It was known to philosophy since antiquity that there was a kind of unbridgeable gap between the actual and the imagined where the imagined was part and parcel of the actual but not vice versa. The imagined or the thought-about seems to mirror the actual in a kind of diminished or greatly reduced way but the actual is what it is and is not dependent in any way on the abstract world of ideas. The Plato type thinkers kind of oppose this view and insist on some sort of inherent "supremacy" of the world of ideas and say that it is the actual which is mirroring the atemporal and eternal world of imagination.
cool. I haven't read much philosophy since I didnt want to spoil the process of investigating. Well, the actual seems to be unfolding in a way that does not limit by expectation necessarily. I don't know. Usually with smart thinkers there's a way to marry all their efforts together. I tend to lean more towards the Stoics than Plato. but what you're saying definitely makes sense
Thank you for clarifying, and I understand what you were getting at in the post a bit better! In terms of exterior reality ("the actual," as you call it) I personally believe that your latter conclusion is correct; it is mostly experienced and explored. Reasoning falls under the purview of interior reality i.e. ideas, metaphysics, etc. You cannot empirically understand exterior reality by reasoning alone. The comment above me as I write this, by @SeventyFive-gn9kh, suggests that interior reality is subordinate to exterior reality, and I would argue this is not true. Whichever came first, they both impact each other, kinda like Nature VS Nurture. They are constantly in balance, impacting one another and changing one another. Exterior reality can also be very difficult to trust and understand sometimes, in which case interior reality is the only seemingly stable and true reality.
Yea, i think i understand how your looking at. I would only add that my investigation into the "actual" may be only slightly more radical, because it does not assume a sense to what it means to be "exterior". The idea is can we prove anything at all about the actual without assuming something more than its obvious apparentness (since in a way that is all we are necessarily being given of it)?
I like the distinction you draw between interior and exterior reality. There definitely is some sort of inner world which has been especially explored by religio-mystical traditions of the world and which resists reduction into concrete or tangible forms. However I would point to the simple observation that this inner world is actually neuro-chemistry of the brain. Only it is so complex that we don't really know if our scientific methods, as we currently know them, apply to it or not.
@ezstein4914 i'd been thinking more about this concept today. I don't think actual was the same as "exterior reality." I think of actual as a type of certainty to a thing. When a thing carries this type of certainty, i consider it to be an actual thing. Maybe inside things can have that quality to them as well. Like an actual pain, for instance. To get into what @SeventyFive-gn9kh was saying about the platonic ideas: I think the situation i was finding was that in the actual, all that seemed to pin down was a type of Becoming. Inasmuch as there was "being" in the actual, it seemed to experience as idea. but then the word idea suggests "not real" so that may create problems to an understanding... but it still seemed like some progress. appreciate the input you guys gave. it really helped me to move the question along
I have a lot of thoughts (this became long), but to try to answer your question: I think the fact that "in our logic all we have are hypothetical principles" is exactly how we reason. To summarize points which others have touched on, there seems to be a separation in 'the actual' (what actually exists, in reality, and particularly in the present moment) from the potential or hypothetical. Then, how can we say things such as "therefore that will happen," if our entire ability to reason the 'therefore' is hypothetical? Most would say that we can just verify if the hypothesis was correct (experiment), so you need to experience and witness 'the actual' actually happen to be truthfully certain. However, you can also take this a step further. Not only is the hypothetical nature of reasoning called into question (even if the experiment worked, you can't claim it will happen again as if this hypothetical event is 'actual'), but how can you be sure the actual object you're witnessing is the same object as the one from moments ago? The connection between the past hypothesis and the actual result stays separated... Even if our awareness/certainty of the object staying consistent isn't what's in question, how can we even further be sure that our way of experiencing (senses) are perfectly truthful to 'the actual' objects of reality (we all perceive differently)? Yet, if I continue on this questioning of how we experience 'the actual' (as this was something of an issue/doubt in my answer), then even our experiencing becomes part of the hypothetical realm. Is 'the actual' entirely unreachable (technically)? I don't think this has gone too far. I think that exact fact is what connects 'the (seeming) actual' to our reasoning, and why our actions of reasoning aren't pointless/don't make sense. If everything is technically potential as opposed to actual, then there is no longer a separation in our reasoning. This doubt doesn't really matter or stop anything, because we've always been just hypothetically making sense of the world (our way of experiencing) and using hypotheticals. I'm not sure if this brings it all back to square one and restarts the question... But to me, it rids of the doubt behind why we reason. I think a common response to this sort of questioning is that it doesn't matter, and that it'd be better to practically move on and act as if the hypothetical is real. I don't even disagree with this, and I think this practicality can be done at any step/moment. It is as if we always suspend disbelief to move on... or something...
"if our entire ability to reason the 'therefore' is hypothetical". Exactly! that's exactly what i was saying! My final conclusion was: We can reason that what's actually here has the possibility in some sense, to be what we reason it to be. That was where I ended up with finally. Namely, that there is no problem with reasoning about the actual as possibly being able to become x. and then reasoning further from there. Does this sound correct to you?
@@Ryans_Science Yes, I think that’s similar to where I ended up thinking, especially with the conclusion that there is no problem with reasoning about the actual.
You can say what you want, and other people are also free to say what they want about what you said, and so on ad infinitum. Contradicting someone is not the same thing as preventing them from speaking.
I think you are excluding some of the phenomenon, because I was not merely referring to a "contradicting" in some abstract logical sense. I was referring to a forcefully putting down of someone else's act of speech. Can you see the difference? There's a certain force here, that you are excluding, by reducing it to that objective thing you mentioned
It was known to philosophy since antiquity that there was a kind of unbridgeable gap between the actual and the imagined where the imagined was part and parcel of the actual but not vice versa. The imagined or the thought-about seems to mirror the actual in a kind of diminished or greatly reduced way but the actual is what it is and is not dependent in any way on the abstract world of ideas. The Plato type thinkers kind of oppose this view and insist on some sort of inherent "supremacy" of the world of ideas and say that it is the actual which is mirroring the atemporal and eternal world of imagination.
cool. I haven't read much philosophy since I didnt want to spoil the process of investigating.
Well, the actual seems to be unfolding in a way that does not limit by expectation necessarily.
I don't know. Usually with smart thinkers there's a way to marry all their efforts together.
I tend to lean more towards the Stoics than Plato. but what you're saying definitely makes sense
Thank you for clarifying, and I understand what you were getting at in the post a bit better!
In terms of exterior reality ("the actual," as you call it) I personally believe that your latter conclusion is correct; it is mostly experienced and explored. Reasoning falls under the purview of interior reality i.e. ideas, metaphysics, etc. You cannot empirically understand exterior reality by reasoning alone.
The comment above me as I write this, by @SeventyFive-gn9kh, suggests that interior reality is subordinate to exterior reality, and I would argue this is not true. Whichever came first, they both impact each other, kinda like Nature VS Nurture. They are constantly in balance, impacting one another and changing one another. Exterior reality can also be very difficult to trust and understand sometimes, in which case interior reality is the only seemingly stable and true reality.
Yea, i think i understand how your looking at. I would only add that my investigation into the "actual" may be only slightly more radical, because it does not assume a sense to what it means to be "exterior". The idea is can we prove anything at all about the actual without assuming something more than its obvious apparentness (since in a way that is all we are necessarily being given of it)?
I like the distinction you draw between interior and exterior reality. There definitely is some sort of inner world which has been especially explored by religio-mystical traditions of the world and which resists reduction into concrete or tangible forms. However I would point to the simple observation that this inner world is actually neuro-chemistry of the brain. Only it is so complex that we don't really know if our scientific methods, as we currently know them, apply to it or not.
@ezstein4914 i'd been thinking more about this concept today. I don't think actual was the same as "exterior reality." I think of actual as a type of certainty to a thing. When a thing carries this type of certainty, i consider it to be an actual thing. Maybe inside things can have that quality to them as well. Like an actual pain, for instance.
To get into what
@SeventyFive-gn9kh was saying about the platonic ideas: I think the situation i was finding was that in the actual, all that seemed to pin down was a type of Becoming. Inasmuch as there was "being" in the actual, it seemed to experience as idea. but then the word idea suggests "not real" so that may create problems to an understanding... but it still seemed like some progress.
appreciate the input you guys gave. it really helped me to move the question along
I have a lot of thoughts (this became long), but to try to answer your question: I think the fact that "in our logic all we have are hypothetical principles" is exactly how we reason. To summarize points which others have touched on, there seems to be a separation in 'the actual' (what actually exists, in reality, and particularly in the present moment) from the potential or hypothetical. Then, how can we say things such as "therefore that will happen," if our entire ability to reason the 'therefore' is hypothetical? Most would say that we can just verify if the hypothesis was correct (experiment), so you need to experience and witness 'the actual' actually happen to be truthfully certain.
However, you can also take this a step further. Not only is the hypothetical nature of reasoning called into question (even if the experiment worked, you can't claim it will happen again as if this hypothetical event is 'actual'), but how can you be sure the actual object you're witnessing is the same object as the one from moments ago? The connection between the past hypothesis and the actual result stays separated... Even if our awareness/certainty of the object staying consistent isn't what's in question, how can we even further be sure that our way of experiencing (senses) are perfectly truthful to 'the actual' objects of reality (we all perceive differently)?
Yet, if I continue on this questioning of how we experience 'the actual' (as this was something of an issue/doubt in my answer), then even our experiencing becomes part of the hypothetical realm. Is 'the actual' entirely unreachable (technically)? I don't think this has gone too far. I think that exact fact is what connects 'the (seeming) actual' to our reasoning, and why our actions of reasoning aren't pointless/don't make sense. If everything is technically potential as opposed to actual, then there is no longer a separation in our reasoning. This doubt doesn't really matter or stop anything, because we've always been just hypothetically making sense of the world (our way of experiencing) and using hypotheticals.
I'm not sure if this brings it all back to square one and restarts the question... But to me, it rids of the doubt behind why we reason. I think a common response to this sort of questioning is that it doesn't matter, and that it'd be better to practically move on and act as if the hypothetical is real. I don't even disagree with this, and I think this practicality can be done at any step/moment. It is as if we always suspend disbelief to move on... or something...
shoot. okay I will definitely sit down and read this in full when I have enough time. but thanks for posting this
"if our entire ability to reason the 'therefore' is hypothetical". Exactly! that's exactly what i was saying!
My final conclusion was: We can reason that what's actually here has the possibility in some sense, to be what we reason it to be. That was where I ended up with finally.
Namely, that there is no problem with reasoning about the actual as possibly being able to become x. and then reasoning further from there. Does this sound correct to you?
@@Ryans_Science Yes, I think that’s similar to where I ended up thinking, especially with the conclusion that there is no problem with reasoning about the actual.
You can say what you want, and other people are also free to say what they want about what you said, and so on ad infinitum.
Contradicting someone is not the same thing as preventing them from speaking.
I think you are excluding some of the phenomenon, because I was not merely referring to a "contradicting" in some abstract logical sense. I was referring to a forcefully putting down of someone else's act of speech. Can you see the difference? There's a certain force here, that you are excluding, by reducing it to that objective thing you mentioned