Let's talk about the non-existing apple for a moment. One could say that when an observer see an apple they see "two half apples" Hence if X exists than 1/2x*2 exists! Perhaps the observer will just see the apple as a faction of the apple tree. And that apple tree is a fraction of the species of the apple tree. And all species are a fraction of life. And all life is a fraction of matter. All matter is a fraction energy. HENCE Energy is a part or half part of time. And therefore time could be said to be the only existence in reality! Without time nothing exists! Given enough of this reality could result in an infinite amount of real stuff existing!
@@Bibibosh under some models time is emergent from quantum fields. In that case time would be a subset of energy. We don't have clear answers on that yet. Are we saying then that real things are emergent from quantum fields, and things that aren't emergent from quantum fields are not real?
@@uninspired3583 I don't like the idea of things coming into existence from nothing; as it would just be a transformation of energy or negative energy. I can prove that statement. Let's say. A small particle pops into the universe. The moment that happens a gravitational field would have to fill the void faster than lightspeed. Let's say is doesn't instantly appear, it fades into the universe at a set speed. However fast or slow is appears, one could observe that divide the duration in half. SO therefore it would still be a part of the universe in some form or another. The fields you speak of are imaginary/invisible forces that coincide with time and space affecting matter. Without matter to sense that force, does that force exist? YES! There is probably an infinite number of different forces that wind and weave thru the universe (yet we have only found 4) Other forces such as gravity and light are well evolved forces because of the quantum fields. I think the photon is just the result of what happens when THAT energy force meets matter. Just remember that we use atoms-machines to detect these light/field/gravity/time phenoma. I only speak because i am interested in science and based on everything I've learn from RUclips. But who's to say im wrong? perhaps someone in the world has rambled on about something silly and perhaps they were 100% . Only god knows.
@@Bibibosh there are some observations you should be aware of here. Gravitational fields propagate at the speed of light. We know this because we have detected waves created by black hole collisions, and aligned these events with other observations from telescopes. The gravity of a single particle is so tiny it can't be detected. A gold ball 2mm in diameter is the smallest mass we have detected gravity from. While small, it's still billions of particles. I'm not sure where particles popping into existence came from. There are virtual particles but these don't last very long. The quantum fields have been indirectly measured with the Casimir effect. Brilliant experiment. We use the field theory to make many accurate predictions, it's one of the best theories we have. Light isn't a force. A force is defined as the push or pull on an object with mass. When a photon interacts with an atom, it doesn't change it's velocity, it only affects the excitation level of the electron in the outer layer. Typically this is very short lived and the return back to the stable state causes a new photon to be produced. We use this process to observe what materials are present at a distance. Each type of atom has a unique signature in the light spectrum. So if we separate the light from an object into each frequency with a prism, we can observe it's unique pattern. This is called mass spectroscopy. I'm glad you're fascinated by the science, im no scholar, just a youtube physics fan myself. It really is amazing what we can demonstrate!
Reality is definable purely be self-referential means. Every attempt to define the predicate “reality” involves a real agent or object. The definition and definer are entangled in mutual recursion! The same goes for the predicate “existence”.
@@oliviamaynard9372 Voila! So the idea that “defining the reality of an object adds nothing to the object” (Kant) entails a plethora of needless paradoxes.
Our perception of reality is defined by contrastive means. Self-referential is one variable. The scale of reality is imperceptible. It is not definable in-of-itself. It is only definable by the frame of reference a species has. I think the phrasing is "underdetermined approximation".
Reality, or anything else for that matter, is "definable" only in linguistic means. This is how Kant's "... adds nothing to the object" can make sense. Moreover, non-linguistic experience of an object would not add anything to the object either unless the object that we are talking about is an agent.
Awareness is self evidently Real. There is only a single self evident Truth, the fact that something seems to be happening. This apparent seeming, this awareness of sensation, is undeniable. Even if nothing else can be known as reality, this fact remains plainly seen to be True.
I’ve been working on the idea of “All is real.” It’s a very simple axiom that gives a common sense to all other propositions. Unicorns are real fictional beings that appear is books and children’s birthday parties. Dreams are real experiences when we sleep. Hallucinations are real experience of mistaken perception. Once we grant everything is real then we’re left with categorizing how things appear to our different faculties. I haven’t had too many problems with this idea. I think of it as a sort of organizing signifier that grounds all the others. It’s something that can be said of all things. It’s a universal signifier in this sense. We create differentiations between concepts with words but this can be the signifier that isn’t undifferentiated.
Reality as truth is different than reality as instrument. However, every explanation goes around personal and public knowledge in interpretation of phenomena or facts.
Sorry I'm 4 days late to this video, but I'm really glad you have made this video. "Is "reality" just something we all hallucinate together?" is a question I asked you about 2 months ago. I also wondered if there exists a Hegelian synthesis of reality and dream. You then pointed me towards David Chalmers' book named Reality+. I'm on chapter 11 and I'm having a great time with it. I regret not finishing it sooner. Really, I'm going to reread the book when I'm finished so that I can make it gel in my brain.
But what if in my dreams other people also see the apple? Indeed, it is impossible to distinguish if i am dreaming or awaken. The only indicatives of what I've dreamed about last night are some cloudy memories. Perhaps every time i go to sleep, i actually wake up in the real world. There is also no way to tell if what i remember that i dreamed about is actually what i've dreamed about, so, maybe in my dreams things that seem to be nonsense in this world are actually much more clear and obvious.
26:42 This inconsistency you bring up is fairly interesting and it makes me ponder how perception works. I feel bad I can't remember which particular philosopher talked about this, but this topic of perception reminds me of some lectures that I've listened to. That particular philosopher made me think about how we sense first, then the brain rearranges these senses into perceptions. Something like this is happening with dreams except its mostly our memory filling in the void. Our memories are being activated and they're somehow filling the void of senses. These "memory senses" appear like an apple sometimes in your example. The brain is doing something remarkable: it's memorizing sensory inputs and bouncing them around inside our minds. When we dream, we are perceiving memories. Have I made a coherent comment?
I think dreams are probably just experience that’s not as closely connected with the body. It’s like we slip towards death a bit when we fall asleep. Awakened experience is localized to a body when we are attuned to action and goals. But when we sleep we let go of goals and actions and thus let go of need for the body. Experience becomes unlocalized and we become closer to “nature.” The nature of this “nature” is difference and repetition, fundamentally at a metaphysical level. And this explains the contents of our dreams. Dreams repeat through difference. But because things become delocalized the repetition that gives structure to our perception gives way to new differences. And this is why dreams can devolve and evolve and form and deform.
3:04 The non-existent apple can't be eaten. Therefore I can't imagine a non-existent apple that has all the properties of an existent apple. Existence is required to have relation to other things. Existence IS having relations to other things.
I am skeptical about the first argument against existence as a property. -I think that just because nothing is added to our picture of the thing doesn’t mean that there is no existence property in the real thing. We should not assume that all the properties of the thing can be added to our picture of it. But even if it adds nothing to the picture we may still be able to refer to it. -It can make a difference in our concept of it if we allow other states of existence between existence(1) and nonexistence(0). We may say that something that has actually existence has a value of 1, something that has potential existence has a value of 0.5 and something that is nonexisting has a value of 0. In that case „existence“ is a intensive and intrinsic property that actually adds to our concept of the thing.
I think the problem with the first example is how it's framed. Both apples are imaginary, you're just imagining realness in one of them. Imagining realness doesn't seem to do the job of making it real, maybe its the case that the property of realness can't be imagined. This runs into the problem that according to neuroscience, perceptions are also imaginary. They're just imaginings connected to sensory input. Is that the difference? Real things have the property of being connected to perceptions?
I agree with the first point; I don't see any reason to assume that every conceivable property must be "visualizable". Suppose I ask you to imagine 1,000,000 grains of rice. You're not going to visualize every grain; what you'll have in mind is probably just a heap of rice. Now if I ask you to imagine 1,000,001 grains of rice, it's not clear that this changes anything in your mind's eye. But we still understand the difference between 1,000,000 grains of rice and 1,000,001 grains of rice. In any case, it seems like we could argue that even if there isn't a difference in our mental image of the existent apple vs nonexistent apple, there are differences in expectation and potential action. When an apple is existent, I expect that it will in fact crunch between my teeth and satiate my hunger. Nonexistent apple don't really do this (though I can of course imagine them doing this).
@@KaneB In fact, by utilizing some numbers (1,000,000 to 1,000,001) you make it "visualisable"; at least "illustrable". Similarly, even if we take two physically existing apples, we don't see the differences between them in terms of number of atoms, hence we consider them the same or at least similar. Even if we take a single apple and say that it is the same apple 1 minute later, we must ignore the water molecules that have been evaporated from the content of this apple. Technically, the apple cannot be the same. These miniscule changes are perfectly real yet not detectable by our perceptions. Hence, if we want to “understand” the difference between 1,000,000 grains of rice and 1,000,001 grains of rice we should rely on measurement or reason, not natural perception.
@@KaneBActually existent apple is under no obligation to feed you. You're misusing reality of an apple with accessibility of an apple. And what if you dreamt of being hungry, picked up an apple and after eating it, you felt full? 😊We can't even escape dream vs. woke reality in here guys😂
Sure but on the example of the apples, there is one thing that has not been considered for something to exist does not merely mean physical existence, rather the ability of something to be real is the ability of something to exist, whether physically or as a thought. Therefore, I cannot considered an Apple Watch is not real or an Apple Watch does not exist. therefore that which is not real or that which does not exist, cannot even be conceived, or considered weather physically or mentally, or in any other form of being.
Could we say that the concept of "reality" is the belief that there exists a description of the world that is observer invariant? In the dream apple example, I would imagine that, although the dreaming person might initially think there is a real apple in front of them, if they were to talk to someone who saw that they were sleeping, they might adjust their belief to describe both the fact that the waking person saw that there was no real apple in front of them, and that the dreaming person saw a dream apple. This broader description (including a dream apple and a real apple as distinct objects) eliminates the observer dependence. Of course, it may be conceivable that experiences could occur such that no observer independent description could be found, but in this case, I think we may simply adjust our models to exclude beliefs about observer dependent behavior, treating the variance as something like randomness.
Has that broader description eliminated observer dependence? It removes the apparent conflict between the description given by the waking person and the description given by the dreaming person. But take the concept "apple". It seems like this is dependent on our decision to use a particular classification scheme; in principle, other societies might use radically different schemes that do not distinguish objects that correspond neatly to what we call "apples". Similarly, take the properties of apples such as greenness: some societies do not classify colours the same way as us, and there are plenty of animals with visual systems different from ours. With these points in mind, I wonder what a fully "observer invariant" description of the world would like.
@@KaneB Couldn't someone say "I believe that there is an observer-independent reality, though I can only frame it by my own observations?" Would it be adequate to "describe" it as formless, or not describe it at all, but understand that upon being observed it will be given form? Most people (well, I certainly don't know of anyone who doesn't) believe in object permanence, and conceive of objects existing outside their or another's perception. However, their descriptions for these objects assume the potential for experiences which could give them form (sight, smell, sound, etc.) ... wait, I've gone and disagreed with the original post. Indeed, there is no description of the world that is observer invariant. However, it seems to me that doesn't exclude belief observer-independent reality. Does that track?
Existence *is* identity, existence exists is an axiom because everything is an existent, existence *is* a property of everything that exists. 2:50 I cannot imagine a non-existent apple. I can only imagine an existing apple.
5:25 You abstract out features from things that do exist, horses and rhinos, and you use imagination to combine concepts like horn + horse, then you name that fictional animal with a unit for unit-economy sake, call it a unicorn. Unicorn: Genus: Fictional Animal Differentia: a one horned horse. Really not that difficult. There are metaphysical objects like trees and rocks and apples and acorns. And there are man-made objects, like hammers, computers, fictional novels, unicorns.
10:00 The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. Causality implies reality because causality implies identity, that the thing exists as something.
Some small things about the causality section. We say in it that "Mental Images are real", but mental images don't have a casual power. At least for that section mental images would be resounded in the "not real". I think causal reality also needs a tiny bit more clarification to cover dreams and mental images that are easy to do. "Casually real" is limited to the space we share with other agents. To me the dream apple and the real apple are indistinguishable. The dream apple has causality within my dreams. The physical apple has causality in my non-dream state, and your non-dream state. The causal space shared by us is where we're trying to define "real" down to. So it just not just having casual force, but having casual force in the space that I share with other agents.
Hello, I was thinking about it some hours ago and I eventually came up with something. It's quite complicated, but basically if you can find a criterion to distinguish reality from illusion in this mind experiment, then it will work for anything else. Imagine there is a sort of device, hyper technological, that creates a perfect illusion , I mean that all of your perception are coherent with each other and make you interact with an imaginary person. You may say :"well, if it's just imagination I can ask other people if they experience the same as I do", and that would be a criterion in that case. But now a more extreme challenge: every human on the Earth wears the device and the imaginary people are coherent with all the others so that is real for everyone. The last criterion would be: let's see if it can interact with another element of reality, for example lift a rock. Now, since all of your senses are coherent, the illusion will lift the rock. If you think , well, the real rock is still there , you may try to step up on that, but since the illusion is almost almighty it can simulate every experience from that moment on. Maybe your body lays down, but you continue to walk in your point of view. There's no criterion left. Anyone can find it? Excuse me for the lenght and the grammar, I don't speak English very well. Thanks if anyone answers.
This is the same as Descartes' evil demon thought experiment. Descartes came to the conclusion that the only thing that could not be doubted was that he exists. I have no insight on this, but maybe this helps.
This reminds me of a comment made by the Dalai Lama when being interviewed by a journalist. The journalist asked whether the 'entities' used in many Tibetan Buddhist practise were actually real? The Dalai Lama, in his usual way, laughed and then replied, 'Well, are you real?'.
@Kane B, I don't understand why existence couldn't be deemed a property if there are many cases in which learning that something exists modifies our understanding of that concept. For example, a moral non-cognitivist would say: "Moral statements merely express states of approval or disapproval regarding human behaviour." & "Moral propositions are neither true nor false; consequently, moral knowledge is impossible." Suppose, however, that the non-cognitivist was to learn that moral properties did, in fact, exist in reality; it's indisputable that their entire understanding of what morality is would change, being fundamentally predicated upon an anti-realist perspective; clearly showing that existence is a property.
Pertaining to existence as a property and the unicorn example, what if you maintain that existence is a property of objects, and that the claim “unicorns do not exist” is false. Perhaps it should be stated, “unicorns do not exist physically.” Because they exist conceptually which is how we are able to pick them out. Edit: glad you brought up pragmatism because that’s my belief system. I was saying things to myself that you basically then went on to say word for word, so I appreciated that lol.
I do not at all share the intuition that conceiving of an existent apple is identical to conceiving a non-existent apple. The existent apple has a position is space. It has surroundings. It is in a particular direction from where I'm currently standing. I'm able to go out and find the apple. I really do have a slightly different picture in my mind when I imagine an existent vs non-existent apple. Am I missing something here?
Consider perhaps from this angle: You’re describing the apple as it exists for language, but when we’re comparing imagining an object and perceiving an object, these are thinking in images if we even consider the latter thought at all. So instead, imagine the apple not as you conceive of what an apple is, but rather imagine it in the way you perceive an apple in front of you. Then, at least in my opinion, the addition of existence as an attribute is pretty blatantly empty
When I perceive an apple. I see two halves joining without a centreline. The centreline is more of a probability that I could cut the apple in and direction like how an atom and electron isn't determined until you measure it or perceive it.
I suppose that there could be a _modal_ difference between an existent apple and a non-existent apple? Could an apple exist in some possible world that is not the actual world? Perhaps we might _think_ that an existence predicate does not add anything to our concept of an apple, when we conceive of an apple. But perhaps this could be explained as adding the predicate _inside a fixed_ possible world; perhaps to conceive of an apple is to think of some possible world in which there exists an apple, considered from the perspective that the apple inhabits that world, and then to suppose further that the apple "exists" is merely to say that the apple... inhabits that world. In this sense, it doesn't change anything; that is, it doesn't change the concept. Change the modal status of that possible world, however, and then it may change (in some sense) what it comes to to have that (so conceived) apple exist. If I am correct, then perhaps to add to your concept of an apple that the apple "exists" is to change the relation (given some relation) in which the (so conceived) apple stands to the actual world?
"Could an apple exists in some possible world that is not the actual world?", read this statement few times out loud. Are "possible worlds" real or Do "possible worlds" exist? Can you see something is circular here?
@@saimbhat6243 Well, when you think of an apple, it's not like that apple suddenly appears before you with its vivid greenish-red colour, free to be picked up and bitten out of with a sweet-tasting crunch. So, if we want to add to our concept of an apple that it "exists", then we better not mean "Now the apple magically appears before me and is ready to be picked up and eaten". We can't generate apples merely by thinking them. So, I used some "possible world" talk in an attempt to discuss the existence of an apple, as a concept, in a more theoretical way that _doesn't_ commit us to a problematic actualisation like above. When I asked whether an apple could "exist in some possible world that is not the actual world", I was asking whether we could think about a possible state the universe could occupy but which _isn't_ an actual state (at least not yet), and yet such that if it _were_ an actual state then the apple we are thinking of _would_ actually exist. I take that we imagine such type of possible states all the time. For example: what if I got myself some brand new shoes, then how would I feel? That, right there, is a question I might ask myself were I to: (i) visualise a possible state that the universe could occupy in which I am wearing some brand new shoes; and (ii) wonder what outcome(s) should I expect such state to bring about with respect to my personal feelings, if the universe were indeed to actually turn out that way. If I expect myself to feel good or happy as a result, then that might provide motivation (whether sufficient or not) for me to form a strategy or action plan in order to actualise that possible state - that is, to make that happen and to get myself those lovely shoes. So, back to the apple. Think of an apple - and not just imagine it, but _really_ visualise it. You may think of just the apple itself, or perhaps an apple hanging from a tree, or perhaps a fresh apple at the grocery store, or perhaps the front cover of the first novel in the Twilight series, etc. Then, whatever "state" that you are visualising, _if_ that whole state were to actually be the case - to actually exist in its entirety, in reality (and not just _merely_ visualised in your brain) - then _that apple_ would thereby actually exist. The difference, now, between an "existent" apple and a "non-existent" apple, owes to whether that state is wholly actual (in which case the apple is existent because it _does_ actually exist as visualised) or whether that state is wholly not actual (in which case the apple is non-existent because it _does not_ actually exist as visualised). At this point, this conceptual analysis is not yet fine-grained enough to deal with any potential "partially actual" states, but whatever - the point remains the same: on this view, if we say that the apple in mind "exists", then by that we could just express that the apple in mind is part of the state (that it "inhabits" the "possible world") insofar as the state is visualised. In _that_ sense, we don't change the concept in mind at all (which is what Kant seems to be talking about), since the apple in mind is _already_ in mind anyways; but we also don't commit ourselves to expressing that the thought-of apple _actually_ exists either, since (merely) being part of the state does not guarantee that the state is wholly actual (or, put differently, that "some possible world is not the actual world"). Now it makes sense for you to sincerely say "There are no unicorns": the term "are" is not committing you to actualisation (when you sincerely say "There are no unicorns"), but rather only to habitation in a possible world. The same is true if (say) Billy sincerely said "There are unicorns" - I mean, if in that locution the term "are" really _did_ pick out _actual_ unicorns, then you might as well treat Billy's speech act as standing in for an empirical observation of unicorns! (Obviously, it is not enough to just _say_ that "there are unicorns" in order for unicorns to be existent, so on that note I would expect that the term "are" should not have the function or property of picking out actual unicorns.) Currently I am not a modal realist; I don't think possible worlds are real ontologically. Currently I am a modal actualist; I think that everything which exists, exists actually (even spooky shit at the quantum level). The only sense in which I think possible worlds are "real" or "exist" is, merely, as _mental representations_ like concepts or imaginings or visualisations (or whatever you wish to call it). I don't find any circularity with what I have said thus far, although I do find a potential source of confusion in what terms like "exists" might mean, which is the sort of problem here which I attempted to address.
Very Stimulating. 3 things If eleatic is related to pre-socratic Greece I believe it is pronounced al-e-at-ic Re money. If everyone stopped agreeing money existed it would stop existing and we would have to barter so I don't know where that fits in. I kept swapping from reality as the totality of all things to the definition of what is real to the method of proving a thing exists while I was listening so I had to keep skipping back. But it was worth it.
The casual powers argument doesn't cut it for the anti-realist in the same way Hacking's 'if we can spray them then they are real' argument doesn't work. It doesn't follow that they actually exist. Largely due to your videos, I've gone down some philosophical rabbit hole and found myself as a scientific anti-realist. I wasn't expecting that. Even if I had a rock in my hand I can still imagine that it's just some vibrations moving through space and time, and it's not really very much like what I hold to be a rock at all.
What if both are true about the rock? Or differently put, what if your first conception of a rock is only real so in far as your relative position to the thing? And that what the rock is as you expand your frame of reference is just a vibration moving through spacetime? Put another way, every frame of reference from the microcosm to the macrocosm is a different scale of representation "about" the universe. The rock being a vibration moving through spacetime is no different from anything equivalent/tangential being a vibration moving through spacetime. But that's a very small frame of reference.
What about a rock that vibrates in your hand? When I say 'vibrate', I don't mean the quantum level vibrations, but rather “shakes” (you can imagine a rock size animal in your hands if you like). Would that mean that rock vibrating twice? I agree with SerDeath in terms of micro and macro level difference in analysis, but I disagree with the interpretation of "different scale of representation". In quantum level, it is not even a rock, and you are not a living being with hands and sensations. The existence of a photon, or even smaller, neutrino would not care being part of a rock or a living being at all. The same indifference is true from macro level: Yes we have some theories that tell us about quantum level 'vibrations', but when we hold a rock, shaking or a stable one, we do not have access to its microcosm at our perception level. This is why 'vibrating' or 'moving through space and time' are nothing other than our macro level illustrations about quantal dimension.
@@Youshallbeeatenbyme I'm happy to make a Kantian type distinction and accept that we live removed from actual 'reality'. But what does that mean we can really say about the human world, and the world in itself?
@@neoepicurean3772 We don't live removed from "actual reality". The whole of reality is imperceptible. That isn't to say that we live removed from it, but it is to say that our perception is wholly underdeveloped to make claims about reality in the strictest sense. The claims we can make about reality follow something along the lines of "It is the case that ___", which is just the slightly more condensed version of "as far as we are aware (aware meaning perception via contrasting) it is the case that ___". Again its a matter of frame of reference. We don't know the things we don't know (obviously). Getting outside of sapio-centric lenses is perhaps impossible for now, so what it says about the human world is that our claims about reality are underdetermined.
Existence is dependent on the domain of discourse. The difference between a real apple and an imaginary apple is that i cannot eat the inaginary aapple. The imaginary apple exists as an idea while the apple i can eat exists in reality. Thus, the term "real" applies to things that exist in reality - the physical world. People must experience something for it to be instantiated. The connection between mind and reality is somewhat complex. When we defined "asteroid" we instantiated all asteroids, even the ones we have not yet discovered. A phenomenon in space is just a phenomenon in space until it is defined as a super-nova or something. We can encounter things in our minds or with our senses. Not everything that exists is in the physical world. The number eleven exists, but you cannot encounter it in the physical world - only symbols that represent it. When someone says "unicorns do not exist" they mean "unicorns are not instantiated in the physical world, only as ideas". Unicorns are abstracts. Side note - The question of causality has been answered for some time. When one phenomenon X proceeds phenomenon Y in time, and Y occurs after X occurs, and there is nothing else causing Y also occuring, then you can say X causes Y. Illusions exists as illusions. A physical person can experience an illusion with their senses, but they do not exist in the physical world. The same is true of dreams. Dreaming is an experience one can have in the physical world, but what happens in dreams do not happen in the physical world - only in your mind. When you dream of eating an apple, the apple exists as a dream object. Needless to say, you will still be hungry when you wake up. Reality can either refer to the phyisical world, or to everything that exists. It depends on the domain of discourse - what is someone means to refer to when they say "reality". Of course the physical world, could turn out to be a deceitful dream of the evil demon. Then we would be wrong about the physical world being the physical world. Then the physical world would not be "real". It would only have existed as a dream. However, as I have discussed before, a belief in this would be unjustified. Without theory, the physical world is just phenomenon. A mind independent asteroid, is just a bunch of atoms that are moving together. "Atoms" also would not be atoms, just phenimenon.
It seems like I imagine Sherlock Holmes at a location for a duration (Baker Street for several years in the 1800s), but I don't take him to exist. Instead of asking you to imagine an apple, I can ask you to imagine an apple at some location for some time -- say, an apple located in my fridge for two days. What is added by saying that this apple exists? What is the difference between the existent apple located in my fridge for two days, and the nonexistent apple located in my fridge for two days?
@@KaneB Yeah, of course, you are right. If I think some more about this, I would rather say something like the difference between existent entities and inexistent ones is that the real ones possess properties that go beyond the ones you refer to. I'd say that you can't describe entirely a real entity. If you take the existing apple in your fridge, it necessarily has a taste, whereas the imagined one might only have a color. There would be a difference in modality: existent entities bear all their properties necessarily, in some weird way. I'm not saying real apples could not taste differently, rather that they need to taste like something. The same goes for location and duration I believe.
Well If "reality" is supposed to be a usefull definition, it has to say something about whats not included in it. If it simply refers to everything, then its trival to call something "real" as everything is real in such a view. But Even holding Positions such as Anti-realism in certain domains always means that one has to destinguish the real from the unreal. Im not sure one can define the real in general terms for everyone, as someone who has No Ability to compare the real and unreal wouldnt subscribe to it. And one is able to choose for one self what one sees as valid. I have a mode of comparason between fantasy and reality for example. In fantasy i can be and do what i want, in reality i can not, therfor they are diffrent for me. But someone who is unable to destinguish the two wouldnt find any diffrence there. So If one sides with those who have no Ability to destinguish reality and fantasy, or those who do have it is up to you. But the group who does destinguish fantasy and reality cant seem to agree on where the line is either. But Heres also a joke anwser: reality is that which the anti-realists havent debunked yet
I don't see a significant distinction between fantasy and reality in the respect that you mention there. First, I can do plenty of things that I want in reality: e.g. I form the desire to eat a chocolate cake, and I'm able to satisfy this desire and actually eat the chocolate cake. Or I want to change my appearance and give myself short hair, so I go and get a haircut. On the other hand, fantasies have various features that are outside my control. Plenty of people report "intrusive thoughts", annoying or even disturbing fantasies that cannot be made to go away. Moreover, I often find myself unable to craft fantasies in exactly the way I would like. I have fairly poor mental imagery, and I find it extremely hard to hold detailed scenes in my mind's eye. But the fantasizing task can always be made difficult enough to outstrip anybody's ability: try visualizing, in complete detail, a shape with 1,000,000 sides.
@@KaneB yeah as i Said its difficulty to make a destinction that will fit everyones experiences, i do notice a destinction when it comes to control, so im bound to define reality in terms of the control i have in it or lack therof versus fantasy. But the more important issue of defining anti-realism without a refrence to reality seems interessting, do you have an opinion on it?
The assertion that the definition of reality is not a well discussed thing in philosophy sounds a bit odd. The first thing that I think of the real alla Baudrillard's, and I suppose also Platonist judge what's real. Isn't it natural to say reality is the collection of all things that are real, hence having delegated the question of the definition to reality. As for your the following discussion, you conclude that being real or existent is not a property, but the derivation seems to have some holes. For example, being real could be the property that holds true for everything. Then the "picking out" that you use in your argument is not possible.
What are the ontological properties that you're ascribing to a 'theory'? Much of this seems to revolve around that old adage 'Every Epistemology implies an Ontology (or Metaphysics) and every Ontology implies an Epistemology'... or something like that. Can't we have objects that are said to exist that are not evidenced by our senses? Does an idea or a concept exist? Does some object that is said to exist have to be evidenced by our sensory perceptions, i.e., sight, smell, hearing, etc., in order for said object to be granted existence. Do Universals exist? I thought a Pragmatic theory of truth had to do with what 'works'. More generally here, what theory of truth are you utilizing to demonstrate the truth of a proposition? I thought I heard some reference to Coherence theory of truth, but much of your discussion appears to strongly imply a basis in some Correspondence theory of truth when speaking about an object being existent because it's observed with our senses? Correspondence theory of truth seems well-suited to in the empirical world as evidenced to us by our senses, but it does have the issue in that it implies some 'correspondence table', a map vs the territory mapping. However, what's the map? Is the map commonly an idea, or concept? If yes, by much of what you appear to be stating, that map cannot exist. So, what's the mapping? What's the number 3? Is it a concept or perhaps it's all possible groupings of objects in the external world that have 3 elements as evidenced by our senses? However, if it's the latter its definition is analogous perhaps to an infinite lazy list. Can you say that you can meaningfully give the number 3 a complete correspondence without cognizing the whole infinite list? Similar to unicorns. If nonexistence can only be demonstrated by visiting every possible place in the multiverse that a unicorn could be, then it seems it'd likely be unfalsifiable, at least by that means. I tend in the direction of a metaphysics that includes objects that don't evidently have an existence that is directly detectable by our senses... like ideas, concepts, and theories. Probably the strong materialist, or physicalist, would argue all these are just electrical-chemical reactions in our brain. However, I don't know if I'd agree this is well-defined as yet, nor does such a view much led itself to what we commonly do with ideas, concepts, or theories. Another thing in your discussion that troubles me is that it seems as though you're stating that we demonstrate the existence of the stone and glass because when we throw the stone through the glass the glass breaks... so therefore, the stone is a causative action, and I guess the glass is too? But, at least in your example, the stone became a causative agent only because a subject threw the stone. If I recall correctly, Aristotle might have had something relevant to say about this... his four causes, or something like that? I guess what I'm getting at is the question of whether you necessarily need an agent for something to be a cause? Does there need to be agency for some object to be said to be a cause? Interesting, thought-provoking discussion.
You mentioned the position according to which there's no reality. You might be interested in Jan Westerhoff's ontological nihilism, according to which nothing exists. Also Jay Garfield's exegesis and defence of views of one indian sceptic, that there's no non-conventional truths is quite remarkable.
Reality is what is left after you withdraw yourself as the subject. Since that task is impossible, reality is impossible. (Of course softer versions of reality are still possible, i.e. those that just represent certain layers of subjectivity, e.g. calling an actual photon „real“ while its perception in our brain is called „subjective/imagined“.
@@ostihpem Panpsychism is the view that mind is a fundamental feature of reality, so either (a) everything has mental or phenomenal properties or (b) everything is composed of things that have mental or phenomenal properties. So idealism is one type of panpsychism, but panpsychism also includes the view that all things have, or are at least composed of things that have, both mental and non-mental properties. For example, perhaps mind is like mass: we might hold that everything has a mass, but that things have other properties in addition to mass, such as charge and spin. (I'm aware that current theories postulate massless particles. This is just an illustration!)
This is kind of offtopic but I want to know what you think about this case: Imagine a person who holds strong anti-realist convictions, specially in moral domain. But, after reflextion, the person thinks that a society who share anti-realist moral views, would be a worst society (according to the preference of the person). In fact, the person thinks the entire society would become terrible, with everybody in war to rule the others and impose their owns values. On the contrary, this person thinks that if the majority of people are moral realist, society would work more accordingly with his preferences. So, this person lies about his own position and systematically tries to promote moral realism. What do you think?
That seems fine to me. I don't think there's anything special about truth in itself. If false beliefs would help me achieve my practical goals, then I'll favour promoting false beliefs.
Haha, this sounds like a comic book hero like Bruce Wayne or something. Does Bruce really believe in Justice or was he always after Vengeance & Power? Maybe they overlap. Maybe I'm thinking of Batman too often. Thanks for the question though. It's quite possible that a lot of politicians think like how you, Adrián, described.
I believe the answer to these is questions is this: Consider the true statement dinosaurs do not exist and the false statement dinosaurs did not exist. Find the difference and you can tell what existence is.
Reality is not everything that exists. "Real" is a type of experiential label that the brain applies to certain multimedia which it generates in order to distinguish between "memory" and "imagination" (which would otherwise seem to us to be the same thing, indeed we still manage to confuse the two more often than you would believe). Everything that exists refers to physical things, which we do not perceive. We only perceive the multimedia representation of physical things which our brain generates. And those representations are what we think of as being real, even though the representations themselves do not exist. "Realness" is an experience, the intensity of which lies on a spectrum. When you wake up and say "that dream seemed so real" you are not performing a binary classification, you a describing the intensity of a type of experience. Existence by contrast is a binary. With regard to objects specifically, like an apple, there is no distinction outside of our brains between a molecule which is part of the apple and a molecule which is not. We group the molecules in the apple into one "object" simply because the visual processing and prediction machinery of the brain has found that using the compression-algorithm of reducing similarly-behaving molecules into groups which are then treated as a single-unit allows for faster and less calorie-intensive computation than if we were to try and treat the source of every origin of every light ray that hits our retina as independent.
Your first statement "Reality is not everything that exist" is ambiguous. What does that even mean? Even if I grant you that the statement is true. What are things that are not real yet exist？ Your word salad doesn't make much sense.
@@raythink the first statement is simply the negation of the claim made by the video at 1:15. Perhaps you could argue that responding to ambiguous claims is a bad idea but I personally thought that I understood what Kane B meant by that and so was happy to respond to that. If you do think it's meaningless, perhaps it is, but it wasn't my statement originally.
If I think a thought? If I'm enlightened and peaceful, but ready to lie for chaos instead of truth? What if I tell 100 people they will burn if they don't worship me as god? If they all believe me and hysteric? Even if they felt it? Is it true? Probably not, but does it exist? It does in their thoughts, their dreams, their memories, their present logic, their future. It exists
@@faeancestor The point is that I try for truth 😂 try. I don't know what's true beyond what I can prove. Now I know that I can teach a lie and they'll believe it. That means they can teach me a lie and I'll believe it. I'm a monkey and I can't prove heaven or hell. I can prove my logic. I can prove that fear, embarrassment, and pain lead to lies, even in pursuit of truth. "Useful idiot"
real exists, unicorns are imagination, just like megatron or optimus. yes on screens but no in actuality. so unicorns do exist as imagination and yes the non existent apple exists but not really.
I believe if something interacts with its surroundings, then it exists. Taking your example of two green apples, the real one reflects green light while absorbing red light. On the other hand, the non existent green apple does not.
Why not make a video that takes "Reality" as a proper name rather than the mere nominalisation of "real" where you merely aim to identify the solution to "x is real if and only if...". What is Reality, then?
But everything is a figment of the mind, and some of those things are manifest (exist) and others are not. So, existence is a property of mental concepts that we've created in our minds.
I would say that "realness" is property of mental concepts that we've created in our minds, specifically the property which allows us to distinguish between memory and imagination, which would otherwise appear to us to be the same thing. I think that there are physical substances that are not a figment of the mind, but that we cannot perceive these, we only perceive our mental representations of them, and I think that "existence" should be used to refer to these physical substances.
@@Jorge-xf9gs is there a corrolation between truth and usefulness? I would suggest that truth can sometimes impede usefulness. If that's the case, why would we use usefulness as a measure of truth?
Philosophical challenges to causality: ruclips.net/video/cxyHiGdlIFU/видео.html
Let's talk about the non-existing apple for a moment. One could say that when an observer see an apple they see "two half apples"
Hence if X exists than 1/2x*2 exists!
Perhaps the observer will just see the apple as a faction of the apple tree. And that apple tree is a fraction of the species of the apple tree. And all species are a fraction of life. And all life is a fraction of matter. All matter is a fraction energy. HENCE Energy is a part or half part of time. And therefore time could be said to be the only existence in reality!
Without time nothing exists!
Given enough of this reality could result in an infinite amount of real stuff existing!
@@Bibibosh under some models time is emergent from quantum fields. In that case time would be a subset of energy. We don't have clear answers on that yet.
Are we saying then that real things are emergent from quantum fields, and things that aren't emergent from quantum fields are not real?
@@uninspired3583
I don't like the idea of things coming into existence from nothing; as it would just be a transformation of energy or negative energy. I can prove that statement.
Let's say. A small particle pops into the universe. The moment that happens a gravitational field would have to fill the void faster than lightspeed.
Let's say is doesn't instantly appear, it fades into the universe at a set speed. However fast or slow is appears, one could observe that divide the duration in half. SO therefore it would still be a part of the universe in some form or another.
The fields you speak of are imaginary/invisible forces that coincide with time and space affecting matter.
Without matter to sense that force, does that force exist? YES!
There is probably an infinite number of different forces that wind and weave thru the universe (yet we have only found 4)
Other forces such as gravity and light are well evolved forces because of the quantum fields.
I think the photon is just the result of what happens when THAT energy force meets matter.
Just remember that we use atoms-machines to detect these light/field/gravity/time phenoma.
I only speak because i am interested in science and based on everything I've learn from RUclips. But who's to say im wrong? perhaps someone in the world has rambled on about something silly and perhaps they were 100% . Only god knows.
@@Bibibosh there are some observations you should be aware of here.
Gravitational fields propagate at the speed of light. We know this because we have detected waves created by black hole collisions, and aligned these events with other observations from telescopes.
The gravity of a single particle is so tiny it can't be detected. A gold ball 2mm in diameter is the smallest mass we have detected gravity from. While small, it's still billions of particles.
I'm not sure where particles popping into existence came from. There are virtual particles but these don't last very long.
The quantum fields have been indirectly measured with the Casimir effect. Brilliant experiment. We use the field theory to make many accurate predictions, it's one of the best theories we have.
Light isn't a force. A force is defined as the push or pull on an object with mass. When a photon interacts with an atom, it doesn't change it's velocity, it only affects the excitation level of the electron in the outer layer. Typically this is very short lived and the return back to the stable state causes a new photon to be produced.
We use this process to observe what materials are present at a distance. Each type of atom has a unique signature in the light spectrum. So if we separate the light from an object into each frequency with a prism, we can observe it's unique pattern. This is called mass spectroscopy.
I'm glad you're fascinated by the science, im no scholar, just a youtube physics fan myself. It really is amazing what we can demonstrate!
Reality is definable purely be self-referential means. Every attempt to define the predicate “reality” involves a real agent or object. The definition and definer are entangled in mutual recursion! The same goes for the predicate “existence”.
Yes reality is defined by the conscious agent that experiences it.
@@oliviamaynard9372 Voila! So the idea that “defining the reality of an object adds nothing to the object” (Kant) entails a plethora of needless paradoxes.
@@oliviamaynard9372 And what is it experiencing?
Our perception of reality is defined by contrastive means. Self-referential is one variable.
The scale of reality is imperceptible. It is not definable in-of-itself. It is only definable by the frame of reference a species has.
I think the phrasing is "underdetermined approximation".
Reality, or anything else for that matter, is "definable" only in linguistic means. This is how Kant's "... adds nothing to the object" can make sense. Moreover, non-linguistic experience of an object would not add anything to the object either unless the object that we are talking about is an agent.
Awareness is self evidently Real.
There is only a single self evident Truth, the fact that something seems to be happening. This apparent seeming, this awareness of sensation, is undeniable.
Even if nothing else can be known as reality, this fact remains plainly seen to be True.
Good video to watch at 1 AM
I’ve been working on the idea of “All is real.” It’s a very simple axiom that gives a common sense to all other propositions. Unicorns are real fictional beings that appear is books and children’s birthday parties. Dreams are real experiences when we sleep. Hallucinations are real experience of mistaken perception. Once we grant everything is real then we’re left with categorizing how things appear to our different faculties. I haven’t had too many problems with this idea. I think of it as a sort of organizing signifier that grounds all the others. It’s something that can be said of all things. It’s a universal signifier in this sense. We create differentiations between concepts with words but this can be the signifier that isn’t undifferentiated.
Reality as truth is different than reality as instrument. However, every explanation goes around personal and public knowledge in interpretation of phenomena or facts.
Sorry I'm 4 days late to this video, but I'm really glad you have made this video. "Is "reality" just something we all hallucinate together?" is a question I asked you about 2 months ago. I also wondered if there exists a Hegelian synthesis of reality and dream. You then pointed me towards David Chalmers' book named Reality+. I'm on chapter 11 and I'm having a great time with it. I regret not finishing it sooner. Really, I'm going to reread the book when I'm finished so that I can make it gel in my brain.
Super compelling points!
But what if in my dreams other people also see the apple? Indeed, it is impossible to distinguish if i am dreaming or awaken. The only indicatives of what I've dreamed about last night are some cloudy memories. Perhaps every time i go to sleep, i actually wake up in the real world. There is also no way to tell if what i remember that i dreamed about is actually what i've dreamed about, so, maybe in my dreams things that seem to be nonsense in this world are actually much more clear and obvious.
26:42 This inconsistency you bring up is fairly interesting and it makes me ponder how perception works. I feel bad I can't remember which particular philosopher talked about this, but this topic of perception reminds me of some lectures that I've listened to. That particular philosopher made me think about how we sense first, then the brain rearranges these senses into perceptions. Something like this is happening with dreams except its mostly our memory filling in the void. Our memories are being activated and they're somehow filling the void of senses. These "memory senses" appear like an apple sometimes in your example. The brain is doing something remarkable: it's memorizing sensory inputs and bouncing them around inside our minds. When we dream, we are perceiving memories. Have I made a coherent comment?
I think dreams are probably just experience that’s not as closely connected with the body. It’s like we slip towards death a bit when we fall asleep. Awakened experience is localized to a body when we are attuned to action and goals. But when we sleep we let go of goals and actions and thus let go of need for the body. Experience becomes unlocalized and we become closer to “nature.” The nature of this “nature” is difference and repetition, fundamentally at a metaphysical level. And this explains the contents of our dreams. Dreams repeat through difference. But because things become delocalized the repetition that gives structure to our perception gives way to new differences. And this is why dreams can devolve and evolve and form and deform.
Maybe the philosopher your looking for is Socrates..or Freud.❤
3:04 The non-existent apple can't be eaten. Therefore I can't imagine a non-existent apple that has all the properties of an existent apple. Existence is required to have relation to other things. Existence IS having relations to other things.
I am skeptical about the first argument against existence as a property.
-I think that just because nothing is added to our picture of the thing doesn’t mean that there is no existence property in the real thing. We should not assume that all the properties of the thing can be added to our picture of it. But even if it adds nothing to the picture we may still be able to refer to it.
-It can make a difference in our concept of it if we allow other states of existence between existence(1) and nonexistence(0). We may say that something that has actually existence has a value of 1, something that has potential existence has a value of 0.5 and something that is nonexisting has a value of 0. In that case „existence“ is a intensive and intrinsic property that actually adds to our concept of the thing.
I think the problem with the first example is how it's framed. Both apples are imaginary, you're just imagining realness in one of them. Imagining realness doesn't seem to do the job of making it real, maybe its the case that the property of realness can't be imagined.
This runs into the problem that according to neuroscience, perceptions are also imaginary. They're just imaginings connected to sensory input.
Is that the difference? Real things have the property of being connected to perceptions?
I agree with the first point; I don't see any reason to assume that every conceivable property must be "visualizable". Suppose I ask you to imagine 1,000,000 grains of rice. You're not going to visualize every grain; what you'll have in mind is probably just a heap of rice. Now if I ask you to imagine 1,000,001 grains of rice, it's not clear that this changes anything in your mind's eye. But we still understand the difference between 1,000,000 grains of rice and 1,000,001 grains of rice.
In any case, it seems like we could argue that even if there isn't a difference in our mental image of the existent apple vs nonexistent apple, there are differences in expectation and potential action. When an apple is existent, I expect that it will in fact crunch between my teeth and satiate my hunger. Nonexistent apple don't really do this (though I can of course imagine them doing this).
@@KaneB In fact, by utilizing some numbers (1,000,000 to 1,000,001) you make it "visualisable"; at least "illustrable". Similarly, even if we take two physically existing apples, we don't see the differences between them in terms of number of atoms, hence we consider them the same or at least similar. Even if we take a single apple and say that it is the same apple 1 minute later, we must ignore the water molecules that have been evaporated from the content of this apple. Technically, the apple cannot be the same. These miniscule changes are perfectly real yet not detectable by our perceptions. Hence, if we want to “understand” the difference between 1,000,000 grains of rice and 1,000,001 grains of rice we should rely on measurement or reason, not natural perception.
@@KaneBActually existent apple is under no obligation to feed you. You're misusing reality of an apple with accessibility of an apple. And what if you dreamt of being hungry, picked up an apple and after eating it, you felt full? 😊We can't even escape dream vs. woke reality in here guys😂
Sure but on the example of the apples, there is one thing that has not been considered for something to exist does not merely mean physical existence, rather the ability of something to be real is the ability of something to exist, whether physically or as a thought. Therefore, I cannot considered an Apple Watch is not real or an Apple Watch does not exist. therefore that which is not real or that which does not exist, cannot even be conceived, or considered weather physically or mentally, or in any other form of being.
Could we say that the concept of "reality" is the belief that there exists a description of the world that is observer invariant? In the dream apple example, I would imagine that, although the dreaming person might initially think there is a real apple in front of them, if they were to talk to someone who saw that they were sleeping, they might adjust their belief to describe both the fact that the waking person saw that there was no real apple in front of them, and that the dreaming person saw a dream apple. This broader description (including a dream apple and a real apple as distinct objects) eliminates the observer dependence. Of course, it may be conceivable that experiences could occur such that no observer independent description could be found, but in this case, I think we may simply adjust our models to exclude beliefs about observer dependent behavior, treating the variance as something like randomness.
Has that broader description eliminated observer dependence? It removes the apparent conflict between the description given by the waking person and the description given by the dreaming person. But take the concept "apple". It seems like this is dependent on our decision to use a particular classification scheme; in principle, other societies might use radically different schemes that do not distinguish objects that correspond neatly to what we call "apples". Similarly, take the properties of apples such as greenness: some societies do not classify colours the same way as us, and there are plenty of animals with visual systems different from ours. With these points in mind, I wonder what a fully "observer invariant" description of the world would like.
@@KaneB Couldn't someone say "I believe that there is an observer-independent reality, though I can only frame it by my own observations?" Would it be adequate to "describe" it as formless, or not describe it at all, but understand that upon being observed it will be given form? Most people (well, I certainly don't know of anyone who doesn't) believe in object permanence, and conceive of objects existing outside their or another's perception. However, their descriptions for these objects assume the potential for experiences which could give them form (sight, smell, sound, etc.) ... wait, I've gone and disagreed with the original post.
Indeed, there is no description of the world that is observer invariant. However, it seems to me that doesn't exclude belief observer-independent reality. Does that track?
Existence *is* identity, existence exists is an axiom because everything is an existent, existence *is* a property of everything that exists.
2:50 I cannot imagine a non-existent apple. I can only imagine an existing apple.
5:25 You abstract out features from things that do exist, horses and rhinos, and you use imagination to combine concepts like horn + horse, then you name that fictional animal with a unit for unit-economy sake, call it a unicorn.
Unicorn:
Genus: Fictional Animal
Differentia: a one horned horse.
Really not that difficult.
There are metaphysical objects like trees and rocks and apples and acorns. And there are man-made objects, like hammers, computers, fictional novels, unicorns.
7:15
Existence *is* identity.
Consciousness *is* identification.
8:23 Identity!
10:00 The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. Causality implies reality because causality implies identity, that the thing exists as something.
love you
Thanks dawg
Some small things about the causality section. We say in it that "Mental Images are real", but mental images don't have a casual power. At least for that section mental images would be resounded in the "not real".
I think causal reality also needs a tiny bit more clarification to cover dreams and mental images that are easy to do. "Casually real" is limited to the space we share with other agents. To me the dream apple and the real apple are indistinguishable. The dream apple has causality within my dreams. The physical apple has causality in my non-dream state, and your non-dream state. The causal space shared by us is where we're trying to define "real" down to. So it just not just having casual force, but having casual force in the space that I share with other agents.
I am one of those people who cannot make mental images. (I can't remember what is called) which confuses the argument.
I enjoyed this
Hello, I was thinking about it some hours ago and I eventually came up with something. It's quite complicated, but basically if you can find a criterion to distinguish reality from illusion in this mind experiment, then it will work for anything else. Imagine there is a sort of device, hyper technological, that creates a perfect illusion , I mean that all of your perception are coherent with each other and make you interact with an imaginary person. You may say :"well, if it's just imagination I can ask other people if they experience the same as I do", and that would be a criterion in that case. But now a more extreme challenge: every human on the Earth wears the device and the imaginary people are coherent with all the others so that is real for everyone. The last criterion would be: let's see if it can interact with another element of reality, for example lift a rock. Now, since all of your senses are coherent, the illusion will lift the rock. If you think , well, the real rock is still there , you may try to step up on that, but since the illusion is almost almighty it can simulate every experience from that moment on. Maybe your body lays down, but you continue to walk in your point of view. There's no criterion left. Anyone can find it? Excuse me for the lenght and the grammar, I don't speak English very well. Thanks if anyone answers.
This is the same as Descartes' evil demon thought experiment. Descartes came to the conclusion that the only thing that could not be doubted was that he exists. I have no insight on this, but maybe this helps.
This reminds me of a comment made by the Dalai Lama when being interviewed by a journalist. The journalist asked whether the 'entities' used in many Tibetan Buddhist practise were actually real? The Dalai Lama, in his usual way, laughed and then replied, 'Well, are you real?'.
platonists can have disjunctive definition: a thing is real either if it has causal powers or if it is a mathematical object
Fun discussion!
That's great video!
J.L Austin would have a field day with this video
Is existence usually understood to be univocal in contemporary philosophy?
@Kane B, I don't understand why existence couldn't be deemed a property if there are many cases in which learning that something exists modifies our understanding of that concept.
For example, a moral non-cognitivist would say:
"Moral statements merely express states of approval or disapproval regarding human behaviour."
&
"Moral propositions are neither true nor false; consequently, moral knowledge is impossible."
Suppose, however, that the non-cognitivist was to learn that moral properties did, in fact, exist in reality; it's indisputable that their entire understanding of what morality is would change, being fundamentally predicated upon an anti-realist perspective; clearly showing that existence is a property.
Pertaining to existence as a property and the unicorn example, what if you maintain that existence is a property of objects, and that the claim “unicorns do not exist” is false. Perhaps it should be stated, “unicorns do not exist physically.” Because they exist conceptually which is how we are able to pick them out.
Edit: glad you brought up pragmatism because that’s my belief system. I was saying things to myself that you basically then went on to say word for word, so I appreciated that lol.
Reality is the sum or set of all objects which make true (or would make true) positive existential propositions.
knowledge is the limited system that we project onto reality
I do not at all share the intuition that conceiving of an existent apple is identical to conceiving a non-existent apple. The existent apple has a position is space. It has surroundings. It is in a particular direction from where I'm currently standing. I'm able to go out and find the apple. I really do have a slightly different picture in my mind when I imagine an existent vs non-existent apple. Am I missing something here?
Consider perhaps from this angle:
You’re describing the apple as it exists for language, but when we’re comparing imagining an object and perceiving an object, these are thinking in images if we even consider the latter thought at all. So instead, imagine the apple not as you conceive of what an apple is, but rather imagine it in the way you perceive an apple in front of you. Then, at least in my opinion, the addition of existence as an attribute is pretty blatantly empty
When I perceive an apple. I see two halves joining without a centreline. The centreline is more of a probability that I could cut the apple in and direction like how an atom and electron isn't determined until you measure it or perceive it.
Reality: "Oh? You're approaching me? Instead of running away, you come right to me?"
I will go with realists definition of reality. That's things that exist independently of mind is reality.
I suppose that there could be a _modal_ difference between an existent apple and a non-existent apple? Could an apple exist in some possible world that is not the actual world? Perhaps we might _think_ that an existence predicate does not add anything to our concept of an apple, when we conceive of an apple. But perhaps this could be explained as adding the predicate _inside a fixed_ possible world; perhaps to conceive of an apple is to think of some possible world in which there exists an apple, considered from the perspective that the apple inhabits that world, and then to suppose further that the apple "exists" is merely to say that the apple... inhabits that world. In this sense, it doesn't change anything; that is, it doesn't change the concept. Change the modal status of that possible world, however, and then it may change (in some sense) what it comes to to have that (so conceived) apple exist. If I am correct, then perhaps to add to your concept of an apple that the apple "exists" is to change the relation (given some relation) in which the (so conceived) apple stands to the actual world?
"Could an apple exists in some possible world that is not the actual world?", read this statement few times out loud. Are "possible worlds" real or Do "possible worlds" exist? Can you see something is circular here?
@@saimbhat6243 Well, when you think of an apple, it's not like that apple suddenly appears before you with its vivid greenish-red colour, free to be picked up and bitten out of with a sweet-tasting crunch. So, if we want to add to our concept of an apple that it "exists", then we better not mean "Now the apple magically appears before me and is ready to be picked up and eaten". We can't generate apples merely by thinking them. So, I used some "possible world" talk in an attempt to discuss the existence of an apple, as a concept, in a more theoretical way that _doesn't_ commit us to a problematic actualisation like above.
When I asked whether an apple could "exist in some possible world that is not the actual world", I was asking whether we could think about a possible state the universe could occupy but which _isn't_ an actual state (at least not yet), and yet such that if it _were_ an actual state then the apple we are thinking of _would_ actually exist. I take that we imagine such type of possible states all the time. For example: what if I got myself some brand new shoes, then how would I feel? That, right there, is a question I might ask myself were I to:
(i) visualise a possible state that the universe could occupy in which I am wearing some brand new shoes; and
(ii) wonder what outcome(s) should I expect such state to bring about with respect to my personal feelings, if the universe were indeed to actually turn out that way.
If I expect myself to feel good or happy as a result, then that might provide motivation (whether sufficient or not) for me to form a strategy or action plan in order to actualise that possible state - that is, to make that happen and to get myself those lovely shoes.
So, back to the apple. Think of an apple - and not just imagine it, but _really_ visualise it. You may think of just the apple itself, or perhaps an apple hanging from a tree, or perhaps a fresh apple at the grocery store, or perhaps the front cover of the first novel in the Twilight series, etc. Then, whatever "state" that you are visualising, _if_ that whole state were to actually be the case - to actually exist in its entirety, in reality (and not just _merely_ visualised in your brain) - then _that apple_ would thereby actually exist. The difference, now, between an "existent" apple and a "non-existent" apple, owes to whether that state is wholly actual (in which case the apple is existent because it _does_ actually exist as visualised) or whether that state is wholly not actual (in which case the apple is non-existent because it _does not_ actually exist as visualised).
At this point, this conceptual analysis is not yet fine-grained enough to deal with any potential "partially actual" states, but whatever - the point remains the same: on this view, if we say that the apple in mind "exists", then by that we could just express that the apple in mind is part of the state (that it "inhabits" the "possible world") insofar as the state is visualised. In _that_ sense, we don't change the concept in mind at all (which is what Kant seems to be talking about), since the apple in mind is _already_ in mind anyways; but we also don't commit ourselves to expressing that the thought-of apple _actually_ exists either, since (merely) being part of the state does not guarantee that the state is wholly actual (or, put differently, that "some possible world is not the actual world"). Now it makes sense for you to sincerely say "There are no unicorns": the term "are" is not committing you to actualisation (when you sincerely say "There are no unicorns"), but rather only to habitation in a possible world. The same is true if (say) Billy sincerely said "There are unicorns" - I mean, if in that locution the term "are" really _did_ pick out _actual_ unicorns, then you might as well treat Billy's speech act as standing in for an empirical observation of unicorns! (Obviously, it is not enough to just _say_ that "there are unicorns" in order for unicorns to be existent, so on that note I would expect that the term "are" should not have the function or property of picking out actual unicorns.)
Currently I am not a modal realist; I don't think possible worlds are real ontologically. Currently I am a modal actualist; I think that everything which exists, exists actually (even spooky shit at the quantum level). The only sense in which I think possible worlds are "real" or "exist" is, merely, as _mental representations_ like concepts or imaginings or visualisations (or whatever you wish to call it). I don't find any circularity with what I have said thus far, although I do find a potential source of confusion in what terms like "exists" might mean, which is the sort of problem here which I attempted to address.
Very Stimulating.
3 things
If eleatic is related to pre-socratic Greece I believe it is pronounced al-e-at-ic
Re money. If everyone stopped agreeing money existed it would stop existing and we would have to barter so I don't know where that fits in.
I kept swapping from reality as the totality of all things to the definition of what is real to the method of proving a thing exists while I was listening so I had to keep skipping back. But it was worth it.
The casual powers argument doesn't cut it for the anti-realist in the same way Hacking's 'if we can spray them then they are real' argument doesn't work. It doesn't follow that they actually exist. Largely due to your videos, I've gone down some philosophical rabbit hole and found myself as a scientific anti-realist. I wasn't expecting that. Even if I had a rock in my hand I can still imagine that it's just some vibrations moving through space and time, and it's not really very much like what I hold to be a rock at all.
What if both are true about the rock?
Or differently put, what if your first conception of a rock is only real so in far as your relative position to the thing? And that what the rock is as you expand your frame of reference is just a vibration moving through spacetime?
Put another way, every frame of reference from the microcosm to the macrocosm is a different scale of representation "about" the universe. The rock being a vibration moving through spacetime is no different from anything equivalent/tangential being a vibration moving through spacetime. But that's a very small frame of reference.
What about a rock that vibrates in your hand? When I say 'vibrate', I don't mean the quantum level vibrations, but rather “shakes” (you can imagine a rock size animal in your hands if you like). Would that mean that rock vibrating twice? I agree with SerDeath in terms of micro and macro level difference in analysis, but I disagree with the interpretation of "different scale of representation". In quantum level, it is not even a rock, and you are not a living being with hands and sensations. The existence of a photon, or even smaller, neutrino would not care being part of a rock or a living being at all. The same indifference is true from macro level: Yes we have some theories that tell us about quantum level 'vibrations', but when we hold a rock, shaking or a stable one, we do not have access to its microcosm at our perception level. This is why 'vibrating' or 'moving through space and time' are nothing other than our macro level illustrations about quantal dimension.
@@Youshallbeeatenbyme I'm happy to make a Kantian type distinction and accept that we live removed from actual 'reality'. But what does that mean we can really say about the human world, and the world in itself?
@@neoepicurean3772 We don't live removed from "actual reality". The whole of reality is imperceptible. That isn't to say that we live removed from it, but it is to say that our perception is wholly underdeveloped to make claims about reality in the strictest sense.
The claims we can make about reality follow something along the lines of "It is the case that ___", which is just the slightly more condensed version of "as far as we are aware (aware meaning perception via contrasting) it is the case that ___".
Again its a matter of frame of reference. We don't know the things we don't know (obviously). Getting outside of sapio-centric lenses is perhaps impossible for now, so what it says about the human world is that our claims about reality are underdetermined.
Existence is dependent on the domain of discourse. The difference between a real apple and an imaginary apple is that i cannot eat the inaginary aapple. The imaginary apple exists as an idea while the apple i can eat exists in reality. Thus, the term "real" applies to things that exist in reality - the physical world.
People must experience something for it to be instantiated. The connection between mind and reality is somewhat complex. When we defined "asteroid" we instantiated all asteroids, even the ones we have not yet discovered. A phenomenon in space is just a phenomenon in space until it is defined as a super-nova or something. We can encounter things in our minds or with our senses. Not everything that exists is in the physical world. The number eleven exists, but you cannot encounter it in the physical world - only symbols that represent it.
When someone says "unicorns do not exist" they mean "unicorns are not instantiated in the physical world, only as ideas". Unicorns are abstracts.
Side note - The question of causality has been answered for some time. When one phenomenon X proceeds phenomenon Y in time, and Y occurs after X occurs, and there is nothing else causing Y also occuring, then you can say X causes Y.
Illusions exists as illusions. A physical person can experience an illusion with their senses, but they do not exist in the physical world. The same is true of dreams. Dreaming is an experience one can have in the physical world, but what happens in dreams do not happen in the physical world - only in your mind. When you dream of eating an apple, the apple exists as a dream object. Needless to say, you will still be hungry when you wake up.
Reality can either refer to the phyisical world, or to everything that exists. It depends on the domain of discourse - what is someone means to refer to when they say "reality".
Of course the physical world, could turn out to be a deceitful dream of the evil demon. Then we would be wrong about the physical world being the physical world. Then the physical world would not be "real". It would only have existed as a dream. However, as I have discussed before, a belief in this would be unjustified.
Without theory, the physical world is just phenomenon. A mind independent asteroid, is just a bunch of atoms that are moving together. "Atoms" also would not be atoms, just phenimenon.
I think when you say that an apple exists, you add a location and a duration, which is not a part of an imagined apple.
It seems like I imagine Sherlock Holmes at a location for a duration (Baker Street for several years in the 1800s), but I don't take him to exist.
Instead of asking you to imagine an apple, I can ask you to imagine an apple at some location for some time -- say, an apple located in my fridge for two days. What is added by saying that this apple exists? What is the difference between the existent apple located in my fridge for two days, and the nonexistent apple located in my fridge for two days?
@@KaneB Yeah, of course, you are right. If I think some more about this, I would rather say something like the difference between existent entities and inexistent ones is that the real ones possess properties that go beyond the ones you refer to. I'd say that you can't describe entirely a real entity. If you take the existing apple in your fridge, it necessarily has a taste, whereas the imagined one might only have a color. There would be a difference in modality: existent entities bear all their properties necessarily, in some weird way. I'm not saying real apples could not taste differently, rather that they need to taste like something. The same goes for location and duration I believe.
Well If "reality" is supposed to be a usefull definition, it has to say something about whats not included in it. If it simply refers to everything, then its trival to call something "real" as everything is real in such a view. But Even holding Positions such as Anti-realism in certain domains always means that one has to destinguish the real from the unreal.
Im not sure one can define the real in general terms for everyone, as someone who has No Ability to compare the real and unreal wouldnt subscribe to it. And one is able to choose for one self what one sees as valid.
I have a mode of comparason between fantasy and reality for example. In fantasy i can be and do what i want, in reality i can not, therfor they are diffrent for me.
But someone who is unable to destinguish the two wouldnt find any diffrence there.
So If one sides with those who have no Ability to destinguish reality and fantasy, or those who do have it is up to you. But the group who does destinguish fantasy and reality cant seem to agree on where the line is either.
But Heres also a joke anwser: reality is that which the anti-realists havent debunked yet
I don't see a significant distinction between fantasy and reality in the respect that you mention there. First, I can do plenty of things that I want in reality: e.g. I form the desire to eat a chocolate cake, and I'm able to satisfy this desire and actually eat the chocolate cake. Or I want to change my appearance and give myself short hair, so I go and get a haircut.
On the other hand, fantasies have various features that are outside my control. Plenty of people report "intrusive thoughts", annoying or even disturbing fantasies that cannot be made to go away. Moreover, I often find myself unable to craft fantasies in exactly the way I would like. I have fairly poor mental imagery, and I find it extremely hard to hold detailed scenes in my mind's eye. But the fantasizing task can always be made difficult enough to outstrip anybody's ability: try visualizing, in complete detail, a shape with 1,000,000 sides.
@@KaneB yeah as i Said its difficulty to make a destinction that will fit everyones experiences, i do notice a destinction when it comes to control, so im bound to define reality in terms of the control i have in it or lack therof versus fantasy.
But the more important issue of defining anti-realism without a refrence to reality seems interessting, do you have an opinion on it?
Pessimism=kane b
The assertion that the definition of reality is not a well discussed thing in philosophy sounds a bit odd. The first thing that I think of the real alla Baudrillard's, and I suppose also Platonist judge what's real. Isn't it natural to say reality is the collection of all things that are real, hence having delegated the question of the definition to reality.
As for your the following discussion, you conclude that being real or existent is not a property, but the derivation seems to have some holes. For example, being real could be the property that holds true for everything. Then the "picking out" that you use in your argument is not possible.
That's not my conclusion, I'm just presenting the standard philosophical view on existence.
>Harry Dubois enters chat
Could you do a video about Kalam?
What are the ontological properties that you're ascribing to a 'theory'? Much of this seems to revolve around that old adage 'Every Epistemology implies an Ontology (or Metaphysics) and every Ontology implies an Epistemology'... or something like that. Can't we have objects that are said to exist that are not evidenced by our senses? Does an idea or a concept exist? Does some object that is said to exist have to be evidenced by our sensory perceptions, i.e., sight, smell, hearing, etc., in order for said object to be granted existence. Do Universals exist? I thought a Pragmatic theory of truth had to do with what 'works'. More generally here, what theory of truth are you utilizing to demonstrate the truth of a proposition? I thought I heard some reference to Coherence theory of truth, but much of your discussion appears to strongly imply a basis in some Correspondence theory of truth when speaking about an object being existent because it's observed with our senses? Correspondence theory of truth seems well-suited to in the empirical world as evidenced to us by our senses, but it does have the issue in that it implies some 'correspondence table', a map vs the territory mapping. However, what's the map? Is the map commonly an idea, or concept? If yes, by much of what you appear to be stating, that map cannot exist. So, what's the mapping? What's the number 3? Is it a concept or perhaps it's all possible groupings of objects in the external world that have 3 elements as evidenced by our senses? However, if it's the latter its definition is analogous perhaps to an infinite lazy list. Can you say that you can meaningfully give the number 3 a complete correspondence without cognizing the whole infinite list? Similar to unicorns. If nonexistence can only be demonstrated by visiting every possible place in the multiverse that a unicorn could be, then it seems it'd likely be unfalsifiable, at least by that means. I tend in the direction of a metaphysics that includes objects that don't evidently have an existence that is directly detectable by our senses... like ideas, concepts, and theories. Probably the strong materialist, or physicalist, would argue all these are just electrical-chemical reactions in our brain. However, I don't know if I'd agree this is well-defined as yet, nor does such a view much led itself to what we commonly do with ideas, concepts, or theories. Another thing in your discussion that troubles me is that it seems as though you're stating that we demonstrate the existence of the stone and glass because when we throw the stone through the glass the glass breaks... so therefore, the stone is a causative action, and I guess the glass is too? But, at least in your example, the stone became a causative agent only because a subject threw the stone. If I recall correctly, Aristotle might have had something relevant to say about this... his four causes, or something like that? I guess what I'm getting at is the question of whether you necessarily need an agent for something to be a cause? Does there need to be agency for some object to be said to be a cause? Interesting, thought-provoking discussion.
You mentioned the position according to which there's no reality. You might be interested in Jan Westerhoff's ontological nihilism, according to which nothing exists. Also Jay Garfield's exegesis and defence of views of one indian sceptic, that there's no non-conventional truths is quite remarkable.
Reality is what is left after you withdraw yourself as the subject. Since that task is impossible, reality is impossible. (Of course softer versions of reality are still possible, i.e. those that just represent certain layers of subjectivity, e.g. calling an actual photon „real“ while its perception in our brain is called „subjective/imagined“.
Would this be an argument for panpsychism and/or idealism?
@@dumbledorelives93 There seems to be some obvious crossover
@@dumbledorelives93 Idealism I think. What is Panpsychism?
@@ostihpem Panpsychism is the view that mind is a fundamental feature of reality, so either (a) everything has mental or phenomenal properties or (b) everything is composed of things that have mental or phenomenal properties. So idealism is one type of panpsychism, but panpsychism also includes the view that all things have, or are at least composed of things that have, both mental and non-mental properties. For example, perhaps mind is like mass: we might hold that everything has a mass, but that things have other properties in addition to mass, such as charge and spin. (I'm aware that current theories postulate massless particles. This is just an illustration!)
@@ostihpem Anything and everything has some form of consciousness. There are also different versions of this
time to make ontological pluralism cool again 👀
This is kind of offtopic but I want to know what you think about this case:
Imagine a person who holds strong anti-realist convictions, specially in moral domain. But, after reflextion, the person thinks that a society who share anti-realist moral views, would be a worst society (according to the preference of the person). In fact, the person thinks the entire society would become terrible, with everybody in war to rule the others and impose their owns values. On the contrary, this person thinks that if the majority of people are moral realist, society would work more accordingly with his preferences. So, this person lies about his own position and systematically tries to promote moral realism.
What do you think?
That seems fine to me. I don't think there's anything special about truth in itself. If false beliefs would help me achieve my practical goals, then I'll favour promoting false beliefs.
@@KaneB Thanks for your answer.
Haha, this sounds like a comic book hero like Bruce Wayne or something. Does Bruce really believe in Justice or was he always after Vengeance & Power? Maybe they overlap.
Maybe I'm thinking of Batman too often. Thanks for the question though. It's quite possible that a lot of politicians think like how you, Adrián, described.
How come you talk about abstract numbers if they have no causal power?
I believe the answer to these is questions is this:
Consider the true statement dinosaurs do not exist and the false statement dinosaurs did not exist. Find the difference and you can tell what existence is.
"OF COURSE."
7:30
Moore
Reality is not everything that exists. "Real" is a type of experiential label that the brain applies to certain multimedia which it generates in order to distinguish between "memory" and "imagination" (which would otherwise seem to us to be the same thing, indeed we still manage to confuse the two more often than you would believe). Everything that exists refers to physical things, which we do not perceive. We only perceive the multimedia representation of physical things which our brain generates. And those representations are what we think of as being real, even though the representations themselves do not exist. "Realness" is an experience, the intensity of which lies on a spectrum. When you wake up and say "that dream seemed so real" you are not performing a binary classification, you a describing the intensity of a type of experience. Existence by contrast is a binary.
With regard to objects specifically, like an apple, there is no distinction outside of our brains between a molecule which is part of the apple and a molecule which is not. We group the molecules in the apple into one "object" simply because the visual processing and prediction machinery of the brain has found that using the compression-algorithm of reducing similarly-behaving molecules into groups which are then treated as a single-unit allows for faster and less calorie-intensive computation than if we were to try and treat the source of every origin of every light ray that hits our retina as independent.
This doesn't seem to be intuitively satisfying, but it does seem to describe the evidence available. And well articulated.
Your first statement "Reality is not everything that exist" is ambiguous. What does that even mean?
Even if I grant you that the statement is true. What are things that are not real yet exist？
Your word salad doesn't make much sense.
@@raythink the first statement is simply the negation of the claim made by the video at 1:15. Perhaps you could argue that responding to ambiguous claims is a bad idea but I personally thought that I understood what Kane B meant by that and so was happy to respond to that. If you do think it's meaningless, perhaps it is, but it wasn't my statement originally.
@@raythink imaginary things are not real, and yet exist as neural patterns.
❤❤❤❤❤❤
If I think a thought? If I'm enlightened and peaceful, but ready to lie for chaos instead of truth? What if I tell 100 people they will burn if they don't worship me as god?
If they all believe me and hysteric? Even if they felt it? Is it true? Probably not, but does it exist? It does in their thoughts, their dreams, their memories, their present logic, their future. It exists
man
@@faeancestor woman?
@@faeancestor The point is that I try for truth 😂 try. I don't know what's true beyond what I can prove. Now I know that I can teach a lie and they'll believe it. That means they can teach me a lie and I'll believe it.
I'm a monkey and I can't prove heaven or hell. I can prove my logic. I can prove that fear, embarrassment, and pain lead to lies, even in pursuit of truth.
"Useful idiot"
@@faeancestor your opinion is ahead of this time
real exists, unicorns are imagination, just like megatron or optimus. yes on screens but no in actuality. so unicorns do exist as imagination and yes the non existent apple exists but not really.
I believe if something interacts with its surroundings, then it exists. Taking your example of two green apples, the real one reflects green light while absorbing red light. On the other hand, the non existent green apple does not.
The dream-apple is not a real apple. It is a real dream-apple.
Why not make a video that takes "Reality" as a proper name rather than the mere nominalisation of "real" where you merely aim to identify the solution to "x is real if and only if...". What is Reality, then?
G. E. Moore gets another kick from Kane. ... kicking fish in a barrel really.
"THIS IS ABOUT THE EXISTENCE OF JEHOVAH GOD ALMIGHTY."(9)(QUEEN)
17:30
What is common sense?
Can you do a video about trans 🏳️⚧️
Already done!
ruclips.net/video/uzPFg-1g5pI/видео.html
@@KaneB thanks 🙏 love your stuff been watching you since the beginning basically
But everything is a figment of the mind, and some of those things are manifest (exist) and others are not.
So, existence is a property of mental concepts that we've created in our minds.
I would say that "realness" is property of mental concepts that we've created in our minds, specifically the property which allows us to distinguish between memory and imagination, which would otherwise appear to us to be the same thing. I think that there are physical substances that are not a figment of the mind, but that we cannot perceive these, we only perceive our mental representations of them, and I think that "existence" should be used to refer to these physical substances.
get real
I see what you did there
When Philosophy become so lame and useless, you get this kind of contents.
I love uselessness, I consider uselessness a theoretical virtue
Mfs be like: philosophy is only useful when Richard Dawkins
@@Jorge-xf9gs is there a corrolation between truth and usefulness? I would suggest that truth can sometimes impede usefulness. If that's the case, why would we use usefulness as a measure of truth?
disagree that "minds" are part of reality, but they do exist