Are we in the real world?

[Giles]

I think this post was the problem:

 

Originally posted by Mastermold

Well defining real may simply be a matter of symantics and is irrelevant when considering what philosophers consider 'real'.

I don't think you meant to say that.

 

Originally posted by Mastermold

Most popular ones agreed that the 'real' world only exists according to what our sensory data tells us.

Ummm not really, Plato had an iron grip for a very long time and that's not even an accurate description of a lot of the empiricists.

 

Originally posted by Mastermold

If I see a green tree, it may not exist, but I see it nonetheless.

I'd say it would have to, although of course it might not be a green tree. unless experience is how you define green tree. (i think that's actually what you mean to say, and sort of do later.)

 

Originally posted by Mastermold

My idea is that there is a real world because things actually DO happen when no one is around to see/hear/touch/taste/smell it.

That's basing a not very controversial idea on a much more complex one.

 

Originally posted by Mastermold

I can prove the real world exists, and we can experience it... so we must therefore exist in this real world because others are a part of MY real world, and I must assume that every individual feels the individuality that I feel.

if you're trying to suggest this is a proof of some shared reality then you really should re-read it.

 

Originally posted by Mastermold

So I hope that I am too part of THEIR world... and that means that we are all 'real' because we have decided that we are real.

you could have put this better. "decided that is what we mean by real" for example.

 

Originally posted by Mastermold

And our experience tells us that real is the definition of what we know to exist and be experienced.

that's not what experience tells us, that's what we've decided.

 

Originally posted by Mastermold

Conclusion: We are real because we have all agreed that real is what we experience, and any other experience is foreign, so only exists in the mind and is therefore an unreal experience.

claiming stuff that only exists in the mind is unreal tends to undermine empiricism a bit.

 

Despite all of that i think you are correct in what you're getting at.

 

mark, there are absolute proofs of the falsity of statements which reach a contradiction with valid a priori statements.

[JaKiri]

Originally posted by Giles

mark, there are absolute proofs of the falsity of statements which reach a contradiction with valid a priori statements.

 

I'm talking contextually you goon

[aman]

The world of reality existed when we were all animals running around the Earth at the mercy of natural circumstances. When we developed higher reason, we had the capability to dream, question, and change reality. Now reality has as much to do with us as it does with nature. It's kind of hard to prove something that seems shared by some intelligent people when it's not shared by idiots and defective minds across the spectrum.

Just aman