Explain "fact checking", "brain washing", "dispelling illusions" without "reality"

[ygolo]

Explain "fact checking", "brain washing", "dispelling illusions" without "reality"

I have recently returned to thinking about reality and it's nature.

One challenge of thought I posed to myself was one I thought others may enjoy.

I have not yet been able to explain all these concepts, in a manner I find satisfying, without reference to "reality".

Fact checking
Brain washing
Dispelling illusions

Can one of you?

Although semantics are important here, simply replacing the word 'reality' with 'truth' or something like that is a cop out.

This thread is meant for people interested in improving their abilities to conceptualize, not just to play word games.

 

[Adam]

How one chooses to explain the three concepts is highly dependent on one's worldview; for example, people will disagree on what constitutes a fact and whether such a thing even exists. My attempt:

Fact checking

Matching statement to empirical data.

Brain washing

Depending on the context, it can either be blindness to the merits (and I daresay, superiority) of empiricism, or desiring the continuity of something which is detrimental to your own happiness and well-being. It can also be described as protecting yourself from cognitive dissonance by limiting the rate and degree to which you are willing to evaluate alternative ideas before discarding them.

Alternatively, the act of brain washing another individual is making him/her accept a set of ideas as truth, not by the merits of the ideas themselves, but rather the circumstances and methods used to impose them.

Dispelling illusions

Utilizing the full amount of information and knowledge at your disposal to compare your current belief with an alternative, which is more likely to be true? If the alternative comes out on top, you accept to have been believing in an illusion up until that point.

Illusion is a strong word, though. Could you expand a bit upon it?

You will notice that I have replaced reality with empiricism, and you might call this a cop-out, but it does not make sense to discuss the first point without including a reference to some notion of the "objective truth".

 

[Oaky]

Isn't reality the core premise of these concepts though? The anchor of them?

Like fact checking would be the segregation of fiction. Isn't 'fact' fairly synonymous with reality if reality is defined as truth?

For the explanation of brain washing I thought it would be something along the thoughts of formatting a thinking process of an individual to inject another. In a way, to add reality to this, a difference phrase would be initiated where for example:
Brainwashing a brainwashed person: <- premise holds reality as second use of 'brainwashed' indicates alteration from the reality anchor.
Brainwashing a person: <- doesn't need to hold an anchor on reality.

I may be missing things. Blind spots.

 

[ygolo]

[MENTION=21888]Adam[/MENTION] [MENTION=6071]Oaky[/MENTION]

Thanks for your responses. It seems like both of you are running into the same problems I did.

There are a lot of philosophical frameworks that deny objective truths (pragmatism for example).

But, what I was wondering was, if things like empiricism, valuing facts, resisting brainwashing, or dispelling illusions are possible without some notion of objective truths or reality.

Some people claim the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics requires abandoning the notion of objective reality. But I didn't see it as a requirement. It certainly allows for pragmatism, but I saw CI as a very flexible framework.

That led me to think about how a lack of belief in objective truth may change people's values regarding how to deal with things like facts and illusion.

 

[Bush]

Isn't reality the core premise of these concepts though? The anchor of them?

Good word: anchor.

Long and short, you've gotta anchor yourself to something in order for the notion of 'fact-checking' etc. to make any sense at all.

Which leads to:

Although semantics are important here, simply replacing the word 'reality' with 'truth' or something like that is a cop out.

What's the quality of that 'something'? Perhaps if not reality per se, then 'a sense of consistency that's as universal as possible'? Maybe, because, e.g.:

(pragmatism for example).

Even though pragmatism doesn't equate 'consistency' with 'reality', it does find 'consistency' useful.

I wonder whether our anchor is consistency.

 

[Mademoiselle]

Beautiful question.
Reality: Is sum of facts, that exists and we cannot change that by choosing not to believe in it.
Illusion: An incorrect image/thought that doesn’t actually exist.
Brain washing: the act of reprogramming a brain, is illegal, mostly to erase facts and create illusions.
I’ve tried my best to keep it simple.

 

[Electra2]

Don´t trust pure factś, listen to your emotions/impression/sesations as well, as they try to tell you something important about the situation. Listen to your gut. You realise something is wrong, what is it?
"The hardworking, efficiant, moneymaking person (with the cold eyes and seductive words); tried to make you buy their product even though you explained to them your finacial situation but they told you those caring people are taking atvantage of you; and you need to get in touch with your pride; and independece, and stick up for your self, fight for your rights, and buy their superiour product, since it is sooo beneficial to you (big lie) and will get you there in NO time!!" (huge lie from "money making machines people")

 

[Chthonic]

I have recently returned to thinking about reality and it's nature.

This thread is meant for people interested in improving their abilities to conceptualize, not just to play word games.

I'm not a realist so I can't play. Sorry.

But I'll leave you with this thought. If the only way to assess the veracity of reality is to compare it, to itself, then how useful is that anyway?

 

[ygolo]

Good word: anchor.

Long and short, you've gotta anchor yourself to something in order for the notion of 'fact-checking' etc. to make any sense at all.

Which leads to:

What's the quality of that 'something'? Perhaps if not reality per se, then 'a sense of consistency that's as universal as possible'? Maybe, because, e.g.:

Even though pragmatism doesn't equate 'consistency' with 'reality', it does find 'consistency' useful.

I wonder whether our anchor is consistency.

I was thinking along these lines myself. But, as I tried to highlight what this consistency was, the concept formed seemed like yet another version of corporeal reality.

Beautiful question.
Reality: Is sum of facts, that exists and we cannot change that by choosing not to believe in it.
Illusion: An incorrect image/thought that doesn’t actually exist.
Brain washing: the act of reprogramming a brain, is illegal, mostly to erase facts and create illusions.
I’ve tried my best to keep it simple.

This is the simple common sense perspective I keep returning to. The challenge is to find a viable alternative.

Don´t trust pure factś, listen to your emotions/impression/sesations as well, as they try to tell you something important about the situation. Listen to your gut. You realise something is wrong, what is it?
"The hardworking, efficiant, moneymaking person (with the cold eyes and seductive words); tried to make you buy their product even though you explained to them your finacial situation but they told you those caring people are taking atvantage of you; and you need to get in touch with your pride; and independece, and stick up for your self, fight for your rights, and buy their superiour product, since it is sooo beneficial to you (big lie) and will get you there in NO time!!" (huge lie from "money making machines people")

What is the difference between a lie and truth, if there's no truth? What is it that our feelings are distinguishing, wether rightly or wrongly, if only our own perspective is correct, and everyone else's wrong?

I'm not a realist so I can't play. Sorry.

But I'll leave you with this thought. If the only way to assess the veracity of reality is to compare it, to itself, then how useful is that anyway?

It seems like someone who's not a realist could play much better. It seems like you have the answer to my challenge already.

To answer your question, however, the device or machine you used to post your message, the networks that connected that object allowing it to be seen by others, the structure that you were in or on, the means of transportation for getting supplies there, were all based on a myriad of tests of reality with itself. If you don't find these things useful, I find that surprising.

I see value in the belief of non-corporeal reality. What I am struggling with is the lack of appreciation by many for facts, and a notion of reality that denies value in the things that people use every day, and usually, by extension, a lack of appreciation for those who toil most of their lives to bring these things into the reality that is denied.

 

[Mademoiselle]

This is the simple common sense perspective I keep returning to. The challenge is to find a viable alternative.

Straightly give me examples of what you cannot apply those lines above.

 

[Mole]

We routinely leave reality by suspending our disbelief when we see a movie, read a novel, take part in a religious ritual, appreciate art, or use mbti.

We suspend our disbelief by turning off our critical thinking, and turning on our imaginative thinking, where we experience our imagination almost as though it were real.

And it is this extraordinary ability to experience reality and the imagination in almost the same way that leads to the confusion between imagination and reality.

Here we routinely confuse our imaginative use of mbti with the reality of personality.

And typically it is this confusion between imagination and reality that is used by confidence men to manipulate us and trick us.

Our tragedy is that we want to be manipulated by confidence men and women.

 

[ygolo]

Straightly give me examples of what you cannot apply those lines above.

Although I am significantly more comfortable with it's weirdness now, and believe that the decoherence phenomena remove some of the obscurantist feelings of the Copenhagen Interpretation, quantum mechanics continues to not jive with my common sense.

We routinely leave reality by suspending our disbelief when we see a movie, read a novel, take part in a religious ritual, appreciate art, or use mbti.

We suspend our disbelief by turning off our critical thinking, and turning on our imaginative thinking, where we experience our imagination almost as though it were real.

And it is this extraordinary ability to experience reality and the imagination in almost the same way that leads to the confusion between imagination and reality.

Here we routinely confuse our imaginative use of mbti with the reality of personality.

And typically it is this confusion between imagination and reality that is used by confidence men to manipulate us and trick us.

Our tragedy is that we want to be manipulated by confidence men and women.

Well there's that. Our imagination is powerful, and can run away with us.

 

[ygolo]

I think people are still stuck in the philosophical framework of epistemology...forcing us to be either realists or idealists.

Might I offer semiotics as an alternative framework to break us out of this cognitive rut?

What is Semiotics?

I think I'll make a separate thread about it to keep this one on track.

 

[Mademoiselle]

Although I am significantly more comfortable with it's weirdness now, and believe that the decoherence phenomena remove some of the obscurantist feelings of the Copenhagen Interpretation, quantum mechanics continues to not jive with my common sense.

Quantum mechanics actually need a scientist to be improved.
So I guess we’ll have to wait tick tok tick tok…

 

[ygolo]

Quantum mechanics actually need a scientist to be improved.
So I guess we’ll have to wait tick tok tick tok…

What are we waiting for?

Are you saying scientists need to improve to improve humanity's understanding of the subject ?

Or that we need scientists to be involved to improve our discussion?

What I meant by "weirdness" are things like the results of the double slit experiment (individual "particles" acting as waves), the Uncertainty Principle and the Stern-Gerlach experiment (showing how measurement can alter what we are measuring in fundamental ways), the EPR paradox, Bell's inequality, and the GHZM experiment (showing entanglement of spatially separated particles).

We teach these things in undergraduate physics and chemistry. They aren't THAT complicated. Nevertheless, I would think that anyone who'd guess these things from their intuition are either working in th field, or lying about what their intuition told them.

 

[Mademoiselle]

What are we waiting for?

Are you saying scientists need to improve to improve humanity's understanding of the subject ?

Or that we need scientists to be involved to improve our discussion?

What I meant by "weirdness" are things like the results of the double slit experiment (individual "particles" acting as waves), the Uncertainty Principle and the Stern-Gerlach experiment (showing how measurement can alter what we are measuring in fundamental ways), the EPR paradox, Bell's inequality, and the GHZM experiment (showing entanglement of spatially separated particles).

We teach these things in undergraduate physics and chemistry. They aren't THAT complicated. Nevertheless, I would think that anyone who'd guess these things from their intuition are either working in th field, or lying about what their intuition told them.

What I mean, is that the process of learning a subject can sometimes require time.
…Simply.
If you don’t believe it, then oneday you will.

 

[ygolo]

What I mean, is that the process of learning a subject can sometimes require time.
…Simply.
If you don’t believe it, then oneday you will.

Well certainly things take time to learn.

But the trained intuition of a pro(which I am not, here) is quite different from the common sense form of intuition .

Most people(usually children) when they hear about even atoms being made of electrons and a nucleus reflexively think of it as another solar system.

When I'm talking about common sense, I am referring to this reflexive unexamined form of intuition.

 

[Mademoiselle]

Well certainly things take time to learn.

But the trained intuition of a pro(which I am not, here) is quite different from the common sense form of intuition .

Most people(usually children) when they hear about even atoms being made of electrons and a nucleus reflexively think of it as another solar system.

When I'm talking about common sense, I am referring to this reflexive unexamined form of intuition.

Yeah keep on talking, That’s sweet.
It’s like a flash back of my thoughts a year ago when I’d my brain was exposed to hardcore physics at young age.

 

[ygolo]

Yeah keep on talking, That’s sweet.
It’s like a flash back of my thoughts a year ago when I’d my brain was exposed to hardcore physics at young age.

What happened?

Edit: I may be misinterpreting, but I feel I may have offended you somehow. This was not my intention.

 

[Mademoiselle]

What happened?

Edit: I may be misinterpreting, but I feel I may have offended you somehow. This was not my intention.

No you have not.
What happened in my case, is that after considering how informations and subjects are unlimited, and we’re limited.
And realising that I’d need that subject learnt few years later, I’d give it time to improve until I can think about it again.
Right now all those thoughts are frozen.
I’ve reached to some basic conclusions, I’d mention few for you.
-Every creation -apart from the creator- comes in pairs, dichotomies.
-Perfection is balance.
-This universe is moving one cycle after getting pushed by a single force.
-Yes, it means we’re actually messed up version of a perfect matter that is moving in the direction of perfection again.
-Chakras exist.
.
.
The rest of Quantium physics is all questionable as I’m not even sure of the construction of a single Atom.
But I know everything follows the basic rules, and whenever I find out I’d get even more impressed.