"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”
Great quote.
I've always liked this one:
"I substitute your view of reality for my own."
This is true in so many ways. The world as I see it, is not what it is: at most, it is reality, as perceived by my senses, processed by my brain. Which are different from someone else's.
So even if that underlying reality is the same (the simplest assumption), then your view & my view of it are different.
This holds even in science: if 2 scientists take a measurement from the same object, using 2 different instruments, what they're recording is not the object's state, but its effect on the instrument measuring it. Worse: not even that, but the state of that instrument, as perceived by the scientist's senses & processed by their brain. Worse: that processing converted back into words, or writings, and perceived by someone else hearing or reading those.
Now of course science is extremely good at making such measurements match. 2 Scientists may read the same instrument, or each other's. One may take the scientist out of the equation by having the instrument record directly. But in this case it's 'the instrument's view of reality' that it records. You have replaced a scientist + their instrument with an instrument alone. An experiment may be set up such, that [whatever is measured] & instrument measuring it, are considered to be the same. But it doesn't do away with the fundamental problem: reality passing through layers & layers of filtering and perception.
That is: if underlying reality is the same for all of us. Occam's razor would say so, and it seems very likely, but again this is fundamentally an assumption.
That said: what most of us can agree on after objective measurements using well designed instruments, photographs, comparing notes etc, is good enough for me. When I walk through a forest & smell the air, feel free to perceive that forest in whatever is your view of reality. Just don't try to convince me that forest isn't there or doesn't have a smell. I'll see a doctor when I think my eyes, nose or brain isn't working properly, thank you very much!
Reality is what people with power and influence agree it is.
Sometimes - as in science - many of those people are trying to understand it in good faith. The output is still subjective in the sense that it's filtered through the limitations of human perception and cognition. But it's reliable and consistent for most humans.
Sometimes - as in politics, religion, and economics - "reality" is a story told by actors with vested interests, usually promoted for their own benefit.
>Reality is what people with power and influence agree it is.
The Great Heresiarchs of Phantaz agreed that the binding of men to Earth was such that the rational mind would allow one to be free of it, and to defy even gravity if such was the desire.
Confirmed in the correctness of their philosophy they walked as a group off the great cliff of Meresyp.
Unfortunately their ideas did not die with them, for ideas are immortal whereas men are not.
Great quote.
I've always liked this one:
"I substitute your view of reality for my own."
This is true in so many ways. The world as I see it, is not what it is: at most, it is reality, as perceived by my senses, processed by my brain. Which are different from someone else's.
So even if that underlying reality is the same (the simplest assumption), then your view & my view of it are different.
This holds even in science: if 2 scientists take a measurement from the same object, using 2 different instruments, what they're recording is not the object's state, but its effect on the instrument measuring it. Worse: not even that, but the state of that instrument, as perceived by the scientist's senses & processed by their brain. Worse: that processing converted back into words, or writings, and perceived by someone else hearing or reading those.
Now of course science is extremely good at making such measurements match. 2 Scientists may read the same instrument, or each other's. One may take the scientist out of the equation by having the instrument record directly. But in this case it's 'the instrument's view of reality' that it records. You have replaced a scientist + their instrument with an instrument alone. An experiment may be set up such, that [whatever is measured] & instrument measuring it, are considered to be the same. But it doesn't do away with the fundamental problem: reality passing through layers & layers of filtering and perception.
That is: if underlying reality is the same for all of us. Occam's razor would say so, and it seems very likely, but again this is fundamentally an assumption.
That said: what most of us can agree on after objective measurements using well designed instruments, photographs, comparing notes etc, is good enough for me. When I walk through a forest & smell the air, feel free to perceive that forest in whatever is your view of reality. Just don't try to convince me that forest isn't there or doesn't have a smell. I'll see a doctor when I think my eyes, nose or brain isn't working properly, thank you very much!