I generally agree with the content of the articles you linked, and that there are different notions of “really exist”. The issue is, I’m still not sure what “base-level reality” means. JBlack said it was what “really exists”, but since JBlack seems to be using a notion of “what really exists” that’s different from the one people normally use, I’m not really sure what it means.
In the end, you can choose to define “what really exists” or “base-level reality” however you want, but I’m still wondering about what people normally take them to mean.
I try to avoid using the word ‘really’ for this sort of reason. Gets you into all sorts of trouble.
(a) JBlack is using a definition related to simulation theory, and I don’t know enough about this to speculate too much, but it seems to rely on a hard discontinuity between base and sensory reality.
(b) Before I realized he was using it that way, I thought the phrase meant ‘reality as expressed on the most basic level yet conceivable’ which, if it is possible to understand it, explodes the abstractions of higher orders and possibly results in their dissolving into absurdity. This is a softer transition than the above.
(c) I figure most people use ‘really exist’ to refer to material sensory reality as opposed to ideas. This chair exists, the Platonic Idea of a chair does not. The rule with this sort of assumption is ‘if I can touch it, or it can touch me, it exists’ for a suitably broad understanding of ‘touch.’
(d) I’ve heard some people claim that the only things that ‘really exist’ are those you can prove with mathematics or deduction, and mere material reality is a frivolity.
(e) I know some religious people believe heavily in the primacy of God (or whichever concept you want to insert here) and regard the material world as illusory, and that the afterlife is the ‘true’ world. You can see this idea everywhere from the Kalachakra mandala to the last chapter of the Screwtape letters.
I guess the one thing uniting all these is that, if it were possible to take a true Outside View, this is what you would see; a Platonic World of ideas, or a purely material universe, or a marble held in the palm of God, or a mass of vibrating strings (or whatever the cool kids in quantum physics are thinking these days) or a huge simulation of any of the above instantiated on any of the above.
I think most people think in terms of option c, because it fits really easily into a modern materialist worldview, but the prevalence of e shouldn’t be downplayed. I’ve probably missed some important ones.
I generally agree with the content of the articles you linked, and that there are different notions of “really exist”. The issue is, I’m still not sure what “base-level reality” means. JBlack said it was what “really exists”, but since JBlack seems to be using a notion of “what really exists” that’s different from the one people normally use, I’m not really sure what it means.
In the end, you can choose to define “what really exists” or “base-level reality” however you want, but I’m still wondering about what people normally take them to mean.
I try to avoid using the word ‘really’ for this sort of reason. Gets you into all sorts of trouble.
(a) JBlack is using a definition related to simulation theory, and I don’t know enough about this to speculate too much, but it seems to rely on a hard discontinuity between base and sensory reality.
(b) Before I realized he was using it that way, I thought the phrase meant ‘reality as expressed on the most basic level yet conceivable’ which, if it is possible to understand it, explodes the abstractions of higher orders and possibly results in their dissolving into absurdity. This is a softer transition than the above.
(c) I figure most people use ‘really exist’ to refer to material sensory reality as opposed to ideas. This chair exists, the Platonic Idea of a chair does not. The rule with this sort of assumption is ‘if I can touch it, or it can touch me, it exists’ for a suitably broad understanding of ‘touch.’
(d) I’ve heard some people claim that the only things that ‘really exist’ are those you can prove with mathematics or deduction, and mere material reality is a frivolity.
(e) I know some religious people believe heavily in the primacy of God (or whichever concept you want to insert here) and regard the material world as illusory, and that the afterlife is the ‘true’ world. You can see this idea everywhere from the Kalachakra mandala to the last chapter of the Screwtape letters.
I guess the one thing uniting all these is that, if it were possible to take a true Outside View, this is what you would see; a Platonic World of ideas, or a purely material universe, or a marble held in the palm of God, or a mass of vibrating strings (or whatever the cool kids in quantum physics are thinking these days) or a huge simulation of any of the above instantiated on any of the above.
I think most people think in terms of option c, because it fits really easily into a modern materialist worldview, but the prevalence of e shouldn’t be downplayed. I’ve probably missed some important ones.