Weltanschaung and HiFi (warning, contentious and wordy)

roll me another brother etc etc etc

 

would also recommend 'Definitely Maybe'

- but then, to return to the thread, evn if there is an absolute reality, and its one that we can only perceive subjectively, then there is still much to be had from the application of objective method that accepts and makes best use of variability.

 

"How we believe matters much more than what we believe, since the "passionate inwardness" of subjective adherence is the only way to deal with our anxiety"

Yawn, this feels very much like navel gazing...

John

 

The Lord protect me from amateur philosophers. What nonsense. "Consensual reality"? This is first year undergraduate stuff, the kind of thing that appeals to adolescents.

-- Ian

 

Hi,

Well, my dear professional philosopher, "consensus reality" is a farily widely used term, and clearly defined, well about as clearly as anything in Philosophy can:

from: http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/c/co/consensus_reality.htm

Consensus reality
[Categories: Belief]

The term (Agreement in the judgment or opinion reached by a group as a whole) Consensus (The state of being actual or real) reality has two usages. To those who adhere to the (Someone who thinks that nothing exists but physical matter) materialist (The rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics) philosophy, it references the overall space-time reality believed to exist irrespective of anyone's perceptions. For those who don't adhere to the materialist philosophy, it refers to the predominent agreed-upon version of reality.

Some (Someone guided more by ideals than by practical considerations) idealists hold the view that there isn't one particular way things are, but rather that each person's personal reality is unique. Such idealists have the worldview which says that we each create our own reality, and while most people may be in general agreement (consensus) about what reality is like, they live in a different (or nonconsensus) reality.

Materialists (Someone who thinks that nothing exists but physical matter), however, may not accept the idea of there being different possible realities for different people, so for them only the first usage of the term consensus reality would make sense. To them, someone believing otherwise might be considered delusional.

Consensus reality may be understood by studying socially constructed reality, an obscure subject within the sociology of knowledge. (Read page three of The Social Construction of Reality by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann.)

Consider this example: reality is different for people who believe in God (The supernatural being conceived as the perfect and omnipotent and omniscient originator and ruler of the universe; the object of worship in monotheistic religions) than for those who believe that science and mathematics are sufficient for explaining life, the universe and everything. In societies where God-centered religions are dominant, that understanding would be the consensus reality, while the religious worldview would remain the nonconsensus (or alternative) reality in a predominently secular society where the consensus reality is grounded in science.

We may continue to argue to actuality of "consensus reality", but quite frankly the usefullness of the term to describe individual experiences which we place in a common context (the colour "green", the taste we call "sweet", the sensation we call "pleasure") and it takes only the illustrationof the above three items to illustrate also how limited the consensus really is.

One might perhaps call "consensus reality" the linguistic and conceptual superstructure we build above our experiences in order to allow us to share and compare these experiences with each other in social interaction. As such it is largely a matter of education, formal and informal and thus a learned response.

Two extreme literary examples to illustrate this are 1984 and even more so the "Fnord's" of Robert Anthony Wilson. A less extreme but real one is the current perveasive cult of a certain kind of beauty and of youth in our society, which as we see from other societies and from history is not an inherent or natural thing.

So, as much as you may wish to deny it's reality and relevance, "consensus reality" has been with Humankind ever since it became "social", which would suggest at a point, depending upon your views of reality right after Adam met Eve or since protohuman primates formed groups, in the latter case it actually predates concience as such, in the former it antedates it by about a day or so, opinions running the gammut between these extremes exist manifold and many splendored and splintered.

Ciao T, the amateur philosopher

PS:

Actually, you may be more correct if you called me a dilettante (in the literal, latin derived meaning of the word, rather than the - ehm... - consensus reality meaning attached to it, I am a stickler for using words properly, not in a sloppy "it can mean anything we agree on way), rather than amateur, though the two are often considered synonymous, strictly speaking they are not.

As Dilettante Philosopher - that as one who takes a near sensual delight [dilettante from latin for delight] in the love of knowledge [philosopher from the greek for a lover of Sophia - the goddes of knowledge] I am quite happy to classed such, though it would probably make my wife jealous if you told her I had carnal knowledge of Sophia.... ;-)

 

I didn't say it wasn't, I said it was adolescent nonsense. Funnily enough, I had Berger & Luckmann's very silly book in mind when I posted.

Thoroughgoing subjectivism is the kind of thing that appeals to people before they have thought very deeply about epistemology, hence my reference to first year undergraduates. It quickly becomes apparent that it's an intellectual dead-end, incapable of leading to any interesting conclusions, or even of asking any interesting questions, which is why anyone who takes philosophy seriously and spends any time studying it for any length of time generally ends up dismissing it and moves on to the more profound traditions.

Subjectivists can't and don't have a love of knowledge in any meaningful sense, as they don't have a coherent concept of knowledge, they simply treat knowledge as a species of belief. This is ABC stuff.

There's no room for dilettantism in philosophy, it's an intellectually rigorous endeavour carried out by people who take questions of knowledge and being seriously, and requires some formal understanding of logic and rhetoric, some ability to discriminate between interesting questions and adolescent sophistry.

-- Ian

 

No idea what you are talking about but it looks like advantage Ian.

 

"to know the reason for things" is hard but worthy quest

(taken from motto of LSE: rerum cognoscere causas. My Latin is rusty and maybe was never any good. It could also translate into 'to understand the causes of things' which might differ.)

I reckon that there is an implied requirement that such knowledge/understanding is shared, at least for the purposes of its testing, and, in passing, of testing of our means of reaching such conclusions.

I'm with the epistemologists on this, but recognise that I lean towards (crass/considered/reformed) empiricism

 

Hi,

You present your case quite nicely, what you omit to note is that the position you present is but ONE SPECIFIC THESIS (as it so happens one you adhere yourself to), but also one lacking any relevant proof and one which, with all due respect, is as much wrong as it's polar opposite. Regular repetetion and acceptance as current academic dogma has not produced any more usefullness for it, nor has it improved it.

To suggest that simple fundamental disagreement is infantile is however a lowblow unneccesary here, if you ask me.

But by all means keep conforming and I shall contine not to....

Just do not try to force your personal reality onto others as the "true one" (it is at least as far from that as rampant subjectivism, probably more so, on consideration).

Ciao T

PS, SM, we are not playing for points here, but for our very "souls" (I dislike using loaded words, but sometimes one has to), hence a win by points is still a total loss, no insurance.

 

Actually, I haven't presented any thesis at all.

Look, if you're really serious about this stuff I suggest you read some of the classics of the genre. Wittgenstein's On Certainty is one of the best examples I know of how to reduce one form of subjectivism (in this case, scepticism) to absurdity. It's very tersely written, requires close reading and a lot of thought, but it's real philosophy, not childish dribbling. You can even find it on the web:

http://budni.by.ru/oncertainty.html

I'm suggesting that subjectivism is infantile, not that disagreeing with me is infantile.

But when you throw around silly terms like "personal reality" I just know you don't understand the first thing about epistemology, which is why I feel the need to respond, given that you've gone to the trouble of starting a thread about it. And, of course, I'm not forcing my own view on anyone, as I haven't even expressed my own view. I'm just suggesting that people who are interested in this kind of thing make the effort to really learn about it, rather than being satisfied with some half-digested dead-end stuff.

-- Ian

 

a brilliant reposte, countered with..

'I don't care, ner ner ne ner ner'

 

Hi,

I have read it. However it makes several fundamental (and fundamentally wrong) basic assumtions I simply find myself unable to agree with. Quite frankly, ever since that scourge called "rationalism" escaped from the socalled "age of enlightenment" the whole argument and discussion is moot. As reality is not rational attempting to explain and evaluate in a rational manner just leads up the Special High Intensity Training Creek, sans paddle and sans boat.

If you care to PROOVE Berkly and Hume wrong (not out-debate me or anyone else, but to provide material proof!), please do so, if you cannot than thank you very much, you have no more of a solid leg to stand on than anyone else. Except I am quite comfortable with uncertainty and a lack of solidity. How about you?

Yet subjectivism does disagree with you, does it not?

May I suggest to call something that is based on fundamental assumption one does not share infantile shows a serious lack of security in ones views. If a fundamenatlly opposed, but well founded viewpoint must be declared as not just wrong, but as "childish" one may indeed question the maturity of of the person setting such declarations.

Surely that should be:

"some stuff I consider half-digested and dead-end."

that is stating an opinion, as opposed to:

"some half-digested dead-end stuff."

which is stating a fact and in actuality makes a claim that all the answers have been given to the UNIVERSAL SATISFACTION with no opposing views retained.

Now THAT is what I call an EXTRAORDINARY CLAIM.

Care to set out that all encompassing and all answering Philosophy AND THE COMPLETE PROOF out for us less enlightened stragllers and infantiles?

Remember, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof!

Ciao T

 

Please enumerate them.

Oh dear. Are you sure you've read it?

This sentence demonstrates either that you haven't read it, or that you've completely failed to understand it. The whole point of On Certainty is to show the irrelevance of the concept of proof in an argument against scepticism.

May I suggest you're talking nonsense?

Look, Thorsten, I know you have a very high opinion about yourself, but philosophy is quite obviously an area you know nothing about. The amateur psychologising is pretty wide of the mark too.

-- Ian

 

Hi,

Any attempts to summarise either Wittgenstein or Kant (and thus Hume and Berkley) to a level that can illustrate the point I made with Ian is probably futile, but I have yet my daily bout of windmill fighting undone, so why not here.

Comparing Kant "Critique" to Wittgensteins "Tractatus" is most instructive. What Kant criticises Wittgenstein promotes, or so at least it would seem.

To me to argue to validity of two fundamentally differing schools of thought, neither of which has conclusive proof, is about as usefull as asking of the designated hitter rule is more green or less, than the fatness of the pig.

If want to keep name (and book dropping) this is a game two can play but one which (there I may even agree with Wittgenstein), on both sides produces the same thing, to wit nothing.

Philosophy, especially the modern "specialist" kind (as opposed to the Rennaissance understanding of the term) is a quagmire that has swallowed many an army and country and has not given anything back yet.

Ciao T

 

Sorry to be awkward, but this "absolute reality"......where might one find this then? Either philosphically speaking, or indeed in terms of listening to hi-fi (and this thread was once about hi-fi wasn't it)

 

A perfectly silly statement.

 

Well, the Wittgenstein of On Certainty would completely disagree with the early Wittgenstein of the Tractatus, and Wittgenstein's work from the Investigations onwards has many resemblances to elements of Kantianism, so I'm not entirely sure what point you're trying to make.

But you believe in something called "consensual reality", in other words, you're a subjectivist, you don't have a meaningful concept of proof, conclusive or otherwise. It seems quite unreasonable of you to demand that theories exhibit something you don't have the theoretical framework to believe in.

Once again, oh dear. You're just showing your ignorance of the subject.

-- Ian

 

Thorsten, you did say you had donned your asbestos underwear for the occasion, so remember not to get too hot under the collar if Ian points his flamethrower in your direction :MILD:

Now I make no claims to be a philosopher whatsoever. Its a subject I have an amateur interest in but claim no real expertise.

So I was just wondering what either of you two might have to say about a claim made to me once about the Shun Mook stuff. There was a guy - he had the Wordly Weight Of Mookdom (record clamp), The Magical Mook Discs (dotted around various bits of system and room) and the Mystical Mookish Plumblines (which describes them exactly I think), which dangled in various parts of the room. Sensing my scepticism he told me that those who believe in Mook hear the difference, those who do not won't.

I couldn't hear a blind bit of difference, so clearly I was lacking in faith.

For the non philosophers amongst us, at what point, in a hifi context, would your philosophies suggest open mindedness ought give way to scepticism and doubt? After all it strikes me that open mindedness is a good thing up to a point, but beyond a certain point you might start believing in all kinds of daft and crackpot things ... like God for example

 

And now I really have steam coming out of my ears!! And poor Derrida must be spinning in his grave......

 

Hi,

Ahhm, yes. I did actually read Wittgenstein, but seem to have filed with others I disagree with mentally and gotten him wrong on memory by wrong association. Just been checking some references. I tend to remeber what I find useful, the rest gets filed under "them over there", a highly dubious but highly useful distinction for me. Maybe time for another read, when I have time, as refresher, seems my memory gets leaky on stuff more than 10 - 15 Years ago. Right now I'm immensly enjoying Clausewitz for the second time and I appreciate much of his stuff more.

So, where does that leave us on the subject that what I percieve of the actual reality and what you percieve and the simple fact that the perceptions (may) differ quite strongly, which to me qualified as a "personal reality" whose "overlapping area" (to use geometric terms) with those of most areas is (part of) the consensus reality, or in other words the shared experience.

Is that infantile, a reasonable model to explain what is going on or even real? Is in fact anything real?

Or are you suggesting that there is no point to any of this? Then what is the point? Is there one?

Ciao T