"Reality is an activity of the most august imagination"

[Galen]

Quote is by poet Wallace Stevens.

I was shown this quote by a friend recently, and it seems relevant to socionics. As such, I want to know what everybody thinks of it. Specifically, I want to see what meaning(s) people interpret from it (not necessarily in a socionics light, more like to paraphrase what he's saying in your own words), and I want to know what people's reactions are to it: whether you agree or connect with it, or not.

[silverchris9]

Well... I mean... that's a hella complicated quote, and it helps to know some Wallace Stevens, and even still I don't quite understand it...

But basically, I reject some of Steven's more extreme statements about reality and imagination, because I feel like they tend towards solipsism. Some of the other stuff like "Let be be finale of seem" and the poem "Tea at the Palaz of Hoon" ("and what I saw/or heard, or felt, came not but from myself.") I'm okay with.

But this one sounds like there is no reality outside of the mind (which is counterbalanced by Stevens in Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction: "There was a muddy center before we breathed/there was a myth before the myth began/venerable and articulate and complete//from this the poem springs: the we live in a place/that is not our own and, much more, not ourselves.") And I wholeheartedly reject the notion that there is no reality outside of the mind.

Also, that Stevens line I quoted is complicated by his claim that it was a "myth" that existed before the myth began (that is, before people started having concepts about the world, thoughts about the First Idea). But I think the bit about living in a world that is not ourselves is about as clear-cut a refutation of solipsism as you're going to get.


Now, if someone could give me another reading of the line, I would be more inclined to agree with it, because it is a beautiful line. But I really don't understand how to rescue that line from solipsism at all.

I do like the notion that reality is an activity. Rather than being a static thing, it is something in the process of changing. That's lovely.

And I have found another reading, which is this: what we experience as reality (which is, for human beings, indistinguishable from actual reality) is the result of human minds constantly re-imagining what life is. That is, as Kant says, actual experience is unavailable to us. We have to organize it using the concepts that the mind imposes onto experience. Kant focuses this on more physical qualities, such as time, separation in space, causality, etc. Stevens expands it to the psychological, experiential, etc. What we experience (reality-as-it-is-experienced, phenomena) is not, strictly speaking, actual reality (reality-as-it-is, the First Idea, noumena). Rather, reality-as-it-is-experienced is the result of (and so is indistinguishable from, from an interpretive perspective) the activity of the mind, in a constant state of interpretation of actual reality, based on the heruistics provided by tradition, or more accurately, the aggregate of all human minds (the "most august imagination").

But when you reduce it like that, you realize that this is really the exact same thing that Wordsworth was saying 100 years before Stevens:

"Therefore am I still/A lover of the meadows and the woods,/And mountains; and of all that we behold,/From this green earth; of all the mighty world/Of eye and ear, both what they half-create,/And what perceive." That is, our minds "half-create" what we experience. When we experience nature, sure, some is perception (Stevens perhaps denies this), but in general experience consists as much in what our minds bring to the table as what is actually there in the world itself.

Anyway, in that quote, Stevens collapses a causal chain: actual reality (the "muddy center") gives rise to the conception of reality in various human minds (principally minds of genius, i.e., Shakespeare, Napoleon, Queen Elizabeth, the Pope, Machiavelli, Freud, Jung, Jefferson, Madison etc., but also the individual, and also people who we will never hear of who created the systems according to which we think), which in turn gives rise to reality-as-it-is-experienced by the individual, whose experience is organized and defined by the methods of coping with reality inherited from the aggregate (and traditional) imagination. But Stevens collapses the distinctions (one more reason why I think he's ILI---Ti demonstrative, deep understanding of Ti distinctions, no use for them), by reducing actual reality (noumena) to reality-as-it-is-experienced (phenomena).

So, the most interesting question to ask about this quote is, in my opinion, how is it different from Wordsworth in idea-content. But that shall have to wait for another post, as it is totally off-topic from what you wanted to discuss, I am sure.

[Galen]

"Therefore am I still/A lover of the meadows and the woods,/And mountains; and of all that we behold,/From this green earth; of all the mighty world/Of eye and ear, both what they half-create,/And what perceive." That is, our minds "half-create" what we experience. When we experience nature, sure, some is perception (Stevens perhaps denies this), but in general experience consists as much in what our minds bring to the table as what is actually there in the world itself.

This is essentially what I was thinking, that Stevens is trying to say "reality is determined by the individual experiencing it." Such an idea is completely mind-boggling to me, because what I consider to be reality doesn't work along that plane at all.

For me, reality is something that exist in its true form regardless of any person's ability to understand it accurately or not. My focus is much more on trying to strip my analysis of reality of all personalization in order to get the pure, undiluted thing itself as it exists separate from myself. I can't acknowledge that what constitutes reality is determined by the individual, because all understandings of the world around me made on an individual level are not considered to be "reality" for me. Those impressions of the world that I find/make are completely detached from reality yet still encompass reality, if that makes sense.

For example, I was talking about a quote by Yukio Mishima with a friend (I won't say which quote exactly, since that isn't the point of this example). We both had very different interpretations of what he was trying to say, because we both had different ways of approaching and understanding it. She seemed very caught up in her own personal interpretation of the quote, how it applied to her understanding of the world personally; on the other hand, I was trying to remove all personalness from my analysis of the passage. We had a ton of miscommunication in this way, because I had no means of understanding reality as a personal interpretation, and she had no means of separating herself from her personal interpretation.

[EyeSeeCold]

"Reality is an activity of the most august imagination"

The complexities and wonders that exist in "the real world" are analogous to what one would find in the world of a person with profound mental creativity.

In essence, reality is a fantasy, if you have the right perspective.

[717495]

-dom? Most of the imagination I have is rather internalized/personal, and so it clashes with reality and real people's ways of looking at things, in a large way. The fact that it fuels me however is significant, and that I probably need an on and off balance of personal imagination and reality.

[Park]

I agree with it. Our reality is hugely a byproduct of our imagination.

[pianosinger]

The complexities and wonders that exist in "the real world" are analogous to what one would find in the world of a person with profound mental creativity.

Reminds me of the movie Inception.

[Timmy]

The complexities and wonders that exist in "the real world" are analogous to what one would find in the world of a person with profound mental creativity.

In essence, reality is a fantasy, if you have the right perspective.

Or rather, reality and imagination are one and the same. A dull or uncreative mind poorly comprehends its depth, breadth, and ineffable beauty.

[Galen]

Here's my take on the quote:

What Stevens is saying is that what constitutes reality is dependent on the individual who observes it. In some respects I can understand this to be true, because people have their own biases or cultural upbringings, everything that makes a person an individual. But where I'm finding a road block is that the individual in fact cannot determine what is reality because that is not how reality is defined. Reality is everything about the world that exists and functions independent of how the individual thinks it works. Reality doesn't care what an individual thinks it is; reality is going to function the way it does, and for a person to base their conclusions about reality on what they think about it personally does not constitute as reality. That is an interpretation, not the thing itself.

The idea that reality is a product of the individual is very much a mindset imo. It's the mindset that reality is a subjective entity that can't be explicitly displayed, and that reality is inherently different depending on who you're talking to.

[Creepy-male]

This is essentially what I was thinking, that Stevens is trying to say "reality is determined by the individual experiencing it." Such an idea is completely mind-boggling to me, because what I consider to be reality doesn't work along that plane at all.

Not incompatible. Philosophically it's useful to have an absolute reality as a concept, because then you can say that everyone has some flawed connection to it through which they perceive what is.

We're always limited by our perceptions, though. Nobody has any way of apprehending absolute reality perfectly. Even accurate perception of it is just another way of getting at what it is.

IMO, absolute reality is a thing. We have only our perceptions of it to define what it is, however. We can intellectually implement checks, methods, procedures, protocols, w/e to try and get as accurate and unbiased perception of it, though.

(As an aside, if you still try to argue that I'm not an introtim after reading that, I don't know what to say This was The Thing that Andy Kaufman's pranks were built around, and the man is my idol and hero.)

[April]

This thread made me remember a conversation in the chatbox. A certain member was basically arguing, "If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there to hear it, then there is no tree!" although he didn't word it as cleverly. I left saying, "I'm going to go stab some babies," because that is some fucking nonsense.

At the most basic level, I agree with others that this quote deals with reality versus perception. I think there are many potential interpretations beyond this. Beyond what others have said, the phrase "the most august imagination" made me reflect on who defines commonly accepted reality within society and the power dynamics inherent with this issue. Much like whose interpretation of this quote we accept.

[krieger]

i would agree with the quote in as far as "august" means something along the lines of self-correcting, determined to reach the right answer and lacking hubris and self-deception.

(although it would still be awkwardly worded. i wouldn't call reality an "activity" under any circumstance)

[silverchris9]

i disagree with it. the only purpose of the term "reality" is that of distinguishing something from the mental. if the guy said "there is no reality" he would be wrong but at least somewhat coherent.

i would agree with the quote in as far as "august" means something along the lines of self-correcting, determined to reach the right answer and lacking hubris and self-deception.

(although it would still be awkwardly worded. i wouldn't call reality an "activity" under any circumstance)

ARGH.

Did you read the quote at all...? You totally applied your own random definition to the word august (how does august mean self-correcting? or lacking hubris? or "all the qualities labcoat thinks a thinker should have?"). And yes, you are correct in saying that one use of the word "reality" is that which is not mental. But god, it's literature, you have to read it sensitively and subtly. Obviously, by making a clearly hyperbolic statement, he's trying to point your attention to something, namely, that what most people think of as reality (i.e., "reality as it is experienced") is a product of the "activity of the most august imagination." You can read him as saying "reality is imagination" but that's silly and solipsistic, and contradicts his statements elsewhere (I provided an example from section 4 of the first part of Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction, which is essentially an extremely intelligent, nearly mythic meditation on the question of perception and reality.)

And come on, man! There's a reason he used the word activity. Awkwardly worded? It's POETRY. It's not supposed to be straightforward. The reason he uses the word "activity" is so that we understand that the "most august imagination" (which I take to be the aggregate of all imaginations, but principally the strong ones, like Shakespeare's, Freud's, Augustine's, etc.) is constantly shifting its perspective, constantly reconsidering, constantly adapting to new stimuli. The word activity is actually the closest to the meanings that you imposed on the text, and that's the word you tried to dismiss!

This is essentially what I was thinking, that Stevens is trying to say "reality is determined by the individual experiencing it." Such an idea is completely mind-boggling to me, because what I consider to be reality doesn't work along that plane at all.

Well... I agree and disagree, both with your interpretation of Stevens and your interpretation of my interpretation of Wordsworth (lol).

Your reading of the quote is solipsistic: reality is what I imagine it to be. My argument is that Stevens is considerably more subtle than that. Granted, my thoughts are based on reading other poems by Stevens, so I can't complain about you reading the quote the way you do. But anyway, the point is, Stevens isn't a solipsist. He's a poet.

So, he is inhabiting the tension between the idea that reality is reality is reality, regardless of the observer (you see this in a poem like "The Snow Man" and also in the first section of "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction,"); and the idea that reality is what the observer makes of it (seen in this quote and in "Tea at the Palaz of Hoon"). And this quote resolves that tension into a paradox: reality is an activity of the imagination, because we can know no reality beyond the reality that is an activity of the imagination, that is, reality-as-it-is-experienced.

So I think you're slightly misreading Stevens, and I think that the slight misreading of Stevens is related to a similar slight misreading in your Te/Ti distinction (which I see as having a lot to do with Ne/Ni as well).

For me, reality is something that exist in its true form regardless of any person's ability to understand it accurately or not. My focus is much more on trying to strip my analysis of reality of all personalization in order to get the pure, undiluted thing itself as it exists separate from myself. I can't acknowledge that what constitutes reality is determined by the individual, because all understandings of the world around me made on an individual level are not considered to be "reality" for me. Those impressions of the world that I find/make are completely detached from reality yet still encompass reality, if that makes sense.

Well, Ti-valuers are often interested in reaching the "pure, undiluted thing as it exists separate from myself" (noumena). It's just that Ti-valuers, especially betas (Ni + Ti), recognize the incredible distance between subject and object, noumena and phenomena, that makes it difficult to access that. Stevens is trying to point out that most of the time, when you think you're looking at noumena, you're looking at phenomena. And we do have some control (although not complete control---the mind only half creates the world) over what phenomena we derive from noumena.

So, I don't think all Ti-valuers are like your friend, who tried to come to a purely personal interpretation of the thing you're talking about. Or at least, if I were in that conflict, the way I would see a person taking your position is not as trying to reach the actual truth of the thing, but rather as trying to ignore the difficulty of reaching the actual truth of the thing.

On the other hand, some Ti-valuers do go down that road. That's what Harold Bloom means when he says "the only method is the self." Impersonal subjectivity. Coming to a truth that is true for all people, not by means of objective testing, but by means of subjective... um... intuition or some shit.

I think one of the important lessons of socionics is that it is incredibly difficult for anyone to remove personalness from their viewing of anything---we're always going to view reality through the lens of our valued IEs. We're always looking through a lens, because we don't have minds capable of thinking the First Idea.

Here's my take on the quote:

What Stevens is saying is that what constitutes reality is dependent on the individual who observes it. In some respects I can understand this to be true, because people have their own biases or cultural upbringings, everything that makes a person an individual. But where I'm finding a road block is that the individual in fact cannot determine what is reality because that is not how reality is defined. Reality is everything about the world that exists and functions independent of how the individual thinks it works. Reality doesn't care what an individual thinks it is; reality is going to function the way it does, and for a person to base their conclusions about reality on what they think about it personally does not constitute as reality. That is an interpretation, not the thing itself.

The idea that reality is a product of the individual is very much a mindset imo. It's the mindset that reality is a subjective entity that can't be explicitly displayed, and that reality is inherently different depending on who you're talking to.

...but... as I said above, it's not that there is no reality behind appearances. It's that appearances are only half-reality. Like I was saying about Kant--space and time, cause and effect, they are not "real" strictly speaking. They are mental constructs that are necessary for human beings to organize reality into experience.

So, I don't think that Ti-valuers are necessarily solipsists (i.e., "reality is inherently different depending on who you're talking to"). In fact, I think Ti generally points away from solipsism (if any function points towards solipsism, it's Ni).

The person who I know that expresses a view closest to that is ILI. He says basically that there is no nature, or that it's unknowable anyway, and so we should just respect preferences in areas where there's no question of utility (and it's only fine to impose your preferences when it's a REALLY IMPORTANT PREFERENCE on something obvious, like whether or not it's okay to walk up to a person you've never met before who you know nothing about and who no one as paid you to kill and just kill them for the sake of killing them).

Anyway, I think solipsism is very much NTR. I think that noticing the difficulty of seeing reality-as-it-is (and maybe focusing more on using a personal intuition to guess at reality-as-it-is in an unprovable way) is associated with both Ti and Ni. So betas would be the most focused on that difficulty and deltas would be the least focused on it. Alphas and gammas would both be interested in that difficulty, but in opposite/incompatible ways.

Bit no one has to read:
To put it more poetically (and Stevensianly) Concepts are necessary for the transmutation of reality into experience, which for Stevens is the transmutation of lead (or perhaps snow) into gold. (That line is going in my senior paper fo' sho'). Also, this is of a piece with Stevens' ideas on heaven, which I discussed in another thread. Heaven is noumena, unchanging, boring, and luckily unavailable. Earth is in the rip of entropy, where things change. The lesson of Hoon as that the individual can create change in the process of transmutation.

Not to my knowledge, no. But it seems to me that Te valuers try their hardest to rid themselves of those filters in order to best understand existence as it, well, exists. Conversely, Ti valuers would place a higher focus on those personal filters because it's all they know. I'm conjecturing that part of Ti valuing means acknowledging that all people have different personalized biases as to how the world works and that no one interpretation is really more "correct" or "incorrect" than any other. This can frustrate Te valuers who wants to be rid of those biases as much as possible, which in turn frustrates Ti valuers because they assume Te valuers are asserting that their own biases are more correct than everyone else's.

Oh. No. Ti-valuers do NOT think that there is no such thing as a more correct on incorrect interpretation. They just have different grounds for correctness. As many have pointed out, Te valuers tend to look for correspondence (does this fit with the facts?). Ti valuers, on the other hand, look for coherence (do the elements of this contradict one another?). Have you ever talked to Pinocchio/Bolt/whoever? He thinks there are hard-and-fast rules as to what is correct and incorrect. It's just based on coherence rather than correspondence.

I really think this is more a beta/delta, Ni/Ne conflict than a Ti/Te conflict, especially the thing you said at the end about the source of frustration. But I think that's dead on, that deltas think that betas aren't even trying to remove their biases, whereas betas think that deltas are just assuming their own biases are correct. It's nice to know that you really aren't trying to do that.

Sure, but ultimately a crucial part of acknowledging that reality is being forever at war against your own possible biases, both known and unknown.

I operate on the acceptance that I can never know reality in terms of How It Really Is; if I thought otherwise, I would consider myself a deceitful liar. But however futile that goal of possessing 100% knowledge of reality is, we should fling ourselves mercilessly at ever precising approximations of it, to the best extent that objective science and subjective human experience will allow.

Argh. You silly TeNi. If you would just stop valuing Te and start valuing Fe, you would leave the earth and float towards the ceiling, and realize that you can have much more fun if you create your own reality!

In other words, I agree 100%.

Depends on the valuer. Some will tend to take their own dogmas quite literally as a true representation of reality as it actually is—I think ILEs and LSIs are inlined towards this. I'm not sure that SLEs and LIIs are quite the same in that regard.

I'm frustrated both by people who don't acknowledge inherent bias ('it IS this'), and by those who resign themselves utterly to bias ('it might be this—we can't know—but let's just believe it anyway!').

Frustration 1 is delta. Frustration 2 is beta. Don'tcha love being gamma?

Also, Tcaud is LII and he tends to take his dogmas as reality. Same with Kant I'd say. I would agree the SLEs (having Ni in the 5th rather than the 6th slot) tend to be more inclined to the "reality is unknowable" position. I think SLEs often extend it to: "reality is unknowable, so you need to act. The proof of the action is not in the theory that led you to it, but rather, in the reaction that results from it." SEEs even moreso probably, since they don't value Ti.

I interpreted it the same way. That it takes powerful imagination to see reality in clarity as it is. Realism is definitely a more demanding exercise of imagination than fantasy, since the former necessitates one to consider things presently beyond ones ability to even begin to conceptualize—i.e., 'even the possible can be senseless.'

Hmm... that's a valid reading I guess. But I don't think it gets into all the interesting things about the quote, especially in the word "activity." But yeah... I mean, that's definitely one meaning (or one aspect of the meaning, if you will).

[krieger]

Did you read the quote at all...? You totally applied your own random definition to the word august (how does august mean self-correcting? or lacking hubris?

It is exactly my point that one needs to interpret the word in a highly unconventional way to make sense of the statement as a whole.

And come on, man! There's a reason he used the word activity. Awkwardly worded? It's POETRY.

A sense of awkwardness is exactly what characterizes bad poetry in contrast to the good stuff.

[FDG]

The word "august" is misplaced. I know because I had to drudge my way through latin. End.

[squark]

Quote is by poet Wallace Stevens.

I was shown this quote by a friend recently, and it seems relevant to socionics. As such, I want to know what everybody thinks of it. Specifically, I want to see what meaning(s) people interpret from it (not necessarily in a socionics light, more like to paraphrase what he's saying in your own words), and I want to know what people's reactions are to it: whether you agree or connect with it, or not.

Honestly, it makes no sense to me. I don't know what he's trying to say. There's reality, and there is individual perceptions of that reality, but that does not make reality a product of the imagination. Reality is something outside of imagination, regardless of how our imaginations shape how we view reality.

[Gilly]

First thought: August = transition between Summer and Fall = transition of Beta to Gamma = peak Se.

[Korpsy Knievel]

Look what I found across the street:

My immediate response was to think of the immaterialist idealism of Berkeley, who held that objects, while truly existing only within minds, remain extant when unperceived by mortals by being ever kept in the omniscient thoughts of God.

Secondly, I recalled the panpsychism of Spinoza, who held that material existence was merely emergent extension of an immanent, transcendent Deity's universal, supervening Mind.

My third thought was that this echoes the latter-day nerdwank of those who bonghittedly ponder whether we're all within the Matrix maaaaaan, and if all of what appears concrete and real is actually just a vast and tricksy computer simulation.

Fourth and last, since it was suggested that Wallace was given to solipsism, this paean could be an instance of the writer laying lips upon his own ass.

[mfckr]

@everyone else, didn't anybody read my incredibly long-winded explanation of what the quote means? He's not talking about reality, he's talking about experience, which most people unthinkingly take to be the same as reality. Of course, the only way to demonstrate that is to cherry-pick quotes from his other poems... but I do think that the quote is more interesting if it is not merely solipsistic.

Yes, it makes perfect sense. I'll add another twist to it here.

@Ashton, I really liked your post. I was thinking about bringing up the cat. I think you're right: the cat is dead and alive. I think that in general, basically any label you attach to reality is true in some sense. Just some ways of looking at the world are more complete than others.

Naturally, all of this is true. But there's yet further craziness I can add here.

As the thought experiment goes: Unobserved cat in box with a random decay process that has a 50/50 chance of rendering cat alive/dead. Now, what if you took literally that the unobserved cat—in actuality—was simultaneously both alive and dead? That the cat really exists in some probabilistic state of pseudo-existence—that is, until somebody opens up the box to check the result, at which point the system collapses into a single discrete real-world observable outcome of dead cat XOR alive cat.

This has been an ongoing scientific dilemma for nigh on a century. I'll try to keep the science lecture uncomfortably brief since anyone can reference Wikipedia for the extended version(s). But suffice to say, measurements/observations conducted on properties of any physical system, appear in part subject to fundamental randomness (see 'particle-wave duality' and 'Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle') at the quantum level, thereby inducing behavior which can only be predicted probabilistically (modeled as a 'Schrödinger wave function'). When dealing with micro-scale objects like electrons or other subatomic particles, the influence of this uncertainty can be significant (see 'electron tunneling'). Whereas with macro-scale objects, especially things visible to the human eye, the uncertainty threshold is so infinitesimally low that it's causally irrelevant. The system as a superposition of many Schrödinger wave fxns mutually cancels out random probabilistic behavior, converging it towards an otherwise familiar deterministically predictable outcome. Which is why of course we don't see uncertainty effects at this level of reality, even though technically they are there. And ultimately the observed measurable outcome of any causal event will at least in some small part be subject to genuine inescapable uncertainty—I don't mean of a kind reflecting ignorance or lack of knowledge about conditions of the universe, nor merely some byproduct consequence of measurement device interactions. But fundamental uncertainty in the sense that nature really is (apparently) like that. And though Einstein in his idealistic convictions of a Deterministic universe protested that, "God doesn't play dice," the weight of empirical evidence present at least very much suggests a possibility of, "well… why not?"

Yet the dilemma: What is a system really doing when nobody's looking at it, what is it actually like in that dubious gap between measurements/observations? Here the question of "if a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" is no longer just a laymen's amateur philosophical quandary. And has sprung forth a legion of theoretical interpretations attempting to address the problem of 'wave function collapse'. The most widely-endorsed view, the 'Copenhagen Interpretation', basically formalizes ontological agnosticism regarding the question as irrelevant, while other approaches in POV consist roughly along the lines of:

1) This is a lot of hokum and we should've just listened to Einstein to begin with ('Hidden Variables').
2) It's just random, that's that, end of story, nothing causes so-called wave fxn collapse ('Copenhagenist Realism').
3) All possible outcomes for any event that can happen, do happen—in their own separate universes branched off from ours ('Many-Worlds').
4) The observer in and of itself triggers wave fxn collapse ('Consciousness Causes Collapse').

However, #1 and #2 both lack compelling evidence despite many decades of concerted efforts by some of the world's most brilliant minds. And nobody's figured out a way to make #3 falsifiable yet (how to measure something in another universe?!). While following #4 to its logical terminus evokes all sorts of unsettling implications: Is there something important about the conscious awareness of whatever's doing the observing? Could it be that subjective experiential states intersect somehow with developing courses of objective events, and influence their tendencies? So on, so forth.

Maybe. FWIW, some physicists like Heisenberg, Pauli, and Bohr (privately) considered such views plausible and took serious the notion that the observed-observer divide was somewhat illusory—that the observer themselves is literally an active participant, at some very root generative metaphysical level of reality, in the 'drama of existence' and creation of the observed. Surprisingly, at least some bizarre findings do exist suggesting this sort of thing. Like those from the former PEAR Lab…

Still, no matter how thoughtful you are, I wonder how far you can escape from socionics-y stuff? Like, what are the elements that Te and Ti valuers just don't see in their own psyche that affect their epistemology? Can you ever think through it so far that you get past your own biases that arise from how you process information?

I suspect no hard limitations on that. Now of course, I can see how IEs can influence epistemological outlooks and what not, and its intuitive that certain IE values may tend conducive to certain kinds of outlooks. But IEs are only means, not ends—they only parse info, not determine conclusions. I see them as something like subjective lenses which polarize reality-info and imbue it with qualitative shades native to one's valued IEs, such that the info can be experientially mapped onto the psyche in a way more conducive to one's understanding. Obviously I don't see IEs as part of the natural world; I see their relevance to reality as beginning and ending with human constructs—human perceptions, ideas, behavior, speech, writing, art, inventions, society, etc. Outside of that cross-section, reality has no inherent IE bias. Which I think further implies that epistemological biases aren't necessarily hard-wired in firm.

Concilience sounds interesting, but I don't quite understand it from the wikipedia article. Are there some other sources to look at?

Hmm, none off the top of my head. Try looking up anything by Edward O. Wilson. His conceptual-ideas on it are what I'm going off.

[Gilly]

1) This is a lot of hokum and we should've just listened to Einstein to begin with ('Hidden Variables').
2) It's just random, that's that, end of story, nothing causes so-called wave fxn collapse ('Copenhagenist Realism').
3) All possible outcomes for any event that can happen, do happen—in their own separate universes branched off from ours ('Many-Worlds').
4) The observer in and of itself triggers wave fxn collapse ('Consciousness Causes Collapse')

I've been on this crap since high school, and the only conclusion I find any support for is the assumption I started with: that, at the bottom of the matter, at the limit of our quest to understand the world as humans, any "concrete" studies on the matter can't yield any results that go beyond recursive knowledge of our own methods of perception. It's kind of a frustrating predicament, but I think the only way we can really deduce anything is simply by observing how things coincide; trying to tap into the "real nature" of reality by poking and prodding and trying to unearth some kind of constant factor is just asking to have your questions slung back into your face. It seems almost like a hopeful limiting factor on our technological progress: we can only advance in science insofar as we understand our own nature, or are at least forced to develop our understanding of ourselves and the world in tandem, as is only fitting, IMO.

[Creepy-]

I am agnostic towards the existence of reality. However, it makes more sense to me that some sort of external reality exists. Shared experience and whatnot.

However, interpretation of reality = nobody knows what reality actually is. Any claim is conjecture. "Reality," perhaps, in the sense of what all humans perceive. But, maybe not "true." Everything works as it does in a human's perception of reality. The truth must be, though, that reality is meaningless without something to perceive it. However, because everything which perceives reality presents biases and inadequacies in their own perception, what is "reality" to one may be "fantasy" to another.

Basically: True reality may exist, but the perception of that reality is entirely subjective. Or something like that.

EDIT: It's all symbols anyway.

[mirrorsoul]

I think it means that the most potent imagination is the one that changes reality.

Basically, that dreamers who learn how to turn their dreams into reality, have a greater imagination than those who merely allow their dreams to remain dreams and give up on them because they're unrealistic.

I see no need to read anything more than that into it. It seems to me like you're all over-analyzing it... a LOT.

[krieger]

I disagree. My conscious awareness informs me of right and wrong, although my sense of right and wrong could be very different from your own. If I see an old lady getting mugged, I want to help her. I feel this way not because I claim to understand the transcendent, cosmic significance of her mugging, but because MY reality, bounded by my awareness, evokes in me a sense of moral repulsion to the robbery.

this leaves you without the means to judge that another person's moral views might be mistaken. For example, certain interpretations of the islamic Sharia Law prescribe that women be circumcised (effectively a form of gratuitous torture). You would end up having to call their moral views as right as your own to maintain any sense of consistency in your views.

in the end you just end up deciding that your views are moral and theirs are not. Welcome to the realist camp...

[Timmy]

this leaves you without the means to judge that another person's moral views might be mistaken. For example, certain interpretations of the islamic Sharia Law prescribe that women be circumcised (effectively a form of gratuitous torture). You would end up having to call their moral views as right as your own to maintain any sense of consistency in your views.

in the end you just end up deciding that your views are moral and theirs are not. Welcome to the realist camp...

Others' moral views are judged wrong to the extent that they clash with my own deeply felt moral sentiments (which are a part of MY reality). To whatever degree possible I try to ensure that my moral perspective is internally consistent, but you're right, ultimately I am just deciding that I am right and that those who disagree with me are wrong.

In my honest opinion that's what everyone does, whether or not they are willing to admit it.


On a related note, people keep insisting that it is possible to correctly comprehend bits and pieces of reality (defined universally), if not reality in its entirety. I disagree. Without reference to reality in it's entirety, one loses the proper context with which to interpret bits and pieces of information as they bubble into our consciousness. Attempting to discover the ultimate meaning of a small slice of reality is akin to watching only 3 seconds of a movie and trying to accurately interpret what was going on in that instant. It cannot be done. Accurate comprehension of reality and correct moral principal is the domain of God and none other. This is why people turn to religion -- they come to recognize their own limitations.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

If you're convinced reality is cold and cruel and harsh, then it will be.

Nature isn't cruel, it's only people. Is nature really out to get you or is it doing what is best for its own self?

If you're convinced that your dreams won't come true, that they are just these faggy imagination-nothings, then they will always stay that way.

If you think that you're some sort of hero of the downtrodden, and if you hold onto your pain like it means something, but in the end you know you'll 'work it all out', then that's the story you write for yourself- and that's what reality will present it to be as.

It's what the best philosophers got right: Reality is simply how you write it! And how you write is what you think about. You attract by the power of your thoughts!!!

You don't attract bullying because you want to be hurt, you attract bullying in your own vibration because it makes you feel like a righteous human. You think there's a mystical payoff, and you write your life where this is the case. Bullies of course, are writing a different story. Or maybe that's the sad part: They're not writing much at all. Instead they're just playing video games or sports.

You think a lot of things based on genetics and what you were told to think, but the truth is you have the power to guide your thoughts to be and do whatever you want, as long as it doesn't violate some other law of the universe. (It's not like the law of attraction is the only force in the universe but it's a pretty potent one) But then we have another problem of the world:

If you have a trillion dollars from following the law of attraction, and the best house & car in the world- you would drive yourself crazy if you didn't also have spiritual love. There's nothing wrong with wanting nice things, but that's not what its about. The love beyond society's veils and materialism is the only thing that can save your soul. People who set out to become Gods only make themselves their own worst enemies! Know this truth well, potential shaman: What you give with your heart, selflessly, not for any monetary gain or comfort, you will get back in equal shared spirit. So be artists!!!

Don't just drown in middle class safety and conformity! Don't allow your soul to be bought. You know you're only gonna truly be satisfied if you try to help other people, so try to help others- the best way you can! That's the only way to free your own soul!!!

[RaptorWesNet]

Yes, Imagination tours a wiggling and blazing tickle spree of hugs and wormholes echoing a chimney of Ho-Oh!!

[Baqer]

I have read literally nothing other than the post that started this thread, since reading other people's opinions is boring and It's 1 am.

Is reality imagined?
Ya basically, all our experiences of reality only happen in what I'd call our "experience", or consciousness, the stuff that we know is connected to our head somehow, but don't really know how the 2 are linked. We can only see reality through our senses and our experience it with our conscious, so reality might as well be an extremely prevalent collective delusion.

So ya, "reality" is just a product of the mind, when you consider the fact that we can never have any "true" reality, as everything is just an interpretation of the senses.