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"Perception is reality"

Mole

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C'mon, science is based on reality not perception.

We perceive that the Sun goes round the Earth, but the reality is that the Earth goes round the Sun.

We perceive that our fate is written in the stars in astrology, while astronomy show us the reality that astrology is nonsense.

We perceive that alchemy could turn lead into gold, but the reality is that even chemisty can't turn lead into gold.

We perceive that MBTI is a personality test, but the reality is that MBTI has no more truth value than astrology.

So the interesting question arises - why do we want to deceive ourselves?

And the answer might be - it is left over from childhood.

All children go through a narcissistic phase where they need to be loved unconditionally, and if they are not love unconditionally at this time, they carry the longing over into adulthood.

So they believe in everything from astrology to MBTI to an Imaginary Friend.

Unfortunately reality contradicts their belief at every point so naturally they say, "The problem is not in me but in reality - if reality won't conform to my longing, so much the worse for reality".

So we delude ourselves into thinking that perception is reality.

But the reality is that it is no more than whistling in the dark for the unconditional love that was denied us as young children.
 

Fluffywolf

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Correct Victor,

But the reality we mention in this thread, the absolute reality. The big picture. No human has the capacity to fully understand. All we know is bits and pieces. Reality in this thread, is more about that absolute reality, then it is about singular facts.

Not about 1+1, not about up and down. But about the reality of all things subjective.
 

Mole

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Correct Victor,

But the reality we mention in this thread, the absolute reality. The big picture. No human has the capacity to fully understand. All we know is bits and pieces. Reality in this thread, is more about that absolute reality, then it is about singular facts.

Not about 1+1, not about up and down. But about the reality of all things subjective.

Absolute reality is the kind of reality you are having when you are not having any reality.

Absolute reality is an ersatz reality - it is no more real than ersatz coffee is real coffee.

'Absolute reality', is based on a logical fallacy, called, "The no true Scotsman fallacy".
 

mlittrell

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edit: Jen, I believe his point was to show the levels of perspective.
that was my point lol. i was talking metaphorically. if you want i could use variables instead of clouds giving each other prostate exams
 

Poki

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Our goal is to understand the objective world through perception. This is why we will never fully understand it because we can only understand what we percieve and its not possible to percieve everything. We know what a cloud is, but can never fully encompass how a certain cloud can affect our world objectively. We interact objectively based on our perception. Because we cannot percieve everything that one cloud does and can never remove that single cloud to understand what would be different without that single cloud.
 

nightning

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Would most people here disagree that there is an objective reality even though we experience it subjectively?
There is an objective reality... however its nature is irrelevent to us. That's what I've been trying to say all this time. Objective reality... whatever it might be is not useful to us in any way. Why not focus our energy on the subjective where it can be of use?

C'mon, science is based on reality not perception.

We perceive that the Sun goes round the Earth, but the reality is that the Earth goes round the Sun.
But Victor... Science is based on perception... our observation no matter how objectively we try to make them is based on what we perceived.

So the interesting question arises - why do we want to deceive ourselves?

And the answer might be - it is left over from childhood.

All children go through a narcissistic phase where they need to be loved unconditionally, and if they are not love unconditionally at this time, they carry the longing over into adulthood.
The alternate answer could be that we do not need to know the objective truth.

Given the subjective reality is a reflection of some portion of the objective reality. The two are connected such that by influencing the subjective reality, we affect the objective one. Alteration of the objective reality can naturally been seen in our subjective reality. In this case do we need to know what's going on objectively? For practical purposes the objective reality can be treated as the black box it is.

"Perception is reality" has never been meant to be taken literally. Perception and reality here is defined by our psyche (if you don't like the term... our consciousness). There's suppose to be a second unspoken phrase to go with that... Change in our perception will change reality. From psychology... change in believes -> change in attitudes -> change in behaviour. Change how our attitude will change how we perceive an event and changing our evaluation of the event will influence how we act. By our actions, we change reality.

In the end, I think it's the same for any words of "wisdom"... It works within a set of constrains... take it too far out of context and it becomes ridiculous.
 

Mole

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But Victor... Science is based on perception...

This is true.

And science is based on many, many perceptions of reality. And all these perceptions are analysed statistically.

Then other independent scientists seek to replicate the perceptions and analysis them, and then validate or falsify them.

What becomes very apparent in all this is that one perception does does not give a good picture of reality.

While you and I are limited to one perception at a time, we are plainly going to miss reality by a long shot.

The important thing is to reality-test our perceptions.

It is important to test our perceptions against reality, not the other way round.

And this is what we fail to do here - we fail to test our perceptions of MBTI types against reality.

And so our perception of MBTI is out of touch with reality.

And this is why we deny reality.

And when a person is out of touch with reality, we say they are psychotic. But when a group is out of touch with reality, we say they are a cult.

This is why I say MBTI is a cult.
 

nightning

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But the cult of MBTI can still provide beneficial effects no?

It's just a tool... like a gun. The existence of MBTI encourages people to think about interpersonal interactions... on how to better understand and get along with others. Do we need truth for that job? Would the empirically derived Big 5 be helpful for this purpose? No.
 

Poki

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But the cult of MBTI can still provide beneficial effects no?

It's just a tool... like a gun. The existence of MBTI encourages people to think about interpersonal interactions... on how to better understand and get along with others. Do we need truth for that job? Would the empirically derived Big 5 be helpful for this purpose? No.

But if we dont compare it to reality we lose the effectiveness of MBTI and it becomes nothing more than a social gathering.
 
L

Lasting_Pain

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Perception is your reality. But what is exactly is reality. Can the internet be considered reality.
 

Poki

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Perception is your reality. But what is exactly is reality. Can the internet be considered reality.

The internet is reality because it exists. To explain why I think I exist and this is not a dream is because "Things are to consistent in this world and my lack of understanding to great to be able to concieve a dream this grand."
 
L

Lasting_Pain

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The internet is reality because it exists. To explain why I think I exist and this is not a dream is because "Things are to consistent in this world and my lack of understanding to great to be able to conceive a dream this grand."

Actually depends on the definition of reality that you go by. To some the internet does not exist. To others it does.

Internet is a construct used to describe a complex system. Therefore it can be said that the internet is not real, but the system that lies beneath the word is.

also if that is not good enough

Love is also a construct used to describe complicated human emotions and actions. Therefore it can be said that love is not real.
 
L

Lasting_Pain

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Sorry for the double post, but here is a clip from Matrix Revolutions that is highly relevant to my point. Skip to about 2:00 min.

[YOUTUBE="lkFp7TGH754"]The Matrix Revolutions[/YOUTUBE]
 

Poki

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Actually depends on the definition of reality that you go by. To some the internet does not exist. To others it does.

Internet is a construct used to describe a complex system. Therefore it can be said that the internet is not real, but the system that lies beneath the word is.

also if that is not good enough

Love is also a construct used to describe complicated human emotions and actions. Therefore it can be said that love is not real.


Lol, what is not a construct? language is nothing more than a construct. The meaning of internet is different to everyone. To my grampa the internet is broken if a web page does not come up. Yes the word "internet" is not real, but what the word stands for is real.

You are simply arguing about a word vs a thing. This can be done for every word ever created. Whats the point of saying anything is real because hell "internet" is not actually the word it is just a pixelation on our screen representing the word and the spelling is just a representation of the sound.
 
L

Lasting_Pain

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Lol, what is not a construct? language is nothing more than a construct. The meaning of internet is different to everyone. To my grampa the internet is broken if a web page does not come up. Yes the word "internet" is not real, but what the word stands for is real.

You are simply arguing about a word vs a thing. This can be done for every word ever created. Whats the point of saying anything is real because hell "internet" is not actually the word it is just a pixelation on our screen representing the word and the spelling is just a representation of the sound.


I was not arguing, I was simply showing you that reality can be interpreted into many things.

Also the meaning of the Internet cannot change, because it is as you said it is a construct. He interprets from the meaning and forms his own perception of the internet. Which therefore goes back to my point that reality can have many meanings.
 

Poki

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I was not arguing, I was simply showing you that reality can be interpreted into many things.

Also the meaning of the Internet cannot change, because it is as you said it is a construct. He interprets from the meaning and forms his own perception of the internet. Which therefore goes back to my point that reality can have many meanings.

Now lets take arguing, to me arguing is a discusion where we do not agree, what is your meaning? Words can change and people do create there own defintion of words. No one learns strictly from a dictionary, a spoken language is learned from those we are around. It changes the same way a spoken story changes.
 

nightning

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But if we dont compare it to reality we lose the effectiveness of MBTI and it becomes nothing more than a social gathering.

We compare it to the "subjective" reality. Because we know of MBTI, we pay more attention to similarities and differences between people. This provides us with the bases for improved communications. Scientifically speaking, the MBTI types cannot be proven empirically and therefore we have no evidence that it exists. In other words, it's an artificially created construct but it's still useful. No different than gene vector placed into a bacterium for some gene expression.
 
L

Lasting_Pain

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Now lets take arguing, to me arguing is a discusion where we do not agree, what is your meaning? Words can change and people do create there own defintion of words. No one learns strictly from a dictionary, a spoken language is learned from those we are around. It changes the same way a spoken story changes.

So where does real come in. Is it the source, or is it the meaning we have interpreted it to be.
 
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