Reality and Reification

Both start with Re. Both denote concepts. This post isn't about the linguistic similarities between the two. This post is about interpretation. The Freudian school says that we're all just acting out our instincts. The Jungian school says we're acting out ideas in our head (archetypes, forgive me if I'm misinterpreting). The actual content of the interpretation is practically irrelevant. Various religions say we're all inherently good, inherently bad, a mix of the two, or even that we're only good if we accept certain ideas.

Naturally, the progression of ideas would be expected to continue to change as ideas reflect on ideas and are considered in the context from which they arose. Certain ideas would be expected to stick around longer, for several reasons. While there are other reasons that ideas may stick around longer, this post will be discussing the ideas that are either "useful" or are "true". The distinction, while relatively unimportant, is worth mentioning. Arguments can be made which do not conform to the principles of logic, but by coincidence end up being true. Similarly, acting under certain assumptions can bring about desirable results even if, in the grand scheme of things, they turn out to not be true.

This idea is illustrated nicely by imagining each individual person being represented on a bell curve. Each person has a seemingly infinite number of experiences in their lifetimes, and each person comes to conclusions based upon their experiences. These conclusions, in turn, can also be imagined on a bell curve. Some of these conclusions (the ones that are useful or true) will happen more often than those that are less useful or true. The basis for this is fairly straight-forward: more individuals are far more likely to notice and internalize a specific idea if it actually has substance or use to it.

Having gone this far, there are a few conclusions that can be made:
1) ideas can be more true than others.
2) ideas can look like they are more true than others, without necessarily being more true than others.
3) it can be very difficult or impossible to tell the two apart.

The implications of these three conclusions are important. If one is true, it must follow that there is an idea or ideas that are more true than all of the others. If two is true, it must follow that there is an idea or ideas that look like they are more true than all of the others. And 3) means it is easy to mix the previous two up.

Reification generally refers to making something real, bringing something into being, or making something concrete. Reification may also refer to: Reification (Gestalt psychology), the perception of an object as having more spatial information than is actually present.

Kind of wondering if you have a real question?

a reply to: zackli

Point being?

And: There's no such creature as coincidence.

And: Each persons experience in this lifetime is nowhere near infinite.

The opposite of materialism is not religion - open you mind to ideas that goes beyond the established & accepted.

-MM

originally posted by: Chronogoblin
There's no such creature as coincidence.

It was a coincidence that I happened to read your post and then decide to comment on it.

Reality gave me options which I could ricochet off of towards this destination, none of which were guaranteed or set in time.

a reply to: zackli

re again, back, backward

Latin

rebound -to spring back again; rewind - to wind something backward; reaction: a response; recognize: to identify someone or something seen before.

...from www.learnthat.org...

The 'words' are always important.

You are talking in 're'lative terms not absolute ones; about conditioned behavior, speech and thought. There is an absolute (archetypal, if you will) aspect as well and it is not 'conditioned' by 're' concepts.

As a day-to-day practical matter, we live in a 'relative world' (or most of us) and need to learn to navigate with relative means always, always, with our course set towards understanding and experience of the absolute and if we navigate well, we may catch brief glances of that absolute (which is what most 're'fer to as Truth with a capital T).

Happy Solstice!!

a reply to: Chronogoblin

Point being?

I thought the idea of there being one "objective" reality and that any other reality was the result of something like the result of random chance as a result of a person's upbringing was interesting, which was originally the idea I wanted to illustrate. It just so happened to turn into something else.

And: There's no such thing as coincidence.

I disagree. Dismissing the possibility that two events can seem related at the outset but actually being disconnected from each other seems a bit assumptive to me.

And: Each persons experience in this lifetime is nowhere near infinite.

I will give you that.

a reply to: MerkabaMeditation

I didn't say what the point of the post was at the outset, which I should have. I have no idea where you got the idea I thought materialism and religion were opposites, but I assure you, I don't. I would be more inclined to say that religion is one of many forms of claiming certainty versus claiming uncertainty over absolute knowledge of the universe.

open you[r] mind to ideas that go beyond the established and accepted.

I did that a long time ago, and found that there is a reason that the aforementioned ideas are established and accepted. One of the biggest ideas is that you can trust other people. That is, you can trust other people to be people. Which is to say that you can trust them to look out for their own perception of their own best interest.

a reply to: zackli

I read your OP as though Freudian and Jungian school were your only options, both I believe are materialist schools of thought. Therefore, I wished to inform you that there are other schools of thought than those derived from materialism. By pointing out that the opposite of materialism is not religion I suggested you to open your mind for other schools of thought. Why? Well, many seem to think that questioning materialism leads to religion, which is of course false.

-MM

a reply to: zackli

Regarding Freud and Jungs takes, I would posit it is a sporadic and complex dynamic messy mixture of both instinct and idea, and this seems quite obvious, and I must they both assumed this is true to varying extents.

I think I get what you are interested in. One of the interesting parts about the difference between true and useful, if not the varying degrees of ones knowledge being more and less true; the idea and potential for truth to not be useful, and the idea that not truths being useful is potentially a useful truth; and then using it would be truth... Sorry I am confused. Let me start by saying a more simple and general statement to work from.

Objective truth. There is absolute truth, as in object, as in cannot be objected to. This can be summarized by stating (though an intelligence may not be aware of all information of reality) reality at all times equals itself; reality = reality; tautologically.

You will see, a by product of this outlook, which I believe is true; is that hidden in above statements I made, it follows that; The only thing that can ever 'be not true' or 'know non truth" is 'a knower'; a mind like system.

It is also maybe funny, or maddening, that it might be true, that 'the existence of knowing/being able to know non truths' is true, as in, that is a real thing that can occur, someone knowing non truth, exists in reality objectively, and their non truth objectively effects, them, and others. So there is the key to the nature of usefulness. All that exists, by proxy of existing, has the potential to interact with at least another aspect of that which exists, thus being useable.

So then I guess we are brought to the nature of value. Which is another way of speaking of use/usefulness.... Well to back up a bit, I said that the only thing that can ever be false/untrue is a mind like system; what is a mind like system? An attempted simulation/correlation/mapping/graphing of objective reality. With potentially the function or main motive, to use this simulation, this mind for its own advantage; the own part, and advantage part, suggest the nature of subjectivity, value at all, the value of use, and the potential value of non truth over truth.

If to a being, propagating its existence is the highest value; than tautologically it would seem, that whatever that being must do to propagate its existence, which is a battle of its awareness of its body and mind, its own controlling of its instincts and ideas, is its highest value. Though now we hit the great objective wall. That is the power of truth, and that of objective reality far out numbering the individual being and its ideas i.e. that being cannot create the ideas of non truth to sate its hunger or transform into objects, it must abide by the truth of objectivity that surrounds it, and it is naturally best for it, to store many of these truths, such as, you must eat food, and, food is this, and you must drink water, and you must not jump off a cliff, these are objective truths, the subjectivity must agree with, access, obey, if it wishs its subjectivity to remain.

I will stop here, and maybe you will respond.

Having gone this far, there are a few conclusions that can be made:
1) ideas can be more true than others.
2) ideas can look like they are more true than others, without necessarily being more true than others.
3) it can be very difficult or impossible to tell the two apart.

The implications of these three conclusions are important. If one is true, it must follow that there is an idea or ideas that are more true than all of the others. If two is true, it must follow that there is an idea or ideas that look like they are more true than all of the others. And 3) means it is easy to mix the previous two up.

It may be that how an individual's mental processing orders and understands (via various stimuli) their perceptions - thus, their realities, as well as formulated ideas and beliefs in their accepted truth/reality, may be another factor to consider. Is the individual's method of reasoning restricted to simply their life's experiences and limited information or does the individual seek out a variety of information to understand others' perceived realities. In most people's busy struggle to survive in a modern society, how many of us really think about the 'big picture', that is, if one exists. What is the individual using to formulate his/her ideas/truth/reality; instinct? sensation? experience? intelligence? - and in what proportions of the whole or parts of the whole?

It may be said that, so far from having a materialistic tendency, the supposed introduction into the earth at successive geological periods of life — sensation, instinct, the intelligence of the higher mammalia bordering on reason, and lastly, the improvable reason of Man himself — presents us with a picture of the ever-increasing dominion of mind over matter.

— Sir Charles Lyell, 1863

Heres an idea; only god is real all other things are just illusionary and dont exist and never existed.

originally posted by: FormOfTheLord
Heres an idea; only god is real all other things are just illusionary and dont exist and never existed.

But things do exist, albiet in forms that are illusionary but still in cohesive states of energy and matter.

originally posted by: InTheLight

originally posted by: FormOfTheLord

Heres an idea; only god is real all other things are just illusionary and dont exist and never existed.

But things do exist, albiet in forms that are illusionary but still in cohesive states of energy and matter.

According to the BIG CRUNCH therory all time is reversed back into the big bang including the present, meaning we are just figments of a universe which is unmade, and dont exist at all.

A simple way to think of it, if we time travel back and stop you from dying did you ever die? Nope

In the same way as all of time reverses including the present the universe is similarly unmade and never did exist, and it never will.

Its a nice thought that our duality is truly just an illusion.

There are some scientific articles about this heres one, have a look and see all time reverses everything making all actions in every dimention mute. Kinda like gods big gotcha moment lolz.

www.dailymail.co.uk...

a reply to: FormOfTheLord

And so we have another idea among a sea of ideas, but where, what and why is the big picture?

An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.

— Essai philosophique sur les probabilités, Introduction. 1814

en.wikipedia.org...

originally posted by: InTheLight
a reply to: FormOfTheLord



And so we have another idea among a sea of ideas, but where, what and why is the big picture?

An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.



— Essai philosophique sur les probabilités, Introduction. 1814

en.wikipedia.org...

Lovely quote

I would say the where is an infinate singularity

The what is infinate singularities within the atoms themselves

The why is due to infinate nature of desire

All that begins must end that which has no begining the singularity has no ending being it is the singularity

a reply to: zackli

Coincidence is a construct of human consciousness. It's a lie. Something people come up with, when they don't like the answer. What's the answer? Well, think about it, if there is no coincidence, then everything that happens, does so for a reason. That's the part people are uncomfortable with. Knowing that everything that happens to them, is not an accident.

originally posted by: yourmaker

originally posted by: Chronogoblin
There's no such creature as coincidence.

It was a coincidence that I happened to read your post and then decide to comment on it.

Reality gave me options which I could ricochet off of towards this destination, none of which were guaranteed or set in time.

There is no such thing. You read my post, because your angel touched you on the shoulder and pointed to my post, you read it because you needed to. Understand that God cares about what happens to you, and nothing you do, or say, can change that.