# Wgen did you discover that "reality" is inconsistent? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 2, 2009, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738 "2009-07-02T20:47:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![KGS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/90ced4/32.png) [@KGS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KGS)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/81 "2009-07-03T19:33:26Z")
Reality is malleable enough, if you learn to focus your Will. You also have to consider that reality is different for each person. Some people can view auras & pick up energy vibrations from afar, while others can merely wiggle their ears. Riding the Matrix can trigger BIG changes in your reality perception, but there’s always the potential for radioactive fallout… ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/82 "2009-07-03T20:22:47Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > I don’t think it was meant in an affectionate way if SmashTheState still remembers it that clearly so many years later. You’re talking about a guy who in this very thread admits he’s basing much of his personal philosophy on his own auditory hallucinations, and says most of his memories are in the third person, something that is not typical of people who have all the slices in their pizza, if you catch my drift. Given that the early childhood memories of the sanest of people are, at best, a total crapshoot, are you _sure_ you want to assume his retelling of events is wholly accurate? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/83 "2009-07-03T21:11:42Z")
It’s certainly possible that his memory of these events isn’t accurate. It’s also possible that his memory of his parents tormenting him is accurate. ---
**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/84 "2009-07-03T21:30:48Z")
> [@raspberry\_hunter](#): > > Not sure I understand your question, in the sense that in the example you give, you’re not lying in the sense that 2+2 does always equal 4 given the common definition of 2 and 4, … Here is another example – my high school physics teacher used to always tell us he was lying to us as we worked kinematic problems without adding in any terms for air resistance. > > In both these cases, there isn’t inconsistency, really – it’s just that one has to be careful about definitions. I think you caught the basic idea of my question. I don’t believe it’s lying to give your child a little red wagon without including a disclaimer that some people are red/green colorblind and that “red” is merely a convention describing an undefined span of the spectrum and that so much depends on a little red wagon… etc etc. In many ways, Kant is a response to Hume. The “problem” he is trying to address (lots of broad brush hand waving here) is that “things” like time and space don’t exist “out there” yet much of our understanding of reality depends on “things” like: Space and Time; Unity and Plurality; Cause and Effect. (As I understand it, Kant was also upset with the idea that there was no evidence for the idea of God.) Saying that “_the world [is] inconsistent, and that the grown-ups [lie] to you about the nature of reality_” seems to me to be a purposeful distortion. First off, it implies that “grown-ups” understand the true nature of reality and hide or obscure it. It also implies that by not discussing “freaky” occurrences (such as feeling your pencil hit your foot and then finding it in your lap) rather than discussing long division, that those same “grown-ups” are being intentionally deceptive. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/85 "2009-07-03T22:09:17Z")
You know, when my daughter was two years old, she thought that if she closed her eyes I couldn’t see her. So she’d close her eyes and say, “I’m hiding Daddy! I’m hiding!” Now she’s three years old and she doesn’t believe this any more. Now when she wants to hide, she puts a blanket over her head, so that I really can’t see her. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/86 "2009-07-03T22:10:08Z")
> [@chowder](#): > > I think the OP is crackers having read his public profile. > [@chowder](#): > > Read his public profile, the man is 2 vouchers short of a pop-up toaster Regardless of your personal opinions, expressing personal insults about other posters remains forbidden in this forum. Back off or take it to the BBQ Pit. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/87 "2009-07-03T22:12:11Z")
> [@SmashTheState](#): > > For people who have such an overweening sense of your own intellect, some of you folks seem surprisingly uneducated. You will also stop posting insults in this forum. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![sjc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@sjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sjc)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/88 "2009-07-03T22:44:53Z")
I don’t feel that my parents or anyone else in my life deliberately lied to me about the nature of our perception of reality. I really couldn’t say when I first realized that what I perceived as “reality” was not always an accurate representation. It sort of built up over time. I might even go so far as to say I always knew it on some level even if it took time to explicitly formulate that idea. I don’t really dream or have memories in the third person. Sometimes I think I have dreams that are a sort of mixed ambiguous person. In other words I’m half myself and half looking at myself, but I wouldn’t call that third person. I’d say that happens in my dream only occasionally. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/89 "2009-07-03T22:52:27Z")
Final year of undergrad. A non-traditional student, I was seven to eight years on my own before starting, so I had a fair bit of, say, introspective experience (lots of time following the Dead around the country, so I had done a _lot_ of reality exploration). For one semester I spent about six to eight hours each week in office hours with two different professors. First was for a course taught jointly by the philosophy and physics departments. It was an introduction to quantum mechanics, but they pulled no mathematical punches – linear algebra was required. Being a bit behind the curve, I hit the math lab for an hour or two a week and went twice a week to the professor’s office to explore the math and delve as deep as I could. About half way through the semester, the math suddenly clicked… really _clicked_. Putting aside for the moment what was going on on the quantum level, I had a mathematical epiphany such that everything I’d been studying, from eigenstates to eigenvectors became crystal clear – as understandable as basic algebra. I could suddenly not just follow the math, I could \*do \*the math. I don’t know if this seems trivial to the mathematicians we have on the board, but there was a stark demarcation of the before and after. Granted, the word-pictures and various expositions about things like the measurement problem or collapsing waves were simultaneously mind-numbing and -boggling. However, it was only through really grasping — grokking — the mathematics that I came to truly appreciate just how warped, how absolutely non-intuitive, how freakin’ _absurd_ reality is. It was only an introductory course, so went only so far… so I realize that I saw just the slightest glimmer of the insanity that is. But to the OP’s question; no matter how warped I thought things were before, I never _knew_ things until I understood the equations. Adding fun to the mix, I was also taking a couple courses with [Robert Thurman](http://www.bobthurman.com/), with plenty of time in his office too, absorbing a completely different take on reality. Man, what a year. ---
**Author:** ![Jolly\_Roger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/91b2a8/32.png) [@Jolly\_Roger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jolly_Roger)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/90 "2009-07-03T23:10:20Z")
> [@chowder](#): > > People, why are you wasting your time?. > > The OP starts a thread, posts in it 4 or 5 times and then buggers off to start another round of nonsense. > > Read his public profile, the man is 2 vouchers short of a pop-up toaster Wait until you read his posts about DUI laws. My cat has a better grasp of reality that what he said there. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2009, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/91 "2009-07-04T00:43:29Z")
> [@Strinka](#): > > [QUOTE=AHunter3] > > No, Smash the State is correct. dracoi is incorrect. > > I do not mean there is no “reality” in existence, just that we have absolutely zero access to it. What we have access to is something different, composed in our minds from a combination of memories and perceptions. And we do call that “reality”, that is to say that in general we do tend to ignore or elide the difference between reality and “reality as we are capable of knowing of it”. That’s not true. We have limited access to reality, not zero. If we had absolutely no access to reality, than any similarity between it and our perception would be pure coincidence. But since just about everyone agrees that the sky is blue, things fall down when they’re dropped and fire is hot, it can be reasonably safely assumed that our similarities in perception are not just due to a massive coincidence. [/QUOTE] You’re shortcutting. You do not directly know that just about everyone agrees that the sky is blue. You do not directly know that the color other people call blue is the same color that you call blue. You do not direclty know that the sensory experiences that, collectively, have led you to conclude that there are indeed other people have led you to that conclusion reliably. You therefore do not directly know that there _are_ other people. You do not directly know there _is_ a sky. You’ve built all that up over time, via a process of pattern-recognition. Having said all that, well YES the fact that (within those constraints) we (are comfortable with our conclusion that we) know other people are in agreement with us about certain observations, such as the sky being blue, DOES INDEED lead us to consider it to be an “objective” observation, i.e., that it is a characteristic of the sky rather than a characteristic of our own personal eyeballs or brains or optic nerves or imaginations that causes us to perceive it as blue. We experience a world that we have _in common with_ other people, and can communicate as a consequence of that, and we rely very strongly on receiving those confirmations as we create and maintain our internal “models of reality”. But we do not have direct access to it. Only to our experience of it. The first sentient non-human species who visits us and agrees about other things being blue but has a widely shared difference opinion with our folks about the blueness of the sky could help drive that point home. The consensus we have established so far is merely a consensus of people with a certain perspective in common. We are widely familiar with the distinction between experiences (therefore perspectives) that we (humans) have in common and those on which we have differing perspectives, but assigning the former objectivity is an oversimplification. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2009, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/92 "2009-07-04T00:45:45Z")
> [@NoJustice](#): > > Nonsense. Our memories and perceptions _ **ARE** _ our access to reality!We cannot compare or contrast reality with “_reality as we are capable of knowing of it_” because that would require knowledge of reality which we don’t have. But that does not mean we ignore the fact that there is a difference. Nor does it mean that the term ‘reality’ is used to refer specifically to our limited knowledge of reality, to the exclusion of “_the thing in itself_”. I think we are just expressing the same thing in different semantics, but if not please see post 91 above, reply to **Strinka** (w/regards to whose post I suppose the same could be true, come to think of it). ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2009, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/93 "2009-07-04T00:50:36Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Shoehorn butterhorse. I miss **Homer**. I wish he’d come back. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2009, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/94 "2009-07-04T01:02:16Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > Oh, my, GOD. GOD. Is DOG…spelled backwards. [Indeed.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoGxvB1llbc) ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2009, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/95 "2009-07-04T01:06:39Z")
**Wgen did you discover that “reality” is inconsistent?** Immediately after the first “W” in the thread title. ---
**Author:** ![NoJustice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecb155/32.png) [@NoJustice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoJustice)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2009, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/96 "2009-07-04T01:46:22Z")
I have no idea what you’re trying to say, **AHunter3** , Which is why it is your semantics which I take issue with. There can be much debate as to whether the word “reality” must apply only to “the thing in itself” or if this robs the word of any useful meaning without also allowing it to refer to things which humans can comprehend. There is absolutely no justification for redefining “reality” to refer to _only_ the ideas in human minds to the exclusion of “the thing in itself” as this completely reverses the meaning of the word from what anyone else means when they use it. You yourself are unable to use the word as such since you seem to be using “reality” to refer to “thing thing in itself” when you say that “_we have absolutely zero access to it_.” a statement which is obviously false by any of these 3 definitions of the word ‘reality’. Now, what does it mean to “directly know” something? How is that different from just knowing something as the examples posted are known? Attempting to draw any such distinction seems pointless. Attempting to draw the distinction _within the mind_ as you seem to be trying to do, is inadvisable. You end up in that inescapable trap Kant and so many other philosophers end up in where **nothing** is directly known, and without any direct knowledge, there is no basis for indirect knowledge. This causes the entire concept of knowledge to become completely meaningless, and the only way to say that there is even such a thing as knowledge, direct or not, is to click your heels together three times and say the magic words: “_a priori… a priori… a priori_” …But then who’s shortcutting? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2009, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/97 "2009-07-04T02:04:17Z")
Our memories and perceptions are what we experience. We draw conclusions from them. We conclude that there is a reality. What we experience is ourselves in relationship to that reality. We find it useful and necessary to conceptualize reality “as it exists apart from our interaction with it”; the only models of reality that we find useful within our own heads demands such a formulation. In doing so, we have posited the existence of something we can only indirectly derive, but that’s the whole POINT. We are saying to ourselves “Ha! I can derive the existence of a universe that I can comprehend within my head based on what I can experience of it”. > [@](#): > > How is that different from just knowing something as the examples posted are known? What examples? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2009, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/98 "2009-07-04T02:25:43Z")
Fnord. ---
**Author:** ![NoJustice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecb155/32.png) [@NoJustice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoJustice)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2009, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/99 "2009-07-04T02:37:24Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > What examples? These ones: > [@AHunter3](#): > > You do not directly know that just about everyone agrees that the sky is blue. > You do not directly know that the color other people call blue is the same color that you call blue. > You do not direclty know that the sensory experiences that, collectively, have led you to conclude that there are indeed other people have led you to that conclusion reliably. > You therefore do not directly know that there _are_ other people. > You do not directly know there _is_ a sky. I still have no idea what your point is, but you’re still making statements which are questionable at best. > [@AHunter3](#): > > Our memories and perceptions are what we experience. Great… I predict another dance with the [Homunculus.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_argument) > [@](#): > > We find it useful and necessary to conceptualize reality “as it exists apart from our interaction with it”; the only models of reality that we find useful within our own heads demands such a formulation. ??? Speak for yourself. > [@](#): > > In doing so, we have posited the existence of something we can only indirectly derive, but that’s the whole POINT. You do know, there’s a difference between conceptualizing something and positing something… right? ---
**Author:** ![Strinka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strinka/32/512_2.png) [@Strinka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strinka)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2009, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738/100 "2009-07-04T05:05:59Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > But we do not have direct access to it. Only to our experience of it. I agree with you. We don’t have direct access to reality. But we do have indirect access to it. But that’s very different from zero access. If we had absolutely no access to reality, you probably couldn’t even come to the conclusion that an objective reality exists, let alone try to determine any of its properties. And despite how imperfect our limited perception is, it’s still pretty good. If it weren’t, science couldn’t work, and wouldn’t be any kind of revelation to discover that perception isn’t perfect. Also, it’s true that usually no one makes the distinction between true objective reality, and the reality we perceive. But that’s because in most cases, it makes no difference. In the cases that it does make a difference, like in subtle philosophical debates, I don’t think there’s any significant confusion about what is reality and what is our perception of it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wgen-did-you-discover-that-reality-is-inconsistent/501738.md?page=6)