intelligent and cognizant than humans would recognize a more refined reality than human do at present.

Thus is it not possible for humanity and humans to be the standard bearer of reality at all times.
What I meant what-is-reality to humans at present is not THE REALITY as it is.

In any case, there is no absolutely absolute reality but whatever the progressive realization of reality in the future by humans or human-liked humans they are always in entanglement with humans or the realizers of reality.

[Belinda]

Veritas Aequitas quoted:

Advocate wrote: ↑Sat Jan 02, 2021 3:20 am
Reality is consensus experience. A bird or an amoeba senses the same reality at a different resolution with different senses. We are the standard bearer only because we are the ones who use language to express that experience to others.

But what Advocate describes is social reality. By contrast what VA is after is absolute reality. "Absolute " reality is unqualified reality.

But no ! VA also confuses social reality and absolute reality:

In any case, there is no absolutely absolute reality but whatever the progressive realization of reality in the future by humans or human-liked humans they are always in entanglement with humans or the realizers of reality.

Is it a matter of pride for some to believe creatures of relative time and space can reasonably dismiss absolute reality as a mirage?

[Advocate]

>How do you know they are sensing [b]the same[/b] reality?
>Reality is always in flux where change is the only constant.

Because that's what the word reality refers to, the overlap of our perspectives. You're conflating Actuality with Reality. Actuality is always in flux, but we can only operate within it to the extent things do Not change. We wouldn't be able to find predictive accuracy without this understanding, and would live in an arbitrary world of random chaos rather than a contingent one, if the flux applied to everything all the time in the sense you seem to intend.

>Note humans are almost like chimps who share 98% of the human genes.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news ... udy-finds/

Understanding quantum physics or consciousness is not 4/2% different than what chips understand. IQ in a general sense is the cumulative capacity to deal with complexity, which also answers the race/IQ debate in large part, to the extent "populations" developed in relative isolation.

>Human intelligence is thus relatively not that far off from those of the chimps.
>Therefore the human interpretation of reality is limited to that extent.

Your DNA is 99.9% like mine, so we must like the same ice-cream flavor. Our interpretation of a rock flung toward our head is 100% the same as a cat's interpretation of the same event. Your point doesn't mean anything. Our intelligence isn't the same thing as our DNA, doesn't work the same way, and isn't contingent in the same way. Our interpretation of reality is sufficient. Using that benchmark, it's identical to all creatures to the extent we share the same intended outcomes. Our advanced cognition adds the ability to deal with complexity, not a transcendent breakthrough in understanding, and is limited more by application than capacity.

>Note the progressive humanity realization of reality from Newton to Einstein to QM and other possibilities in the future.

Those realizations came alongside an increase in technology. We only understand advanced physics because we improved our instruments such that we could measure lower limits than before. Our evolution had nothing to do with it. Even if we were much more advanced, without the instruments we'd have people on Oprah talking about Newtonian woo.

>It is possible for human liked aliens who are 100x more intelligent and cognizant than humans would recognize a more refined reality than human do at present.

Having a higher-resolution understanding of reality is not in any sense the same as seeing a different one. You see Exactly the same reality as the amoeba in your iris.

>Thus is it not possible for humanity and humans to be the standard bearer of reality at all times.
What I meant what-is-reality to humans at present is not THE REALITY as it is.

Again, conflating reality and Actuality. There is a version of reality which is beyond us that is "THE REALITY as it is", but since it is not accessible to us, we can't talk about it except in relation to the limits of Reality as we understand it, consensus.

>In any case, there is no absolutely absolute reality but whatever the progressive realization of reality in the future by humans or human-liked humans they are always in entanglement with humans or the realizers of reality.

If there is no "absolute reality", we can't be sensing anything that isn't arbitrary, and we wouldn't be able to make predictions, and invent things that work; or survive.

[Advocate]

[quote=Belinda post_id=487566 time=1609581854 user_id=12709]
But what Advocate describes is social reality. By contrast what VA is after is absolute reality. "Absolute " reality is unqualified reality.

But no ! VA also confuses social reality and absolute reality:

Is it a matter of pride for some to believe creatures of relative time and space can reasonably dismiss absolute reality as a mirage?
[/quote]

The word reality is thrown about like so much philosophical packing peanuts. There is a Critical difference at the line of transcendence between that which we can access and understand and that which we cannot. The word reality can only refer to transcendent things as a placeholder for the ineffable, not as a thing upon which logic can rest. For this reason i use the world Actuality to indicate all that is which is beyond us, and Reality to refer to all that is within our grasp. It's an existential failure in one's search for truth to conflate these two concepts. We can sense Reality ourselves, but we can only know whether it's an illusion/delusion by fact-checking ourselves either by measuring instruments or by verification of other's experience or expertise, thus consensus Reality is the meaningful understanding of that term.

Most ideas that are wrong are so because they are incomplete - fail to account for something relevant. Misunderstanding the nature of reality means you've failed to account for perspective. I have a unique perspective OF reality, that doesn't mean it's necessarily Reality, but it certainly doesn't mean i'm insane. Together we have a pragmatically functional view of Reality, that doesn't mean it's arbitrary or unrelated to Actuality, or uncorrelated with my own perspective of it. And so forth.

The Cult of Openmindedness typically means refusing to allow experts to make concrete statements, but it can also mean refusing to admit that facts are real, or that reality is real. There is no illusion in my view of reality because that's not how the word illusion works, likewise for delusion and hallucination. Even if you believe yours is, it can be proven otherwise when it is not. I think people have this ego problem because they've drunk the kool-aid of epistemological uncertainty. Something like "If nobody can be right, then i can be as right as anyone else." instead of looking for facts that can be defended in their own terms regardless of what fuzzy thinkers come up with.

[Veritas Aequitas]

>How do you know they are sensing the same reality?
>Reality is always in flux where change is the only constant.

Because that's what the word reality refers to, the overlap of our perspectives.
You're conflating Actuality with Reality.
Actuality is always in flux, but we can only operate within it to the extent things do Not change. We wouldn't be able to find predictive accuracy without this understanding, and would live in an arbitrary world of random chaos rather than a contingent one, if the flux applied to everything all the time in the sense you seem to intend.

I wonder you understand the difference between reality and actuality.

Reality is all-there-is which comprised of actuality and potentiality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality

Actuality is what is realized as real.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential ... _actuality
  Actuality, in contrast to potentiality, is the motion, change or activity that represents an exercise or fulfillment of a possibility, when a possibility becomes real in the fullest sense

Thus I maintain reality i.e. all-there-is is in flux.
Actuality is also in flux - realized from potentiality but within the flux of reality.

>Note humans are almost like chimps who share 98% of the human genes.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news ... udy-finds/

Understanding quantum physics or consciousness is not 4/2% different than what chips understand. IQ in a general sense is the cumulative capacity to deal with complexity, which also answers the race/IQ debate in large part, to the extent "populations" developed in relative isolation.

>Human intelligence is thus relatively not that far off from those of the chimps.
>Therefore the human interpretation of reality is limited to that extent.

Your DNA is 99.9% like mine, so we must like the same ice-cream flavor. Our interpretation of a rock flung toward our head is 100% the same as a cat's interpretation of the same event. Your point doesn't mean anything. Our intelligence isn't the same thing as our DNA, doesn't work the same way, and isn't contingent in the same way. Our interpretation of reality is sufficient. Using that benchmark, it's identical to all creatures to the extent we share the same intended outcomes. Our advanced cognition adds the ability to deal with complexity, not a transcendent breakthrough in understanding, and is limited more by application than capacity.

Nope.
Our interpretation of a rock flung at us whilst it is the same with some animals but it is not 100% the same as with a bacteria or other miniature living things.

>Note the progressive humanity realization of reality from Newton to Einstein to QM and other possibilities in the future.
Those realizations came alongside an increase in technology. We only understand advanced physics because we improved our instruments such that we could measure lower limits than before. Our evolution had nothing to do with it. Even if we were much more advanced, without the instruments we'd have people on Oprah talking about Newtonian woo.

Thus our realization of reality changes with increase in technology.
There is no reality-in-itself that do not change at all.

>It is possible for human liked aliens who are 100x more intelligent and cognizant than humans would recognize a more refined reality than human do at present.

Having a higher-resolution understanding of reality is not in any sense the same as seeing a different one. You see Exactly the same reality as the amoeba in your iris.

You are assuming there is a pre-existing independent reality out-there awaiting perception.
There is no such thing as reality-in-itself. Note Kant's no thing-in-itself.
There is only reality-via-others.

>Thus is it not possible for humanity and humans to be the standard bearer of reality at all times.
What I meant what-is-reality to humans at present is not THE REALITY as it is.

Again, conflating reality and Actuality. There is a version of reality which is beyond us that is "THE REALITY as it is", but since it is not accessible to us, we can't talk about it except in relation to the limits of Reality as we understand it, consensus.

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
If you can't talk about it at all, then you should literally shut-up about it FOREVER, as Wittgenstein advocated above.

Note my explanation above re Reality vs Actuality vs Potentiality.

My point is 'Reality-as-it-is' is always with reference to the things of Universe; there is no reality-by-itself.

>In any case, there is no absolutely absolute reality but whatever the progressive realization of reality in the future by humans or human-liked humans they are always in entanglement with humans or the realizers of reality.

If there is no "absolute reality", we can't be sensing anything that isn't arbitrary, and we wouldn't be able to make predictions, and invent things that work; or survive.

There is no absolute reality, i.e. reality-in-itself.

Human predictions can only be actualized if its potentiality is empirically and philosophically possible.

Thus I can speculate and predict there are unicorns [a horse with one horn in the middle of the head] in a planet one light years away. This prediction is empirically and philosophically possible because all the individual elements are empirically based and had proven to exist in reality at present.
Thus is it is a matter of bringing the empirical evidence representing a unicorn to confirm the existence of such a unicorn.

However if one were to speculate and predict, square-circles exist on Jupiter, it would be a non-starter in the first place, because square-circles are empirically impossible.

It is the same with your absolute-reality or reality-in-itself, such a speculation out of Pure Reason is an empirically impossible thus a non-starter from the start.

You can think about it from Pure Reason but that is due to an inherent psychological impulse arising from an embedded existential crisis.

[Age]

Humans are the top dog and the most dominant species within the hierarchies of evolutions.

But is humanity the standard bearer of reality i.e. to decide on what reality really is.

To the basic one-celled species perhaps reality is merely like that below [. borrowed from Seeds];


Others species [viruses or bacteria] may see blobs of the above in greater density.

Note how different animals view the world which reality is definitely differently from that of humans,
HOW ANIMALS SEE THE WORLD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ss-nmT7oAA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAC1t2nGkfg

Those animals that rely on sonar will see a different world and a different reality.

Then we have babies
How Babies See The World
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0rrS51ry2s

Then we have the 'normal' adult human perception of reality;


From the above what-is-reality is subjective to the various species

Are you AWARE that even the word 'reality', and its definition, IS SUBJECTIVE?

but is the reality perceived by humans the ultimate independent objective reality?

This all, OBVIOUSLY, depends on which version of the word 'reality' 'you', personally, are using here and in what context EXACTLY?

See, to 'me', there is only One True 'Reality'. But then again 'I' do SEE things VERY DIFFERENTLY than MOST of 'you', human beings.

[Atla]

Reality is all-there-is which comprised of actuality and potentiality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality

Your link mentions 'actuality' and 'potentiality' 0 times.

Thus I maintain reality i.e. all-there-is is in flux.
Actuality is also in flux - realized from potentiality but within the flux of reality.

ancient idealistic metaphysical bollocks

[Belinda]

Advocate wrote:

---------

i use the world Actuality to indicate all that is which is beyond us, and Reality to refer to all that is within our grasp.

'Social reality ' is the usual phrase for the latter idea. Why do you insist on your own eccentric lexicon?

Social reality is real because ideas held in common make it real. Ideas held in common arise from the necessities of staying alive and prospering which , for intelligent minds, vary with the environment

[Advocate]

[b]Reality [/b]is all-there-is which comprised of actuality and potentiality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality

Leaving aside for a moment that Wikipedia editors are hardly a class of philosophical geniuses, potentiality is literally the unknown, as are all statistics, and if you include the unknown in your version of reality, you're epistemologically sunk.

Everyone understands that Actual means that which is true beyond any delusions etc. It fits the work of what you want the word reality to do, without all the blah blah about what reality means.

This is a semantic problem and i've given an answer that is both necessary and sufficient about how to use these words to be must useful to everyone.

[Advocate]

[quote=Belinda post_id=487755 time=1609668444 user_id=12709]
'Social reality ' is the usual phrase for the latter idea. Why do you insist on your own eccentric lexicon?

Social reality is real because ideas held in common make it real. Ideas held in common arise from the necessities of staying alive and prospering which , for intelligent minds, vary with the environment
[/quote]

Because "actuality" is a lot less confusing than "social reality", imo. Also, i've not run across that jargon in my philosophizing and don't need it. Actual means that which is, beyond illusion. There's already a single word for what you're calling social reality.

There are really three levels of understanding "that which is"; personal, consensus, and actual. Personal reality is subject to illusion and delusion in ways the others are not, and so is epistemologically unique; it must be verified externally to have external use.

The word truth is used in two distinct ways, knowledge (justified belief) that persists, and ones individual perspective and understanding of reality ("speak your truth", understanding before verification). The confusion remains, but we can settle it with regard to consensus/social reality and Actual reality by using those two words as i describe.

Things are not more real because they're verified, but we have more reason to believe they're real when they're verified. That's also a distinction that matters and most be accounted for.

[Advocate]

It's easy to shave off the word Actuality to represent the transcendent version of isness because it literally already means that. What's left is to distinguish between individual and shared understandings of isness. Because internal representations are only externally useful when they're externally verifiable, internal reality isn't a useful concept. The word reality means external consensus by default.

Actuality is about metaphysical transcendence, Reality is about epistemologically verification of apparent isness. Internal "reality" is about the correlation between sensation and.self.

In other other words, there are three versions of reality, that which is in your head, that which is in everyone's head, more or less, and that which is in no one's head.

[Impenitent]

Protagoras? Protagoras?

-Imp