What is reality? One author suggests that it's wrong to anthropomorphize animals because it distorts objective reality.
"There are at least two other ways in which we routinely corrupt our understanding of the non-human world by our choice of language: the use of words to name or describe an animal and the description of animal behaviour in human terms."
The Beatrix Potter Syndrome
By Philip Chandler
However, I would argue that objective reality is whatever reality the individual happens to subscribe to.
"Now physicists from Austria claim to have performed an experiment that rules out a broad class of hidden-variables theories that focus on realism -- giving the uneasy consequence that reality does not exist when we are not observing it ."
Quantum physics says goodbye to reality
Jon Cartwright
So physics says that reality is whatever you see. And, if we assume that each one of us views the world in our own unique way, then reality differs for each and every one of us. Therefore, there is no "objective" reality. All reality is subjective. If I want to anthropomorphize honey bees in my view of reality, well then, that's just as scientifically acceptable as any of the more objective (human-detached) views of honey bees, the insect world, or animals in general. Furthermore, if I don't exist, then nothing else exists either, because reality ceases to exist.
"Francis Bacon knew that in order to command nature, one must act according to its rules and identity. The statement Reality is Absolute is the explicit recognition of the primacy of existence. This means that reality is not subject to wishes, whims, prayers, or miracles. If you want to change the world, you must act according to reality. Nothing else will affect reality. If you evade this fact, your actions will most likely not have their desired effects. Your failure will be metaphysical justice.
The primacy of existence states the irrefutable truth that existence is primary and consciousness is secondary. Consciousness is the faculty which perceives and identifies existents (things that exists). For two reasons we say that existence is primary, that consciousness requires existence, and that there is no consciousness without existence.
Because consciousness identifies existents, there can be no consciousness without something existing to perceive. Nothing can have an identity (to be identified) without existing. The fact that something is identified necessarily implies its existence which necessarily implies existence in general. Thus there is no consciousness without existence."
Reality Is Absolute: The Primacy of Existence
by Jeff Landauer and Joseph Rowlands
That's some good logic. Unfortunately, physics, the purest of the sciences, says that things only exist when they have been observed to exist. Prior to that observation, existence is unknown. Maybe said object existed, maybe it didn't. There's no way to know.
"Quantum mechanics has been one of the most successful theories in science and is believed by many to underlie all known natural phenomena. More than eighty years after its discovery, however, a complete understanding of the theory's 'physical principles' and implications still eludes us. Many believe that quantum physics poses a serious challenge to philosophical ideas such as determinism, reductionism, and local realism and that it presents us with a radically new vision of reality."
Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality
John Templeton Foundation
Which brings me back to a point I've made before in this blog, that no one really knows what they're talking about. Expert politicians don't know a thing about governing, expert scientists don't know a thing about reality, expert philosophers don't know a thing about science, expert doctors don't know a thing about healing, and expert experts like myself don't know a thing about anything.
"For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known."
- 1 Corinthians 13: 9-12
"'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.'"
- Isaiah 55: 8-9
"There are at least two other ways in which we routinely corrupt our understanding of the non-human world by our choice of language: the use of words to name or describe an animal and the description of animal behaviour in human terms."
The Beatrix Potter Syndrome
By Philip Chandler
However, I would argue that objective reality is whatever reality the individual happens to subscribe to.
"Now physicists from Austria claim to have performed an experiment that rules out a broad class of hidden-variables theories that focus on realism -- giving the uneasy consequence that reality does not exist when we are not observing it ."
Quantum physics says goodbye to reality
Jon Cartwright
So physics says that reality is whatever you see. And, if we assume that each one of us views the world in our own unique way, then reality differs for each and every one of us. Therefore, there is no "objective" reality. All reality is subjective. If I want to anthropomorphize honey bees in my view of reality, well then, that's just as scientifically acceptable as any of the more objective (human-detached) views of honey bees, the insect world, or animals in general. Furthermore, if I don't exist, then nothing else exists either, because reality ceases to exist.
"Francis Bacon knew that in order to command nature, one must act according to its rules and identity. The statement Reality is Absolute is the explicit recognition of the primacy of existence. This means that reality is not subject to wishes, whims, prayers, or miracles. If you want to change the world, you must act according to reality. Nothing else will affect reality. If you evade this fact, your actions will most likely not have their desired effects. Your failure will be metaphysical justice.
The primacy of existence states the irrefutable truth that existence is primary and consciousness is secondary. Consciousness is the faculty which perceives and identifies existents (things that exists). For two reasons we say that existence is primary, that consciousness requires existence, and that there is no consciousness without existence.
Because consciousness identifies existents, there can be no consciousness without something existing to perceive. Nothing can have an identity (to be identified) without existing. The fact that something is identified necessarily implies its existence which necessarily implies existence in general. Thus there is no consciousness without existence."
Reality Is Absolute: The Primacy of Existence
by Jeff Landauer and Joseph Rowlands
That's some good logic. Unfortunately, physics, the purest of the sciences, says that things only exist when they have been observed to exist. Prior to that observation, existence is unknown. Maybe said object existed, maybe it didn't. There's no way to know.
"Quantum mechanics has been one of the most successful theories in science and is believed by many to underlie all known natural phenomena. More than eighty years after its discovery, however, a complete understanding of the theory's 'physical principles' and implications still eludes us. Many believe that quantum physics poses a serious challenge to philosophical ideas such as determinism, reductionism, and local realism and that it presents us with a radically new vision of reality."
Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality
John Templeton Foundation
Which brings me back to a point I've made before in this blog, that no one really knows what they're talking about. Expert politicians don't know a thing about governing, expert scientists don't know a thing about reality, expert philosophers don't know a thing about science, expert doctors don't know a thing about healing, and expert experts like myself don't know a thing about anything.
"For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known."
- 1 Corinthians 13: 9-12
"'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.'"
- Isaiah 55: 8-9
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