What hasn't been established is that the prior data corresponds with actual reality. You can't avoid taking the reality of reality as an axiom if you're doing science, because that is something that can't be tested. I take the reality of reality as an axiom, but I KNOW it's an axiom.

Has anyone defined what reality actually is? You will have to start with that.

Was it Poul Anderson who said that reality is what still exists when you stop believing in it?

(February 15, 2013 at 12:19 pm)Zone Wrote: Has anyone defined what reality actually is? You will have to start with that.

This is a trap and a loaded question. It allows you to mentally dodge any questioning our challenge. It allows you to assume and shift the burden of proof.

Point of view and flawed human perceptions do not constitute something being true.

When you have multiple claims that compete we have only one universal tool to gauge reality to the most accurate data we have.

Again this is trying to trap us into mental masturbation, and the only way you go beyond mental masturbation is to put those competing claims to a test and have them peer reviewed under the same set of standards. Otherwise we all get to claim our own realities and make whatever shit up we want.

People over-complicating very simple matters.

Everything exists. Everything is real.

The only applicable question is in 'how'. Now there's some interesting philosophical discussions

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(February 15, 2013 at 12:27 pm)Brian37 Wrote:

(February 15, 2013 at 12:19 pm)Zone Wrote: Has anyone defined what reality actually is? You will have to start with that.

This is a trap and a loaded question. It allows you to mentally dodge any questioning our challenge. It allows you to assume and shift the burden of proof.

What you quoted wasn't a loaded question at all

Might be a trap though...

(February 15, 2013 at 12:29 pm)Violet Lilly Blossom Wrote: Everything exists. Everything is real.

Or that.

Violet Lilly Blossom Wrote:Everything exists. Everything is real.

Huh? No, and I am surprised to see you make such statement.

Superman for example only exists as fiction, but not as a scientific reality. Not everything is real. Human credulity is and the ability to belief false things is, but pink unicorns are not real. Women popping out of a man's rib is a real myth someone concocted but it is not a scientific reality, women do not pop out of men's ribs.

(February 15, 2013 at 12:37 pm)Brian37 Wrote:

Quote:Everything exists. Everything is real.

Huh? No, and I am surprised to see you make such statement.

Mmm? Yes, and it really shouldn't surprise you to see me state things as they are.

Quote:Superman for example only exists as fiction, but not as a scientific reality. Not everything is real. Human credulity is and the ability to belief false things is, but pink unicorns are not real.

Superman 'only' exists as fiction. What are the acting bits? Oh, here's your sentence boiled down sans-qualifiers or quantifiers: Superman exists. You just affirmed what I said, regardless of your intention.

I don't give a rat's ass how 'little' or 'much' or 'in how many varied ways' superman exists: you cannot deny that superman exists, because superman exists. I mean... sure, deny that everything exists. That's logical

Maybe you'd look more favorably upon 'human credibility' if it were revealed to you that you take *everything you believe* on faith... on justified beliefs of varying 'quality', 'extent', or various 'evidences' which you've also taken (if but upon conjecture) to be true. While you blindly argue that something doesn't exist on grounds of how you perceive it to exist... we'll be discussing things of any particular interest, such as 'what does that perception entail' or 'in what form does one's perception exist' or even the basic premise at the start of the whole damn thing and forgetting the silly question of whether or not we exist (we do): 'how/in-what-way do we exist? Are we fiction or non-fiction (what is fiction?), are we material or immaterial? ARE WE DREAMING?'

“I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?” ~ Chuang Tzu

Quote: Women popping out of a man's rib is a real myth someone concocted but it is not a scientific reality, women do not pop out of men's ribs.

If you define scientific/materialistic realities as the only ones which are... you have made the use of the term pointless as it has been used in this discussion.

So even if I give you a silly understanding of a word: it would stop being applicable

As they are, not how you want them to be. We are all entitled to our own opinions, not our own facts.

Uttering something does not prove anything except the ability to physically utter it. Otherwise Angelina Jolie is my wife, somehow I think you'd could bet a billion dollars against that claim and not worry about losing that bet.

You used the word "HOW" now why is that? Because HOW we determine facts is important. That does not mean we default to everything being true as a starting point first.

Otherwise we can make up whatever we want.

Violet Lilly Blossom Wrote:Everything exists. Everything is real.

But with what purpose do those things exist?
Why were they created?