jamest wrote:Y'all must think I'm a very big dummy to think I don't understand the reasons we have/use to differentiate between 'reality' and a hallucination. That's not what the issue is at all.

chairman bill wrote:

jamest wrote:... most people seem to have the same persistent experience [of the world], but the point is that it's still an experience, as is an hallucination.

But the hallucination is a wholly internal event. If I feel a chill wind, I can mention this and others will concur that a cold wind is blowing. If I see a white horse on the hill, I can point it out and others can tell me they see it too. If I say I've just heard Quetzalcoatl speaking to me, others are likely to back away, with a "Oh really?", as one of them calls the men-in-white-coats ... Though the hallucination is an experience (in the sense that the person hallucinating experiences the hallucination), it is quite different from the shared experience of a cold wind (which could be measured with anemometer & thermometer). If you really can't / won't see the difference, then we may as well stop the discussion 'cos it's going nowhere.

C'mon Bill, that there are differences between normal/common experience and hallucinations is just obvious. I'd have to be an idiot to contest that fact. But I'm not contesting that fact.

What I'm trying to say is that the reasons which differentiate normality from hallucinations do not suffice to state:

a) What is 'real'.
b) What is not real.

'The world' is a persistent, orderly and seemingly shared experience. Yet the persistence of an experience is not indicative of reality since there are people with chronic (persistent) experiential conditions which are nevertheless deemed hallucinatory and/or delusional.

Also, the orderliness of an experience is not indicative of reality since orderliness can be evidently manifested in fiction. Consider unicorns, for example. Fictional entities? Yes, since there are none to be seen. Mere phantoms of our imagination. But had evolution taken a different turn, or if we become adept at manipulating genes, then unicorns would/will be as 'real' as pigs. In other words, reality transcends what can be seen. Reality [therefore] amounts to potentiality, even within the laws of physics (which, it should be noted - after the advent of QM - show the world to be essentially indeterminable). Indeed, in our own case, reality is seen before it is observed. That is, our imagination dictates much of what can be experienced (for example: mobile phones; the internet; pens; unicorns). This accentuates the ineffectiveness of observation as a means to discerning what is actually real.

Also, abstract entities, such as words or numbers, have a relational orderliness. Yet words and numbers do not actually exist, as we know. Hence, orderliness itself is obviously not a clue to the ontology of the things embraced within its regulatory framework.

That leaves 'shared experience'. What can we say of that? Well, I can tell you that every thought and opinion I have ever encountered from other entities within my dreams have been a testimony to the reality of those dreams. For example, the mermaid I encountered last night seemed to believe she was a mermaid, as did I. That is, 'she' appeared to be sharing the same experience as myself. Does this then make my dream a reality? Of course not. But why not? In my experience of the world I encounter beings who, like my mermaid, appear to be sharing the same experience as myself. It's only when I 'wake up' and the dream loses its persistence that I realise that the dream wasn't real. Yet I've already explained why the persistence of an experience does not suffice to earmark it as 'real'.

So, now what? I'm fucked, that's what. I cannot rely upon persistence, orderliness, observation nor sharedness, to verify that anything I've experienced is real-in-itself (such that it exists independently of experience).

What [then] of science, brains and drugs? Bill rightly-said that drugs can affect what we experience. Yet the drugs too, not least 'brains', are all components of my experience. Indeed, my brain-states are apparently indicative of my experience: brain state xyz is commensurate with 'normality' whilst brain-state zyx is commensurate with Wonderland. Yet how do we know that state xyz mirrors 'reality'? Because its the 'normal' state of brains!!! Well, if we were all experiencing Wonderland then the normal state of brains would be zyx, so the normal state of brains is metaphysically irrelevant.

I'm trying to get you guys to look beyond the bleedin' obvious, since it's bleedin' obvious that the bleedin' obvious does not suffice to summarily disregard NDE's, God, unicorns, or whatever. I myself have never had an NDE, but I did have a couple of OBEs during my teens and an auditory encounter with a Gaelic 'ghost' besides Loch Ness, about 15ish years ago. I have to admit, these experiences were as 'real' as anything else I've ever experienced. If that makes me a weirdo, then so be it.

SpeedOfSound wrote:
So why do you think knowing what is 'real' in your parlance has anything to do with it?

jamest wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:
So why do you think knowing what is 'real' in your parlance has anything to do with it?

Because 'reality' pertains to existence. Whether God or unicorns exist has nothing to do with whether they have been observed/experienced, because the observation/experience of something is not synonymous with that thing's existence. Similarly, an absence of experience [of some conceptualised thing] is not synonymous with an absence of its reality.

jamest wrote:... 'The world' is a persistent, orderly and seemingly shared experience. Yet the persistence of an experience is not indicative of reality since there are people with chronic (persistent) experiential conditions which are nevertheless deemed hallucinatory and/or delusional.

Also, the orderliness of an experience is not indicative of reality since orderliness can be evidently manifested in fiction. Consider unicorns, for example. Fictional entities? Yes, since there are none to be seen. Mere phantoms of our imagination. But had evolution taken a different turn, or if we become adept at manipulating genes, then unicorns would/will be as 'real' as pigs. In other words, reality transcends what can be seen.

Reality [therefore] amounts to potentiality, even within the laws of physics (which, it should be noted - after the advent of QM - show the world to be essentially indeterminable). Indeed, in our own case, reality is seen before it is observed. That is, our imagination dictates much of what can be experienced (for example: mobile phones; the internet; pens; unicorns). This accentuates the ineffectiveness of observation as a means to discerning what is actually real.

Also, abstract entities, such as words or numbers, have a relational orderliness. Yet words and numbers do not actually exist, as we know. Hence, orderliness itself is obviously not a clue to the ontology of the things embraced within its regulatory framework.

That leaves 'shared experience'. What can we say of that? Well, I can tell you that every thought and opinion I have ever encountered from other entities within my dreams have been a testimony to the reality of those dreams. For example, the mermaid I encountered last night seemed to believe she was a mermaid, as did I. That is, 'she' appeared to be sharing the same experience as myself. Does this then make my dream a reality? Of course not. But why not? In my experience of the world I encounter beings who, like my mermaid, appear to be sharing the same experience as myself. It's only when I 'wake up' and the dream loses its persistence that I realise that the dream wasn't real. Yet I've already explained why the persistence of an experience does not suffice to earmark it as 'real'.

So, now what? I'm fucked, that's what. I cannot rely upon persistence, orderliness, observation nor sharedness, to verify that anything I've experienced is real-in-itself (such that it exists independently of experience).

What [then] of science, brains and drugs? Bill rightly-said that drugs can affect what we experience. Yet the drugs too, not least 'brains', are all components of my experience. Indeed, my brain-states are apparently indicative of my experience: brain state xyz is commensurate with 'normality' whilst brain-state zyx is commensurate with Wonderland. Yet how do we know that state xyz mirrors 'reality'? Because its the 'normal' state of brains!!! Well, if we were all experiencing Wonderland then the normal state of brains would be zyx, so the normal state of brains is metaphysically irrelevant.

I'm trying to get you guys to look beyond the bleedin' obvious, since it's bleedin' obvious that the bleedin' obvious does not suffice to summarily disregard NDE's, God, unicorns, or whatever. I myself have never had an NDE, but I did have a couple of OBEs during my teens and an auditory encounter with a Gaelic 'ghost' beside Loch Ness, about 15ish years ago. I have to admit, these experiences were as 'real' as anything else I've ever experienced. If that makes me a weirdo, then so be it.

jamest wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:So why do you think knowing what is 'real' in your parlance has anything to do with it?

Because 'reality' pertains to existence. Whether God or unicorns exist has nothing to do with whether they have been observed/experienced, because the observation/experience of something is not synonymous with that thing's existence. Similarly, an absence of experience [of some conceptualised thing] is not synonymous with an absence of its reality.

jamest wrote:What I'm trying to say is that the reasons which differentiate normality from hallucinations do not suffice to state:

a) What is 'real'.
b) What is not real.

SpeedOfSound wrote:If your buddy has a serious auto accident and cracks his skull on the windshield and for the next weeks becomes convinced that he is Osama Bin Laden what is the likely assumption about his convictions?

Does it depend at all on whether he really really is Bin Laden? Is that the first thing that you would check?

Shrunk wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:If your buddy has a serious auto accident and cracks his skull on the windshield and for the next weeks becomes convinced that he is Osama Bin Laden what is the likely assumption about his convictions?

Does it depend at all on whether he really really is Bin Laden? Is that the first thing that you would check?

I would check whether they were still offering that $25 million dollar reward for Bin Laden's capture. Then I'd hire jamest to argue that I should collect it. I wonder if he would take the case?