Reality-The external world as it exists to an observer.

Is a persons view of reality effected by the handed-down views of others(family,friends, teachers,etc.) ?

My personal opinion- A persons view of reality is effected by others especially in the younger years.
If this is true do you think this could effect entire cultures or countries?
Or the ability of one to adapt to society?
Do you think one's view of reality changes as age brings knowledge, even if it goes against the inherited reality?

Or is reality different to each individual?

Give me some input on this very important aspect of life.

I guess I would say that one perception is based on input in the early years, of course as a person ages inputs are overwritten and thus ones perceptions would change.
The best example is most left wingers are young and still believe that the world can be a fair place but as you age you see that the world is only a place with no true bias. That is held by people so then some start to shift toward the right.
So I guess what I am saying is that not only does early input, life experiences and of course the way the mind processes the inputs all make up what a person sees as reality.
If you took one person with no mental disorder and fed them the same input as a person with a personality disorder I would have to assume that they would have completely different realities.

Originally posted by Beirut_Veteran
The best example is most left wingers are young and still believe that the world can be a fair place but as you age you see that the world is only a place with no true bias. That is held by people so then some start to shift toward the right.

Heh. I was highly RIGHT wing as a child/teenager. (Was raised by highly right-wing parents. My parents, and therefore I, practially worshipped Reagan.)

As I've aged, I've swung more and more to the left. Not because I see that the "world can be a fair place", but because I don't want to be part of the cause of it NOT being fair. Make any sense?

Originally posted by Dan Fussell
Reality-The external world as it exists to an observer.

Is a persons view of reality effected by the handed-down views of others(family,friends, teachers,etc.) ?
Definitely, it's affected by others' views, especially young people. It depends on the strength of the person as to whether it continues to be affected by others once they realize this.

My personal opinion- A persons view of reality is effected by others especially in the younger years.
If this is true do you think this could effect entire cultures or countries?
Hm... Take a look at the difference between a typical modern American's view of land ownership, and a 1700's Native American's view of land ownership. If you're raised in a Community where you share resources in order to survive, you wouldn't be able to comprehend today's society, where the majority of resources are held by 5% of the population, while there are homeless and hungry people.

Or the ability of one to adapt to society?
Do you think one's view of reality changes as age brings knowledge, even if it goes against the inherited reality?

Or is reality different to each individual?
It varies between individuals. It would depend on the strength of the individual. Those with a 'sheep' mentality go with the flow a lot more readily, and are easily influenced by how they were raised, and by peers. Those who wake up and are able to see this, may be more able to buck preconceptions to come up with their own views.

Even with those who 'wake up', it's in their strength. You need to do your homework and find reliable sources for your information, and learn to sort out the truth from garbage. If you don't learn to do that, it's not really possible to really come up with your own, uninfluenced opinions.

Yes and no, if we depend on trying to use governement to correct what is and is not fair in this country we run the risk of growing the government to nothing but entitlement programs. I agree that we have an obligation to protect those who can not protect themselves, I always think of the world as a big city and the US is a citizen, so if you see another citizen beating up a weaker one then you are obligated to do something. Same if we see unfairness from the government toward our own people. I believe in redressing grievances but not by just grabbing a sign and throwing stuff through windows. But by the use of the vote and the electoral process. If you cant find a candidate then maybe you should run for a local or other office.
I dont ever see a need for left or right thinking except to add diversity in the world.

Thank you for your comments.
I started this thread after a conversation with a college student I know. My comment to him was that the information we learn is mixed with fact and the handed down opinions of others.
Handed down knowledge is sometimes wrong. New breakthroughs prove often that knowledge handed down as fact was actually not correct. Yet this information affected the lives of the misinformed.
I suppose that my purpose here is to get people to think for themselves rather than always to accept knowledge as 100% correct.

Is a persons view of reality effected by the handed-down views of others(family,friends, teachers,etc.) ?Anyone whos thoughts are swayed by another doesnt have much hope for a good life....

No one and i mean NO ONE should give a rats tail about what anyone thinks....They should think the way THEY FEEL IS RIGHT FOR THEM...... (And keep outside influences frim swaying thier opinion.)

I guess I would say that one perception is based on input in the early years, of course as a person ages inputs are overwritten and thus ones perceptions would change.
The best example is most left wingers are young and still believe that the world can be a fair place but as you age you see that the world is only a place with no true bias. That is held by people so then some start to shift toward the right.
So I guess what I am saying is that not only does early input, life experiences and of course the way the mind processes the inputs all make up what a person sees as reality.
If you took one person with no mental disorder and fed them the same input as a person with a personality disorder I would have to assume that they would have completely different realities.

Whoa Sir! :) It is funny how having some "life experience" can change ones concept of reality. :lolhit: If one has the ability to develope any sense. Yepper :)

But then we all wonder about young folk, right Maddog :) Old fella that you are :)

sonny

Aw Dude, do you really mean such a general statement?

Reality is indeed dependant upon the specific observer.
Many times reality may be similar to many people, especially those in a close knit group. This is because their experiences are so similar.
If the experiences are very dis-similar, then so will reality differ.. Ergo, cultures may very well have different realities.
As one ages, so one may question more of what one perceives. Reality may therefore change.
I have reached the stage where I continually challenge what reality really is.

Anyone whos thoughts are swayed by another doesnt have much hope for a good life....

Dude, "Inconsistency is the Hob Goblin of small minds." :)

"The Psycho-Social Dynamics of a Messageboard"
I am the newbe,
I am the fun!
You are the reg,
you are the one!
© 2004 John Michael Scott

sonny

Reality is indeed dependant upon the specific observer.
Many times reality may be similar to many people, especially those in a close knit group. This is because their experiences are so similar.
If the experiences are very dis-similar, then so will reality differ.. Ergo, cultures may very well have different realities.
As one ages, so one may question more of what one perceives. Reality may therefore change.
I have reached the stage where I continually challenge what reality really is.
I am aware that this message is old, but I am new here and I find the topic irresistable.

I think a little vocabulary problem here. Perceptions of reality differ, and these different perceptions may all be valid, but can the actual reality differ?

The hoary old metaphor is of the different blind men feeling parts of an elephant, each coming back with with different descriptions of the beast, all of which are valid--but none of them is complete. The elephant is still an elephant.

I think we have little choice but to assume that reality is unitary. Different actual realities for different people sounds real scary.

I don't think it's possible to actually grasp the essence of reality, simply for the fact that we are restricted to our senses' perception of it.

Zen is the state at which the mind transcends the senses and you are able to experience reality in the only form possible: a single moment spanning zero time.

Cool stuff.

Hah, for a second I thought BV was posting again!

But it's just people raising the dead. :(

Well, I don't know what the "essense" of anything might be, and you are certainly right that pursuing a definitive and complete understanding of things is to chase rainbows across endless fields.

This conclusion has some derivatives. Perhaps the most important is to distrust claims of "Truth," especlally when one thinks one has it. Only limited and partial and temporary truth can be had.

Another derivative, less well appreciated, is that evidence and logic have limited value, and do not need to be the end point in any exploration. Just as, when traveling, one is justified in seeking out the shady, watered places, when forming opinions, one is justified (by the limited nature of evidence and logic) to opt every now and then for a place we find pleasant and helpful and good.

A caveat here: I am not saying we can pick and choose our beliefs based on our taste--that would not be possible anyway (it is impossible to not believe something we know). What I am saying is that if one accepts that there is a spiritual component to existence, and that this is wrapped up in compassion and beauty, then we can take these attributes as a guide.

Another cavat: no matter how compassionate and beautiful a belief may be, it has to be consistent with evidence and logic.

Are people who hallucinate really that crazy? The only real difference between them and everyone else is that everyone else has a shared delusion, while their experience is unique.

Well, I don't know what the "essense" of anything might be, and you are certainly right that pursuing a definitive and complete understanding of things is to chase rainbows across endless fields.

This conclusion has some derivatives. Perhaps the most important is to distrust claims of "Truth," especlally when one thinks one has it. Only limited and partial and temporary truth can be had.

Another derivative, less well appreciated, is that evidence and logic have limited value, and do not need to be the end point in any exploration. Just as, when traveling, one is justified in seeking out the shady, watered places, when forming opinions, one is justified (by the limited nature of evidence and logic) to opt every now and then for a place we find pleasant and helpful and good.

A caveat here: I am not saying we can pick and choose our beliefs based on our taste--that would not be possible anyway (it is impossible to not believe something we know). What I am saying is that if one accepts that there is a spiritual component to existence, and that this is wrapped up in compassion and beauty, then we can take these attributes as a guide.

Another cavat: no matter how compassionate and beautiful a belief may be, it has to be consistent with evidence and logic.

Fascinating post Thislin. Welcome to allforums, I hope you decide to stick around. :)

It seems to me that cultural differences in the perception of beauty and compassion, would still lead to conflicting perceptions of reality. Different rest stops as you put it very nicely, still leads away from the unity that would be truth.

Are people who hallucinate really that crazy? The only real difference between them and everyone else is that everyone else has a shared delusion, while their experience is unique.
Those who hallucinate have only one datum to support their "delusion." Those who report what everyone else reports have a stronger empirical position.

It is like when a researcher reports something no one else has ever reported before. Just one occurrence of a phenomenon should be questioned, but if other researchers go out and report finding the same thing, we are more inclined to accept it.

The distinction is between logical certainty, a delusion, and probabilistic, empirical likelihood, a far more reasonable goal.

Fascinating post Thislin. Welcome to allforums, I hope you decide to stick around. :)

It seems to me that cultural differences in the perception of beauty and compassion, would still lead to conflicting perceptions of reality. Different rest stops as you put it very nicely, still leads away from the unity that would be truth.
Cultural differences in ideas of beauty and compassion, and even of truth, certainly exist, but I would not make too much of them. Compared to the similarities, the human differences about these things are small. Maybe we just notice the differences and take the similarities for granted--but I can testify, having had direct experience with many cultures, that people's attitudes (and the ranges of attitudes one encounters) are far more alike than most realize.

I work on the (perhaps debatable) assumption that the world is good and beautiful, and use that premise as grounds for resting where it is cool and well-watered.

I make this assumption for the reason that it makes sense to me and that assuming otherwise is not necessary, so why not?

Thank you for your kind words.

Reality is relative, just like everything else.

Maybe a thousand years from now people will see our age as the "relativity age," where, based on Einstein's demonstration that motion is relative, it was concluded that morals are relative, beauty is relative, truth is relative, and now I see "reality is relative."

Relativism is a self contradicting theory. I think it would be more apt to say that reality is perception.

You merely percieve reality, and because you trust your senses, you accept it as true.

The sky is blue.
Would a blind person say that?
Would a dog say that? (If dogs could speak human languages).


If we had better eyes, the sky would actually seem purple, but even that is false; once you leave the atmosphere, the sky becomes black. If our senses are so easily mislead, how can anything be defined by them?

Relativism is a self contradicting theory. I think it would be more apt to say that reality is perception.


There are some particle physicists that might agree with you. I remember reading a book several years ago, but sadly not the title, which talked about the relationship between reality and perception. After several years of studying the topic one physicist said he got the idea that reality was the way it was because we perceived it that way, and that every time he turned his back he got the feeling that the universe dissolved into a formless void behind him.

It is true that our experience of the physical world is, as far as we are intellectually aware, entirely derived from our senses. In fact that is so obvious as to almost be tautological, and I never understood why certain philosophers are famous because they said it.

As far as our childhood indoctrination (from family, peers and our cultural and historical era), we can rise above that if we are alert and work at it.

Perception is not reality, so it is a non sequitur to say that the fact that perceptions differ from person to person means reality differs from person to person. I see a ghost and call it an unexplained phenomenon; someone else calls it a ghost. Whatever it is is what it is, regardless of what we think it is.

Exactly. My point in all this is that we are entirely inequipped to define reality, which is why reality seems so relative.

Exactly. My point in all this is that we are entirely inequipped to define reality, which is why reality seems so relative.
I think it is incorrect to say we are entirely uneqipped to define reality. I think we would be better saying our ability to define reality is limited.

The progress of science is an example; over time errors are found and corrected, and the overall description of reality that science provides becomes progressively more accurate (I am tempted to say we approach a correct understanding asymptotically).

The main reason people disagree about things is not our limited ability to see, but the nature of our evolved minds, which did not evolve to reason out truth but evolved to help us survive and push our genes into the next generartion. Sometimes the two goals (truth and survival) complement each other, sometimes they don't.

For example, during most of our evolution social cohesion was far more important than abstract truth. Therefore we evolved a tendency to tenaciously hold to childhood beliefs, and for many of us the process of breaking from them (if we actually ever really do) is painful and leaves a bitter residue. Our brains punish us for violating instincts.

(This also explains the joy and peace that those who don't fully grow up and abandon old "verities" experience when they give up doubting and "find Christ." The brain floods the person with happiness chemicals to reward us for obeying the instinct).

(This also explains the joy and peace that those who don't fully grow up and abandon old "verities" experience when they give up doubting and "find Christ." The brain floods the person with happiness chemicals to reward us for obeying the instinct).LOL!

Let's watch Frogger bounce off the ceiling if he reads this one. :)