Define "Real"

from another discussion...

...courage...love...integrity...are real, and fundamental to human interaction

No actually those things are not real... These are...a paradigm we made up to classify a family of thoughts and actions, nothing more.

ok so i know that we basically take the debate format in these conversations, where each of us is "on a side" and then the "point of the game" is to "win"

and i present myself in that format often, simply because i dont usually find it all that worthwhile to post a reply that amounts to "yes i agree"
sometimes maybe, but for the most part its the things that i disagree with which i am most likely to respond to, so the "debate" is just the natural consequence of that

the problem with the debate format is that people are often more motivated to win the debate than to "win" by just exploring ideas and reaching a greater depth of understanding
whatever increase of understanding happens is almost in spite of the debate rather than as a consequence of it

i preface with all of that because i dont really know how to make my response to the above quote without it seeming a debate or a challenge
"challenge" in the sense of "reach the highest level you are able to" is great, but its usually felt more as "defend yourself from attack" and thats not what i mean here, and i want to express that before moving on

so its expressed, and now im moving on lol

hypothetically speaking, things can be divided in potentially infinite ways
the way i am about to divide the sentence is not the only way that it can be divided, but it is A way and it reveals something useful to the discussion

the sentence or idea "those things (love, integrity, and courage) are not real... These are...a paradigm we made up to classify a family of thoughts and actions" can be basically divided into
1) asserion
those things are not real
and
2) an elaboration on, or support for the assertion
"These are...a paradigm we made up to classify a family of thoughts and actions"

well, the elaboration disproves the assertion
the "family of thoughts and actions" exist as observable and experienced components of reality: thats why we made up words to classify them
if they didnt exist, we could not classify them

so thats a kind of formal / or technical / or semantical critique of the sentence itself (i learned everything that i know from youtube videos and internet memes, so i have no idea what the "proper" terminology is here) :laugh:

but my real reaction to the idea that was presented above came in three "blocks" so to speak

first


second


and most especially, the heart of it all lol


in the general sense, i am curious what people mean when they say "real" ?

does it mean "an object you can touch"?
or something more?
what does "real" mean?

What is real? As defined by our friend Webster, a simple definition would be actually existing or happening: not imaginary; not fake, false, or artificial; important and deserving to be regarded or treated in a serious way. The full definition is long, and covers a myriad of additional things that could be real or ways to use the word.

Okay, boring…

Real, as in the way I believe it is used most often in the communication of ideas, is being able to be experienced. Can I recognize it with some level of perception? See, taste, smell, hear and feel. Can I observe its effects on the world around me?

So is courage, love and integrity real? I can feel each of them when they occur… I can see their effects on others and the world around me… well, they seem real to me. At least as “real” as air, gravity or the Force.

But, I probably believe many things are real that others may not. That’s okay with me. I don’t need someone else’s experience to validate my own. Nor do I require that others believe in things they can’t see or maybe haven’t experienced. And even if they have experienced them they can still choose to believe those things are real. At least not real as I believe them to be. Just as grass does not need people to believe in it to exist; I don’t think any of these things needs people’s belief in how real they are to be real and play a role in each of our lives. No matter what others may label them.

I guess that’s really all I have to say on the whole thing. :blink:

:laugh:

the definition of the word is an important step. (i dont think its boring wescli )

in addition to wescli's "beeing able to be experienced" thought:
if two persons are in the same room and both are naked, it might be that one thinks it is colld and one that it is warm. but what is it? the perception makes the "reality" again in this case.
if both persons would tell the story of that room their friends there would be 2 different storys, both real.


ob1... so...
i think you are still seeing the word real as something wich is defined and mesurable. but those words are man made symbols. our use of language to make sense of our suroundings is a wired thing to understand and i think you have to understand thinking itself.
there is a really good podcast by radiolab on thinking without words and so on.. it might help
without this thinking mind there is no "reality".


but back into our thinking mind:
the word love for example. it is not the same for everybody. it is a group of feelings described in one word.
(like romantic love, mother-child love, love of one self, ...) all those thing are "real" because you can feel them. but different persons feel different or might not feel em at all (some persons are for example less aable to feel pain as well)
so there is no definded thing wich is real because we make things real. but yeah, if they are real to us, they are "real".

in the end i would say both quotes are real. even if they say something total opposite.

So, Wescli and Heut. You two kinda are blowing my concepts of reality out of the water right now, haha. I suppose I have always just never questioned the whole idea of "real" as just being something that you can prove to be universally true though measurable means and such. However; you two are starting to make me realize I've been kinda blind there. I do, of course, have a question though...

If we delve into the idea that "reality" is subjective then is there truly even a point to using the word? If the results of how one interpenetrates something defines the reality of said person then what makes "reality" different than "belief"? For example, lets say I put a bag of garbage on my front porch every night and in the morning I wake up and the bag is torn open and garbage is everywhere (no I don't know why I keep putting it out there if it just makes a mess everyday but just roll with it). Based off of some small scratch marks on the porch and the fact that what was torn into was garbage I conclude that a raccoon is getting into the garbage. However, in truth it is just some annoying kid coming through every night and making a mess at my expense. Does the fact that I believe wholeheartedly, based on my own deductive reasoning and experience with the aftermath, that a raccoon is the one causing this mess... does that make the troublesome raccoon a part of my reality? Even when in "truth" there is no raccoon?

Maybe I'm just overthinking things here... but I'm interested in seeing what you have to say nonetheless.

KaKitsune wrote: Does the fact that I believe wholeheartedly, based on my own deductive reasoning and experience with the aftermath, that a raccoon is the one causing this mess... does that make the troublesome raccoon a part of my reality? Even when in "truth" there is no raccoon?

It's all irrelevant and inconsequential, until you decide to go out hunting raccoons to keep them away from your garbage.

mhh okay. so i think with your example the only "real" things, because observable, are that you see the torn open trashbag every morning. everything else is speculation on your side. you dont know if you idea is real. if you are sure your thoughts are real, without beeing able to step back and analyze them that they might not be, it would be something we call "delusional".
speculation and thoughts can be felt as very real by a person. like paranoia feels very real.

the definition of reality that it is obseravable and measurable is very helpful we need that here. but we shouldnt make the mistake to take that for the 100 percent reality. check this video and you might understand that a little better

"What is Real? (Plato's Allegory of the Cave) - 8-Bit Philosophy" on youtube (2:48min)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lVDaSgyi3xE

Heut wrote: "What is Real? (Plato's Allegory of the Cave) - 8-Bit Philosophy" on youtube (2:48min)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lVDaSgyi3xE

Ahh I see, yeah that does help. I suppose I was just kinda making assumptions and "blanket defining", if you will, a bunch of stuff there. Thanks! ^.^

I read a book once, I can't remember the author but he said there were things that were real, and things that were true. This clicked with me. Characters like Archie Bunker (for those who are older than dirt) are true, but they aren't real. This to me applied to things like the Bible. I think a lot of it is true, but not real. We can get truth from fiction a lot, from comics, from movies, poems. A lot of works of fiction I think bear this idea of being true, but being fiction aren't real. The truth of them, is why they leave an impact with us. We recognize those truths in them.

I guess its causative footprint is a measure of how real something is, but I'd still personally consider subjective reality as distinct from objective reality just for practical reasons - even though one is the vessel for knowing and acting in the other.

Using that, I'd probably define delusion as a measure of belief in contradiction between them, and perhaps insanity the measure of belief in a contradiction within one (or the other).... in terms of causality.
:blink:

Of course in dreams the whole concept of causality tends to go out the window half the time, but I guess that might be the point if its a maintenance type function to exercise parts of the brain which don't get much work in waking activity.

Wescli Wardest wrote: So is courage, love and integrity real? I can feel each of them when they occur… I can see their effects on others and the world around me… well, they seem real to me. At least as “real” as air, gravity or the Force.

Actually, "One of these things is not like the others, Can you guess which?" :silly: Air is made up of physical elements of nitrogen, oxygen and so forth. Gravity is one of the four basic forces of nature and its carried by physical particles called gravitons. But what is The Force made of? Is it physical? Who knows, but probably not since its never been detected.

Along those same lines courage love or integrity are not physical either. In addition, there is no question this fact will ever be overturned, making them also not real. Reality is the state of something as it "actually exists" not how it may appear or might be imagined. This is contrasted with the imaginary, delusional or abstract. Unicorns exist in our minds and yet they are not real. They are imaginary. Thoughts are the same way. We are each aware of our thoughts, so in that sense they appear real to us. And yet, our thoughts do not exist outside of our awareness. There is nowhere else where the thought that is appearing to you at this moment is actually occurring. They are abstract.

Ideas like courage love and integrity are also an abstraction. Abstractions are general rules and concepts that are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples. We see specific sorts of behavior in others and we tend to want to classify and group certain ones. For example we see examples of others making a choice and having a willingness to confront agony, pain, danger, uncertainty or intimidation and we hold those examples together in a paradigm called courage. The acts themselves are physical but the classification is not. Courage is nothing more than a symbol we use to represent a pattern we see in nature. It is simply an abstraction and so the concept of courage is not real.

Numbers are another thing that are not real. They are another paradigm we have created to represent patterns we see in nature. If all human thought went away those patterns would remain, however the paradigm of "numbers" would disappear.