Reality is Reduced to Axioms

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Spellbound, Aug 26, 2014.

  1. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    The axiomatic Method

    The axiomatic method involves replacing a coherent body of propositions (i.e. a mathematical theory) by a simpler collection of propositions (i.e. axioms). The axioms are designed[by whom?] so that the original body of propositions can be deduced from the axioms.


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiomatic_system

    Here we see that any system of propositions can be reduced or replaced by axioms.

    Langan refines the definition of reality as follows.

    Reality is the perceptual aggregate including (1) all scientific observations that ever were and ever will be, and (2) the entire abstract and/or cognitive explanatory infrastructure of perception.[1]

    That is, reality consists of (1) perceptions, and (2) all relevant supporting structure. For example, if you see an apple fall from a tree, your perception of the apple qualifies as real by (1), while the law of gravity that caused the apple to fall qualifies as real by (2).


    http://ctmucommunity.org/wiki/Reality

    In Langan's view, reality, as the aggregate of perceptions, is therefore axiomatic.
     
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  3. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    A) You're not doing philosophy here. All you're doing is repeating someone else's claims.
    B) Langan has already been shown to be deluded nutcase with a religious agenda.
    C) Of course it's f*cking axiomatic in his view: that's how he's defined it.
    C1) Langan defines reality as " the perceptual aggregate".
    C2) "reality, as the aggregate of perceptions, is therefore axiomatic".
    C3) Well duh.

    Let's define reality as "a left handed banana".
    It's therefore axiomatic that "a left handed banana" constitutes reality.
    Where's my Nobel?
     
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  5. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    Wow. Words of wisdom.
     
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  7. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Then try heeding them.

    How many threads is it now, where all you have done is spout Langan's ideas (I hesitate to use the word theory as that might suggest that it is scientific) or commentaries thereof, with no input of your own? 10? 20? 30?
    You don't raise questions nor you don't counter any criticism within people's' responses. You just state something from his ideas and... well, that's all you really do.
    Preaching by any other name is still preaching.
     
  8. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    The purpose of this thread is to discuss the idea that reality can be reduced to axioms and if so what are they. I'm hoping to gain insight as to what the word "reality" means and what are the axioms which it can be reduced to. The part of the OP about reality being reduced to axioms is actually my idea, Langan simply gave me the insight on reality that lead to this idea.

    It is also to discuss what Langan means when he says that perceptions are real and that whatever we observe as reality has an impact on reality itself.
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2014
  9. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Unfortunately while you may think you are making a thread to "discuss" the idea, you have posed no questions and seemingly not introduced any of your own notions. If you have then you have not made it particularly clear.
    You have quoted two extracts from other websites and made a conclusion.
    You have not provided any path from one to the other, but merely made a claim.
    Your whole style is seemingly merely to quote others, and expect us to guess as to what the purpose of your quoting is.
    Be clearer, please.
    Then try raising such questions in the OP, and specifically state your intended purpose of the thread rather than have us guess, because had you not mentioned it here I am not sure anyone would have guessed.

    As for your reasoning to show that Langan's view that "reality as the aggregate of perceptions is axiomatic", it suffers from the flaw that Dywyddyr points out: all you are effectively doing is saying that his definition is axiomatic... and since an axiom is merely a starting point of reasoning, calling it an axiom adds nothing to the notion of it as a definition that he works with, other than perhaps saying that he/you can't break it down to simpler definitions from which that notion is built/derived.

    Calling it an axiom merely means that you want it accepted as truth without further debate. But you'll have to do better than that.

    Furthermore, your thread title "Reality is Reduced to Axioms" is meaningless, in that axioms are postulates, premises. Reality is not simply a number of premises.
    What you may mean is that reality has to be described axiomatically to avoid contention.
    But, as said, showing the axioms to be valid without merely begging the question (I.e. using arguments built upon the axioms to show that the axioms are valid) will prove somewhat more difficult.
     
  10. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    Alright.


    Yes, it is. An example of a reality-based axiom would be: Reality is real. Or, Reality is One. This is a premise. A starting point from which further propositions can be built.


    Axioms tend to be basic and self-evident, so showing them to be valid would be quite easy. It's finding the axioms which will prove to be difficult.
     
  11. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    Our premises or axioms about reality, will create filters of the mind, which help make us see reality, in the image of our axioms. It is not so much reality is reduced to axioms but rather our perception of reality is defined by the filters created by the axioms.

    At one time, a main premise/axiom was the earth was flat. If you accepted that axiom, to be a part of the community herd, your mind would see exactly what the axiom programs your mind to see. It was not easy to change this filter when the herd enforces it. If you had noticed the curvature of the horizon over the ocean and reasoned that the earth was not flat, but was curved, you would take a lot of crap from the consensus, who were using the flat earth filter, since the consensus is always right, or else.

    There is another consideration that is always left out.The axioms of reality, which filter the mind, so we see reality in the image of the axioms, are organized differently in each side of the brain. The left brain is more differential (axioms) while the right brain is more integral (axioms). In math, you take any equation and then differentiate it first and then integrate the same equation second, the solution is different for each (brain) operation.

    The first or left brain differentiation tells us the slope of the curve of reality at a point on the curve; speciality axiom, while the right brain integration finds the area under the curve; general axiom. Science tends to be more left brained with the differentiation approach of this side of the brain, creating a piece meal perception of reality called specialization, where one hand of science may not know what the other is doing. The right brain integrates the specialties beyond themselves, with each other (area) to make sure these are consistent with the axioms of other areas.

    As an example, picture a large photograph. The right brain sees the entire picture as a whole, while the left brain uses an approach analogous to zooming into one area of the photo to see a differential aspects. From this zoomed area, one can see details, but one can lose context within the larger picture. In this case, you might see a bird in the picture, and can define its many details, but what is this bird's context in the largest picture to know its global motivation? Is the bird in a tree or bush; is the tree/bush in the city or suburbs; where in the earth is this, etc.? Specialization gets to avoid these questions. One does not expect a biologists to interface with physics even if reality requires this. The left bran does not integrate. This gap between unique slopes on the curve of reality is filled in with random to approximate the requirements of the biggest picture.

    Religion tends to use the right brain so their axioms make all inclusive statements of the biggest picture. But they don't use the left brain zoom in proportion and therefore don't have all the detailed data needed to update the big picture. Science has the details but lacks a context for the unknowns that occur with speciality theory out of touch with other areas of specialization. So they use a random set of axioms like a casino god who brings jackpots. Lacking use of the right brain makes this axiom easy to just accept and not question so it forms its own reality.
     
  12. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Not really.

    Speaking of accepting nonsense as axiomatic...
    The brain is NOT split quite as neatly as you seem to think.

    Unsupported claim.

    As usual your post is mix of nonsense, unexamined and unthinkingly-accepted "knowledge" and zero actual support.
     
  13. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    "Reality is real" isn't an axiom, it's a tautology.
    "Reality is one" is neither an axiom nor correct (except trivially).

    And yet you never do...
    It's also rather futile to build further propositions if your stating "axioms" aren't axiomatic.

    As your/ Langan's claims show: it's more difficult than either of you think.

    If your definition of "axiomatic" is "self-evident" then "reality is reduced to axioms" is, er, self-evidently, incorrect.
    Quantum physics isn't self-evident, for example, and thus not axiomatic; thus either quantum physics isn't real (according to you/ Langan) or you/ he are wrong.
    Likewise relativity.

    If reality were axiomatic then there'd be far less work involved in solving physics/ biology/ etc.
    Reality may be entirely incomprehensible: what WE have are observations that work.
    Whether those observations tell us anything about "reality" are a separate question altogether.
     
  14. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    That only appears to be true if all of the propositions are already related to one another deductively as part of an axiomatic system. If we initially assume that, then things start to look circular. It's easy enough to imagine a set of logically unrelated propositions, after all.

    What's more, Goedel's incompleteness theorem suggests that in logical systems strong enough that all possible truths about the natural numbers can be stated in the system's terms, it's going to be possible for true propositions to exist that aren't provable within the system. Any system strong enough to enable expression of all truths about reality in its entirety would have to be vastly stronger than that and hence even more prone to these and other kinds of difficulties.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_incompleteness_theorems

    Refines?

    That looks like a big-time metaphysical-idealist assumption to me.

    Only if somebody is already assuming the desired conclusions: that all true propositions about anything whatsoever form a deductively complete axiomatic system, that reality is "the perceptual aggregate", that perceptions are somehow identified with propositions...
     
  15. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    You might want to reconsider this. With all due respect. See axiom.

    Reality is directly accessible by observation and experimentation. It is not difficult to comprehend. Explaining it may be, but not comprehending it.
     
  16. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    I think that's what the Grand Unified Theory is, an attempt to reduce the universe to axioms. Of course it wouldn't be reality, just a simplified representation of it.
     
  17. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    I see you're still having difficulties, even after all these years.
    "As classically conceived, an axiom is a premise so evident as to be accepted as true without controversy" or "that which commends itself as evident" (from your link).
    The examples I previously gave - QM and relativity - are NOT self-evident, and were (and to some extent still are) subject to contoversy.
    Ergo they're not axiomatic.
    If you're (attempting) to use the word in the more modern sense [sup]1[/sup] - "simply a premise or starting point for reasoning" - then, as has been pointed out, this is also incorrect: it's a tautology and thus particularly not useful.

    That's an assumption.
    Reality is filtered through our senses and instruments.
    Science makes no claims - and never has - that "reality" is what we observe.
    What we have are models of reality.

    As usual, you're wrong.

    1 In your typical manner you leave YOUR meaning so open as to be worthless.
     
  18. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    Reality is actually very simple to understand if observation is all that is needed. There is nothing strange about it. The metaphysical aspects of it are what the CTMU attempts to explain. But I agree that the system expressing all truths about reality has to be vastly stronger. The CTMU claims to be such a system.

    That's what it says in the link I quoted from. I suppose because it is an original definition.

    Perceptions or observations are as real as anything else in reality. Once you choose to perceive something you have made an act and it directly has an influence on reality.

    They are identified with propositions. Aristotelian logic identifies a proposition as a sentence which affirms or denies a predicate of a subject such as "all men are mortal" or "Socrates is a man".From link. Reality is a perception. So yes, perception is consequently identified with proposition.
     
  19. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Assuming, of course, that what we observe IS reality.

    When will you stop pushing this? The CTMU is deeply flawed and based on a priori unsupported assumptions.

    If it's an original definition then it's not a refinement is it?

    While (probably) true that doesn't indicate that perceptions ARE reality or that they are perceptions OF reality.
     
  20. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, it is reality.

    Perhaps it is only your interpretation of it that is deeply flawed. CTMU reality is analytically self-contained. It mirrors reality as a theory. It defines perception as its model. It is built by logic.

    Actually, perceptions of reality are indeed reality.
     
  21. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    This is, yet again, an unsupported claim.

    You really do have trouble with thinking, don't you.
    I have shown you, more than once (and most recently, sometime in the last week) that the CTMU is predicated on an assumption - one that cannot be shown to be true or false, and is itself used to arrive at at a pre-formed conclusion.

    No.
    Perceptions are perceptions.
    If "perceptions of reality" actually constitute reality itself then there is, of necessity, more than one reality (which wrecks, entirely, the argument that you/ Langan are putting forward).

    Merely making, or repeating, claims does NOT constitute philosophy. Nor even a rational argument.
    Your entire modus operandi, even back when you started posting as Nicholas1M7 (or whatever it was) - and all through your numerous and interminable sock puppets (here and on other fora) - was nothing more than making unsupported claims and expecting them to be accepted, not only at face value, but as some sort of deep insight.
    You are NOT (anywhere near as) smart as you seem to think you are.
    You are NOT providing any support for your arguments.
    You are NOT doing philosophy.
     
  22. Beaconator Valued Senior Member

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    Reality is what you make of it. Those who hate it, seek to understand it. Those who love it, create it for themselves.
     
  23. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    No. You are the one who is wrong.


    Yes, it can be shown to be true or false. Using logic and empiricism.

    You overestimate yourself a lot I see. Perceptions are real(ity) as much as physical matter itself.

    Thank you. Come again.
     

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