Proposed new forum: "Reasoning about reality"

Do you support the creation of this new forum?

  • Yes, as named.

    Votes: 6 46.2%
  • Yes, but with a different name.

    Votes: 3 23.1%
  • No.

    Votes: 3 23.1%
  • Unsure / not willing to answer.

    Votes: 1 7.7%

  • Total voters
    13
We have similar strengths and educational backgrounds, Typoz, as well as an identical profession. :)

What you say about old models cracking and new models being introduced is totally compatible with the aims of the proposed forum, and the forum doesn't either require that anybody commit to anything. The point of including "reasoning" is that once you've discarded your old model, you're going to want to critically appraise any potential new models, right? I mean, you're not going to just say, "Whatever comes to me, I accept it: that will be my new model", are you? You're going to want it to actually make sense: to be internally consistent, to explain what we know about reality, etc?

But I think you're also concerned that there's too much focus on analysis and not enough on genesis in the proposed name? Maybe there's a terse forum name connoting the idea of "Creatively and insightfully generating new models of reality and then subjecting them to critical appraisal" - that would seem to satisfy your sentiments, or am I wrong?
There's a danger here of trying to have the discussions ahead of time, that is, get all the ideas settled before the forum is even created. This thread could go on for a very long time. :)

My suggestion is that you just go ahead with the original name for the proposed forum, and when the time comes, I'll just chip in in my inimitable style with my off-topic comments as usual. Seriously, I don't think there's any point nitpicking at this stage.
 
and I don't understand how you can discuss reality, but prevent discussion of transformations which work.


Hi Laird / All, Just catching up with all the threads.....:)

As I'm mentioned in the opening post, guess I should comment. A lot of excellent & potentially productive ideas & proposals in there....would be interesting to see how some of them work out.

Personally - I think I'm a little too disorganised & undisciplined to really appreciate/want such "structures" being placed around our discussions. I barely understand how this forum is segregated (or how to use the excellent functions on it!) as it is haha ;)

I did want to ask a question of Max on this quote - can you please clarify what you mean by "transformations which work" or refer me to a post of yours where you already have?

Cheers all!
 
Hi Laird / All, Just catching up with all the threads.....:)

As I'm mentioned in the opening post, guess I should comment. A lot of excellent & potentially productive ideas & proposals in there....would be interesting to see how some of them work out.

Personally - I think I'm a little too disorganised & undisciplined to really appreciate/want such "structures" being placed around our discussions. I barely understand how this forum is segregated (or how to use the excellent functions on it!) as it is haha ;)

I did want to ask a question of Max on this quote - can you please clarify what you mean by "transformations which work" or refer me to a post of yours where you already have?

Cheers all!

I guess by a transformation I'm meaning holding some parts of something static... whilst you move all the others (transform them).

Doesn't really matter which parts to hold, and which parts to transform... as long as you find them somehow useful to understand something fixed, in terms of something that is not.

Physic, space-time, QM etc.... all seem fundamental ways of fixing some things in reality, and finding useful transformations for other things... so that something fixed is understood in terms of something that is unfixed (transforms).

They are in effect something like perspectives... where something is understood from different perspectives.

It doesn't really matter to me any more what the perspective is... could be feelings, colours, letters in a book, a moving bar, a wheel, a molecule, a photon, energy, time, spatial relationships etc...

So preventing discussion of a physicalist world view, when discussing reality, doesn't make much sense to me. As long as its understood as just one perspective, where some things are selected to hold steady, and other things transform... Then physics, relativity, QM etc (physical) are a valid way to understand reality... a proven very useful way...

I suspect that even a fundamental shift in our understanding of reality, will leave many of these observed relationships little touched, because they describe important relationships. It's just that we'll understand them better in the context of a more fundamental understanding.

So ignoring transformations which are useful when trying to discuss reality, would be somehow, to chuck out the baby with the bathwater...

Dunno if that explains any better... probably not, it sounds like nonsense when I read it again.
 
Thanks Max! Well, I am pretty tired and "read out" now, but I did read that post twice over and I think I got some sort of handle on what you're saying (these are complex ideas, and my brain gets foggier by the day!).....and if I do understand, then I quite agree.

We talk about "reality"...well, perhaps one way of conceptualising it is that there may be "hierarchically nested" (see, I can sound more nonsensical than you any day!) "realities"? In which case, the "relationships" of "reality" in this particular layer of the "nested" reality would indeed "little touched"?

Have I understood you correctly?

That said, even though I agree with your point, I can allow for different "beings" being drawn to different "approaches" to "reality" and different "layers" of it. All so vast and incomprehensible!

I can also understand why, for some people, two approaches do not work well together for their being. That is not to deny the value or validity of the "other" approach. Diversity!

For me personally, my strongest subjects at school (for what little that's worth!) were maths and science. I was absolutely fascinated by many aspects of science, read many books, watched all the docs, then always kept up to date when the internet was born with all the latest science news sites. Then really looked into what science can tell us about consciousness, reality, "spiritual experiences", the origin of the universe, para-psychological research etc. Extremely fascinated by all that, read many long and dry books trying to make sense of the world "scientifically", empirically, materialistically rationally etc

Then it kind of just dropped away, my interest. It's not an argument I need to convince anyone ELSE of, but I know for me, in my existence, there is no longer any use for that description and perspective of reality.

I've disappeared up me own.....imagination!!

;)
 
Thanks Max! Well, I am pretty tired and "read out" now, but I did read that post twice over and I think I got some sort of handle on what you're saying (these are complex ideas, and my brain gets foggier by the day!).....and if I do understand, then I quite agree.

We talk about "reality"...well, perhaps one way of conceptualising it is that there may be "hierarchically nested" (see, I can sound more nonsensical than you any day!) "realities"? In which case, the "relationships" of "reality" in this particular layer of the "nested" reality would indeed "little touched"?

Have I understood you correctly?

That said, even though I agree with your point, I can allow for different "beings" being drawn to different "approaches" to "reality" and different "layers" of it. All so vast and incomprehensible!

I can also understand why, for some people, two approaches do not work well together for their being. That is not to deny the value or validity of the "other" approach. Diversity!

For me personally, my strongest subjects at school (for what little that's worth!) were maths and science. I was absolutely fascinated by many aspects of science, read many books, watched all the docs, then always kept up to date when the internet was born with all the latest science news sites. Then really looked into what science can tell us about consciousness, reality, "spiritual experiences", the origin of the universe, para-psychological research etc. Extremely fascinated by all that, read many long and dry books trying to make sense of the world "scientifically", empirically, materialistically rationally etc

Then it kind of just dropped away, my interest. It's not an argument I need to convince anyone ELSE of, but I know for me, in my existence, there is no longer any use for that description and perspective of reality.

I've disappeared up me own.....imagination!!

;)

well it's definately sounding along the lines of what I was trying to say... can be darn difficult though... as everybody is understanding through their own 'literal' filter IMO... but I guess i might find some transformations more useful, than others, at the appropriate things... your nested layers... if you will.

I'm all for letting things float around and percolate... to find the perspective that provides one with a more useful understanding... I most enjoy forcing myself to float around with ideas for years, that might consolidate over these long periods, to see if I can stumble across different perspectives... different associations... that might provide something useful to understand the other phenomena that doesn't yet fit well.

For example, you'd be surprised at clothing fashion... there is a driving force in play here as far as I'm concerned... but as far as I'm aware nobody has openly cracked it... I think somehow an understanding of the driving force of clothes fashion is intimately entwined with a similar mechanism which applies to all the other apparently less mundane phenomena we discuss on here.
 
I quite agree with your general sentiments, and like the "spirit" of your approach :)

For example, you'd be surprised at clothing fashion... there is a driving force in play here as far as I'm concerned... but as far as I'm aware nobody has openly cracked it...

Well, now you've gone and intrigued me! I'm the least unfashionable person probably in the UK, so please bare with my ignorance and/or stupidity on the matter....any further hints as to what you mean here? A prior post, another website that touches on what you mean? It sounds intriguing, and I LOVE discovering another influential "slice of reality" or "dynamic" that I've perhaps missed before?

Cheers Max!
 
I quite agree with your general sentiments, and like the "spirit" of your approach :)



Well, now you've gone and intrigued me! I'm the least unfashionable person probably in the UK, so please bare with my ignorance and/or stupidity on the matter....any further hints as to what you mean here? A prior post, another website that touches on what you mean? It sounds intriguing, and I LOVE discovering another influential "slice of reality" or "dynamic" that I've perhaps missed before?

Cheers Max!

I've never really written about particular issues (like clothes fashion), but basically patterns in the external world (say clothes) appear to get contaminated (for want of a better word) with meaning... so I suggest that in a world of mass produced patterns (copies), patterns become contaminated (averaged and blurred) far quicker... So that more unique patterns can have far greater value... Because genuinely new meanings can be hung off new patterns with far less contamination (averaging) present.

At least that's a possibly useful, and different way, to think about these things. You can possibly understand what artists and creators are doing from a different perspective, and why what they do feels different, and perhaps -at least from a fashion point of view- why mass production (copies) might contribute to faster consumption etc... That's very brief, it's quite a bit more complicated than that.
 
Well, that's a genuinely mind bending couple of paragraphs. Very thought provoking, and i like that.

I think I get it! I will have to chew on it further, subconsciously ;)

You mention meaning a few times......that's a loaded word! Who is it meaningful TO and is there a purpose to it?

For some reason, thinking over your post reminds me of the concepts of the "trickster" & liminality...not sure why....

Thanks Max.
 
Well, that's a genuinely mind bending couple of paragraphs. Very thought provoking, and i like that.

I think I get it! I will have to chew on it further, subconsciously ;)

You mention meaning a few times......that's a loaded word! Who is it meaningful TO and is there a purpose to it?

For some reason, thinking over your post reminds me of the concepts of the "trickster" & liminality...not sure why....

Thanks Max.

Very difficult to explain...

I have a very very basic idea of meaning... I'm not really talking about whether something is meaningful or not at some higher level...

...rather I'm referring to similar space-like and time-like patterns, which interfere coherently with one another outside of space-time... from where I suspect meaning & pattern arise.

But that's probably far too dense an explanation for anyone to make any sense out of it... Although it's actually just the 'fashion' stuff again, just using more formalised words...
 
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