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What is 'Real'?
- Thread starter Rival
- Start date
Real: something that exists on fact, not imagined or supposed
What does it mean to exist?
So what about numbers?
You plus what's there when you're not.
How do you know what's there when you're not?
How do we square this with the double slit experiment?
What about them? They are abstractions
Are they real?
Real: That which is immutable.
Abstractions, I'm sure i mentioned this.
Aren't mutable things such as raindrops real?
Treasure Hunter
Well-Known Member
Reality is a hierarchy which includes anything that can be imagined. Further up the reality hierarchy is what is actualized in the world. At the top of the hierarchy, ultimate reality, I define as that which we most desire and the fulfillment of that desire across time.
But do they exist?
No. Raindrops are an appearance of water.
I don't do philosophy, to me, it is meaningless in the real world -
I'm sure there will be objections to that.
So what i see is, numbers are a figment of imagination that can be used to give quantity to an object, they exist a when written down as a record of imagination
It is usually easier to know that something is not real than that it is indeed real.
In some situations we realize that something is fictional or "unreal" because it does not show some sort of property or effect that would be necessary for it to qualify as real. There are abstract concepts that I call "fictional" because they are inherently at odds with their own presumptions.
But I don't know that we can tell with true authority that anything is "real"; we have to settle to statements that actually mean that the available evidence hasn't exposed much challenge to the existence and internal coherence of those things instead.
Which I guess is as close as I can get to a definition of "real". A "real" entity is anything with no known nor assumed inconsistencies with the known and expected consequences of its existence.
So for instance a person is real because it has material existence, biological functioning, and whichever other circunstances and attributes that one might require to decide that there is indeed a person there. So for instance an hologram or statue isn't a person except for the purposes of a museum or some other form of representation.
In some situations we realize that something is fictional or "unreal" because it does not show some sort of property or effect that would be necessary for it to qualify as real. There are abstract concepts that I call "fictional" because they are inherently at odds with their own presumptions.
But I don't know that we can tell with true authority that anything is "real"; we have to settle to statements that actually mean that the available evidence hasn't exposed much challenge to the existence and internal coherence of those things instead.
Which I guess is as close as I can get to a definition of "real". A "real" entity is anything with no known nor assumed inconsistencies with the known and expected consequences of its existence.
So for instance a person is real because it has material existence, biological functioning, and whichever other circunstances and attributes that one might require to decide that there is indeed a person there. So for instance an hologram or statue isn't a person except for the purposes of a museum or some other form of representation.
Indeed they are, but I for one would not refuse calling them real for that.
Unstable, transient, transitionary, fragile, sure. All of those apply. But they are real all the same, at least according to my everyday usage of that word.
Also, I fail to see how water would be immutable either. It can be changed in rather significant ways, after all.
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