I didn't say I had a definition. In fact, I said that I was having a very hard time putting words to it. But does that mean that one should give up on it? We can't do much with consciousness (or the term I prefer, subjective experience) either, but I'm not willing to dismiss it as virtually meaningless.
Please remember that my participation in the discussion came after Eric, Miles, and Glen [one 'n'], seemed very dismissive of reality. That seemed quite strange to me. Our current inability to get our arms/head/words around something isn't automatically grounds to dismiss it. Most of what we have figured out about the world started out as very poorly formulated. -- Russ_A On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 12:14 AM, russell standish <[email protected]>wrote: > You tell me. Just what is the notion? Reality could mean: > > 1) What kicks back. Johnson's stone, or Doug's hammered thumb > 2) Elementary particles > 3) Force Fields > 4) A universal dovetailer (Schmidhuber's Great Programmer) > 5) Platonia of mathematical forms > 6) Kant's noumenon > 7) Standish's Nothing (aka Library of Babel) > 8) Real in the sense I am real (RITSIAR) > ... > > > and that's just what I pulled out of my head in a brief moment. The > ... indicates that there are many, many, more subtle variants. Most of > these versions of reality are incompatible with each other. > > The truth is that the word reality has been debased so much it is > virtually meaningless, unless very carefully qualified. > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 09:55:10PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: > > Just because someone uses a word nonsensically, does that make the word > > nonsense? > > > > I still don't get it. Why are so many people so anxious to dismiss the > word > > *reality *-- and with it the corresponding notion? > > > > -- Russ_A > > > > > > > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:38 PM, russell standish < > [email protected]>wrote: > > > > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 06:36:18PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: > > > > > > > > And it has nothing to do with whether there is a God. I don't > understand > > > the > > > > connection. Reality is. (That's the end of the previous sentence.) > God, > > > if > > > > there is any such thing, is by definition outside the realm of what > is. > > > And > > > > I say that because those who believe in God -- at least those who are > > > > sophisticated about it -- are very careful to keep God away from any > sort > > > of > > > > empirical investigation or verification. > > > > > > > > -- RussA > > > > > > > > > > The only connection is analogical. There's probably almost as many > > > conceptions of god as there are people on the planet. Similarly, there > > > seems to be about as many conceptions of reality. Consequently, both > > > terms are really superfluous to doing science. > > > > > > -- > > > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > > > Mathematics > > > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [email protected] > > > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > -- > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [email protected] > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >
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