(September 12, 2014 at 12:00 am)sswhateverlove Wrote: Well, in this case, when it's being relied upon to confirm general relativity which is kind of important to our understanding of physics and the evolution of the universe. Also, astrophysicists are claiming "dark stuff" is going around us and through us all the time. They claim that "dark matter" has left "signs of passage" by bumping head on to the atomic nucleus of ordinary matter.

All of this I personally deem worthy of considering it a variable.

But what indication do you have that this stuff is acting as a variable in any given experiment? Because if you don't have that, what you've got is an assumption without evidence. Not very scientific.

(September 11, 2014 at 11:57 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:

(September 11, 2014 at 11:03 pm)sswhateverlove Wrote: Reality being real cannot be proven by the scientific method, we either trust that or we don't. Science tells us sense receptors respond to vibrations and give us an experience. It really doesn't clarify anything about what "is". We have to take it as a given to move on with trying to understand everything else.

Reality as in a person's experiences are real. Distinguishing between an subjective or objective experience--or reality--however, is what the scientific method attempts to establish and has proven itself quite adept at doing so. If I hallucinate and see what I take to be the Virgin Mary blowing me kisses, that is a very real experience for me, in a subjective sense, but not something from which we can draw a particular conclusion about objective reality other than what the sciences have already discovered in terms of mental processes.

Thought experiment- We're in the "Matrix". We're doing experiments and forming opinions based on the outcomes. Would our conclusions be considered observations of subjective or objective reality?

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(September 12, 2014 at 12:07 am)Esquilax Wrote:

(September 12, 2014 at 12:00 am)sswhateverlove Wrote: Well, in this case, when it's being relied upon to confirm general relativity which is kind of important to our understanding of physics and the evolution of the universe. Also, astrophysicists are claiming "dark stuff" is going around us and through us all the time. They claim that "dark matter" has left "signs of passage" by bumping head on to the atomic nucleus of ordinary matter.

All of this I personally deem worthy of considering it a variable.

But what indication do you have that this stuff is acting as a variable in any given experiment? Because if you don't have that, what you've got is an assumption without evidence. Not very scientific.

Is the fact that it supposedly makes up a majority of all that is (96%) not enough to assume that is should be considered a variable? Seems sort of naive.

(September 12, 2014 at 12:07 am)sswhateverlove Wrote: Thought experiment- We're in the "Matrix". We're doing experiments and forming opinions based on the outcomes. Would our conclusions be considered observations of subjective or objective reality?

They would be observations of objective reality so long as the conditions of our knowledge didn't depend on any singular observer.

lol, getting philosophical with Shonuff. This should be interesting.

(September 12, 2014 at 12:07 am)sswhateverlove Wrote: Is the fact that it supposedly makes up a majority of all that is (96%) not enough to assume that is should be considered a variable? Seems sort of naive.

Air suffuses the majority of experiments. It's always there, it's ever present in science, but it doesn't necessarily entail that air is actively interfering with the results of the experiment. Volume does not equal interference, especially without a single shred of evidence.

(September 12, 2014 at 12:11 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:

(September 12, 2014 at 12:07 am)sswhateverlove Wrote: Thought experiment- We're in the "Matrix". We're doing experiments and forming opinions based on the outcomes. Would our conclusions be considered observations of subjective or objective reality?

They would be observations of objective reality so long as the conditions of our knowledge didn't depend on any singular observer.

"Objective reality is how things really are."

So, you think that while in the Matrix we are capable of perceiving things as they "really are"?

If I may turn the question around sswhateverlove; imagine Morpheus called you at work tomorrow and somehow transported you outside the Matrix so that you became aware that everything you had up until that point believed was objective reality was now obviously nothing more than a computer simulation. Suppose you spent a few hours there and then found yourself immediately waking up in your bedroom, back in the Matrix. How would you know that had been anything more than a subjective experience? Wouldn't you need to run similar experiments outside of the Matrix to the ones you originally proposed?

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(September 12, 2014 at 12:20 am)sswhateverlove Wrote:

(September 12, 2014 at 12:11 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: They would be observations of objective reality so long as the conditions of our knowledge didn't depend on any singular observer.

"Objective reality is how things really are."

So, you think that while in the Matrix we are capable of perceiving things as they "really are"?

I'm saying any distinction between objective and subjective reality that a person could ever hope to possibly make wouldn't be effected either way.

(September 12, 2014 at 12:20 am)sswhateverlove Wrote: So, you think that while in the Matrix we are capable of perceiving things as they "really are"?

Of course, since in that scenario we wouldn't know we were in the Matrix. So even if all our perceptions were ultimately false, they would still be true for us. When we have corroboration with other people's perceptions, then we can start to form a workable model of reality.

(September 12, 2014 at 12:25 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: If I may turn the question around sswhateverlove; imagine Morpheus called you at work tomorrow and somehow transported you outside the Matrix so that you became aware that everything you had up until that point believed was objective reality was now obviously nothing more than a computer simulation. Suppose you spent a few hours there and then found yourself immediately waking up in your bedroom, back in the Matrix. How would you know that had been anything more than a subjective experience? Wouldn't you need to run similar experiments outside of the Matrix to the ones you originally proposed?

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(September 12, 2014 at 12:20 am)sswhateverlove Wrote: "Objective reality is how things really are."

So, you think that while in the Matrix we are capable of perceiving things as they "really are"?

I'm saying any distinction between objective and subjective reality that a person could ever hope to possibly make wouldn't be effected either way.

In response to your thought experiment, I guess I would never know if any of the experiences that I had were objective experiences. Waking up, in that sense, wouldn't imply anything other than a different reality that could be subjective or objective. In my thought experiment I was giving you the fact that it was the "Matrix". In yours, waking up could also be another "Matrix", right?

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(September 12, 2014 at 12:31 am)Stimbo Wrote:

(September 12, 2014 at 12:20 am)sswhateverlove Wrote: So, you think that while in the Matrix we are capable of perceiving things as they "really are"?

Of course, since in that scenario we wouldn't know we were in the Matrix. So even if all our perceptions were ultimately false, they would still be true for us. When we have corroboration with other people's perceptions, then we can start to form a workable model of reality.

So, a group hallucination/delusion is still objective reality?

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(September 12, 2014 at 12:20 am)Esquilax Wrote:

(September 12, 2014 at 12:07 am)sswhateverlove Wrote: Is the fact that it supposedly makes up a majority of all that is (96%) not enough to assume that is should be considered a variable? Seems sort of naive.

Air suffuses the majority of experiments. It's always there, it's ever present in science, but it doesn't necessarily entail that air is actively interfering with the results of the experiment. Volume does not equal interference, especially without a single shred of evidence.

I think many experiments would have (and do) account for the properties of the air if it's relevant.

In this case, we don't even know enough about the variable to conclude whether it's relevant to control for, even if we could.

(September 12, 2014 at 12:40 am)sswhateverlove Wrote: So, a group hallucination/delusion is still objective reality?

Where did anyone mention group hallucination? I explored the 'thought experiment' you yourself proposed. Please don't twist my words to suit your own purpose. It's astonishingly dishonest of you and making me not want to be nice to you or respond to you anymore.