Define "Real"

Adder wrote: I guess its causative footprint is a measure of how real something is...

could you elaborate on that a little bit?

what do you mean when you say "causative footprint" and is there a way to/how do we recognize one?

OB1Shinobi wrote:

Adder wrote: I guess its causative footprint is a measure of how real something is...

could you elaborate on that?

what is a "causative footprint" and is there a way to/how do we recognize one?

It's impact. The chain of causality backwards and the net cast (into potential) forward, through time. Surrounded by the fog of information vulnerabilities. I'd probably head off into thinking about Buddhist 'dependent origination' if I wanted to mull over it.

If its not apparent then I'd have to guess circumstantial knowledge is probably the best way to recognize a chain of causation, which of course requires an inherent capacity to divine truth from falsehood, accuracy from misrepresentation etc. That's a bit of a non-answer there
:silly:
Maybe the trick is being able to quickly model different iterations of likely outcomes given insufficient information to best shape efforts to refine the information set eg. I'd like to imagine that inspiration and gut feelings come from the same thing happening in the subconscious.

Real is what ever you want to make it. It's a matter of perspective, position, perception and desire (you find what you're looking for).

A question I'm thinking is: How much of my real overlaps with others? What do we have in common? I think that would be a values discussion.

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: I am not saying that a rock is more real than courage for example. I don't put a weight to it in this way. Instead I'm saying that a rock exists and courage does not.

so, to be real is not the same as to exist?

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: I think you have missed half the mysticism of the human experience in your world view. I don't use a "map" to navigate my world.

we all do, you also
the "conceptual map that we use to navigate life" is essentially all those things we believe to be true about ourselves and reality

you cannot not have a map, actually

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: A map is a representation or symbol of some other form in reality.

heres a very broad map of your existential reality

you were born to your parents, in the culture and time you were born into
you have such and such an IQ
you have a basic temperamant of such and such,
your attachment style is such and such
you are _ yrs old, __ ft tall and have __ percent body fat. you can run __ distance in __time
your health is __
you dont know it, but youre going to die at __ on __
you have __ education and __ kinds of marketable skills
you currently make __ amount of money
youre aspiring to __

all of those things constitute your existential terrain
the "conceptual map" would be the things which you know or believe about the terrain
theres a lot more that is important, but thats an overview of how it works

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: If a map exists it should state that I follow the path of "x" and "y" and "z" and eureka! I get to Wisdom! Do you really feel that you can just "document" wisdom in this way?

well what do you think Jedi Training is?
or any other development program for that matter?
every choice we make is a path to somewhere, existentially speaking, and certain kinds of choices consistently take us to certain existential realms, if you would like to reach the realm of love and courage, you should take note of the existential paths taken by those for whom love and courage are familiar terrain

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: Because wisdom or courage are not real they cant be quantified in this way.

well now thats your assumption but its not something that you can prove
in fact its probably basically false

researchers have been steadily improving measurement methodologies for internal experiences for quite a while

there is still a lot of work to be done but its abctually not reasonable to say that its impossible

you might look at the "big five" model of personality traits for example

or measuring happiness

here is a longer read, from National Center for Biotechnology Information, titled Measures of emotion: A review

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: A man is walking on the beach and sees another man drowning in the ocean. The man on the beach cant stand to see the man in the water struggling to stay alive and so decides to rescue the drowning man even though the man on the beach can barely swim himself and does not have any sort of flotation device. He goes out into the water to rescue the drowning man but because he can barely swim the panicked drowning man drags him down and both men drown. Was what the man on the beach did an act of courage or an act of foolishness?

before even looking at the story we would have to have as precise definitions for "courageous" and "foolish" we we could muster

even with that, your story doesnt tell us much of the subjective understanding of the "hero"

if he felt himself to be invincible, maybe because he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol, then what he did was more foolish courageous

if this was the first time he had ever even seen the ocean and didnt understand that swimming is a skill, then it wasnt foolish, only ignorant

if he knew that he couldnt swim very well and that he didnt have a flotation device, but he understood the he was the only one around and the other person was going to die without his help, then he was more courageous than foolish

he might not have been foolish at all, he may have known very well that the chances werent very good, but for any number of reasons decided that the right thing for him to do in that moment was to go into the water and do his best

courageous people have a habit of doing that
unfortunately, sometimes our best isnt good enough

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: Well for each individual they come from the mind in the form of a brain state. We first have a thought about the action before we judge or perform the action. The action is evoked by the previously held thought and so "courage" is not a physical action. The physical action is a result of the thought.

exactly, (sort of) and now you understand why e. rodger was already malevolent before he actually started shooting

what you call "brain state" is just your particular phrasing of what i was calling "internal state of Being"

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: So is a thought physical or otherwise "Real"? Well that's the real question and there are several different philosophical positions about this. Without getting to far down the rabbit hole here, I happen to ascribe to a position pretty close to property dualism. Basically that is the position that there is only one single physical reality but within that reality certain functions can have two sets of properties, namely physical and mental. I believe consciousness is not a single thing that can be pinpointed in the brain but is a collection of a multitude of evolved processes all functioning in concert together and as a result produce a causally emergent state we experience as consciousness.

Consciousness is a non-physical set of mental properties, such as beliefs, desires and emotions that inhere in the physical substance of our brain. These things are "true" for us as we experience them as phenomena but they don't really exist in reality. Our perceptions of brain properties are essentially spatial while our perceptions of consciousness are not. Because of this disparity it makes it impossible for our minds to ever truly understand what consciousness or "non-reality" is. It would be analogous to a mouse trying to understand quantum physics. But that does not mean we will not try anyway. And so there are differences of opinion on the subject of "reality". However for me Its like trying to fit the ocean into a pop bottle.

well, all of that is fair enough
no real disagreement

i do find it more useful to count anything that is "real" as also "existing" because i dont limit "existence" to "physicality"

if you find it useful to make that division then thats your choice

id hope that you would appreciate that those intangibles which you say "dont exist" - things such as courage and love and fear and malevolence, affect our lives, arguably more than the purely physical components of reality like pebbles or sand
well sunlight and food are pretty important too lol im not saying the physical matter DOESNT MATTER

as our lives progress, we all have to cross certain existential landscapes
many of them are common to all of us
my hope is that our maps account for those landscapes effectively