Again...Exactly!

I am sorry, Skye. I thought it would be obvious to you on the first glance, the following.

Determination of reality as a group agreement is impossible, as it cannot really be determined if there is a group in the first place.

You said RIGHT! so it boils down to authority.

Since a group is out of question, or indeterminable if it exists, then "authority" is indeterminable to exist, too. "Authority" presupposes hierarchy of individuals, which presupposes more than one individual, which is a group, which is not a certainty and its opposite (one individual) is a certainty.

Should I have exploded the expanation some posts ago like this? I really thought you had seen this, and only kept on arguing because you wanted to. That's why I wrote "please take a long, hard look at this."

Either I stated it poorly, or you misunderstood.

If there is no group, then obviously reality cannot be determined by a group. So in that case reality must be determined by an individual. And according to the first and third definitions of “authority” in dictionary.com…
1. the power to determine, adjudicate, or otherwise settle issues or disputes; jurisdiction; the right to control, command, or determine.
3. a person or body of persons in whom authority is vested, as a governmental agency.

…that individual is and has authority. Their personal opinion is what determines reality.


On the other hand, if there is a group, then reality is determined by the group opinion – agreement.


And I’m not saying that what is determined is reality. Only that that is how the process
of determining reality works in practice.


Does that clarify it for you?

OMG!
That's exactly what I said back at page one!

Yes, and it has been said many times over by many other people too - including some great philosophers. So you're in good company.

In that case, I don't understand why it's taken so many pages arguing with John (Wux)?

Me neither.

not exact in the least. even eyewitnesses rarely agree what is real. we've all experienced or heard of training scenarios where someone barges into a classroom, shoots with blanks at the instructor and rushes out within seconds. when the class is asked to testify as to what the perp looked like by secret ballot rarely do two people agree completely on what they saw. we all percieve reality individually. that we sometimes dissagree is evidence of this.

Also true.

But everyone did see 'something.' While their observation skills may vary, if they did not believe they were in that room and that someone came in and apparently shot someone, then they simply would not have seen or remembered anything at all.

I give for example a person hypnotized who is made to believe no one is in the room but the hypnotist. No matter who enters the room, they will not see them at all.

But the issue was not "What is reality?", but "How do we determine reality?" - which Jeannie answered and you did not.

That was the similar to what I was thinking when I first read the question. The issue of crimes and how many different versions you'll get from witnesses to the crime. Generally, the police are going to go with group consensus. If most of the witnesses saw a white man with a blue shirt and one or two people saw something else, the majority wins. The reality will be a white man with a blue shirt.

And again ... Exactly!

How do we determine reality as an authority in case the group is not present? Is beyond me. I don't have the power to determine reality as I see it. Reality appears to me (whether it is truly reality or not.) I have no authority to believe or disbelieve that what I see is what I see. I have the authority to accept what I see as reality or not, but the original question was "do we perceive reality?" Our interpretation is based on perception, but perception, the very fundamentum of our window to reality (or supposed reality) is not dependent on our will or on our authority. Whether we accept the perception as a perception is not part of our own authority over our perception. Only its interpretation is.

But be careful: Interpretation is not a determination what we perceive. "Do we perceive reality" therefore is not a question that can be decided by latter interpretation of what it is that appears to us.

Therefore I reject that the determination of reality is authority or a group decision. It is not a decision at all, and it's not an agreement at all. The only thing that we can say about the determination of reality is that it happens, and our knowledge of reality is still too scanty to name or describe exactly how it happens.

This is so because we perceive something when we perceive; if it is not reality, what is it? If there is no way to determine reality, why are we so adamant of telling how it is done, while logically it is impossible to say how it is done: What reality is, how we perceive it, what it is we perceive if it's not reality we perceive, an most importantly, how the perception happens.

This, in my opinion, is a most futile question. It's unanswerable, even by speculation. It is only answerable by fictionalization and by flight of fancy or creative imagination. It is not answerable in any other way.

By the way, what happened to meaning "2." of authority in the dictionary-outtake? And which dictionary did you use?

Thanks.

Ok, thanks for that viewpoint.

Now I think there may be a disagreement on what “determine” means. So I think referring to a dictionary might help.

This is from dictionary.com
1. to settle or decide (a dispute, question, etc.) by an authoritative or conclusive decision.
2. to conclude or ascertain, as after reasoning, observation, etc.
3. Geometry. to fix the position of.
4. to cause, affect, or control; fix or decide causally: Demand for a product usually determines supply.
5. to give direction or tendency to; impel.
6. Logic. to limit (a notion) by adding differentiating characteristics.
7. Chiefly Law. to put an end to; terminate.
8. to lead or bring (a person) to a decision.
9. to decide upon.

Now the way I meant “determine” is in the sense of definitions 1, 2, 8 and/or 9.

It could also be worded as “to figure out” in the sense that I mean it.

But it seems that you are using it in the sense of 4 or 5.

So in the sense that your are (or appear to be) using it, I would have to agree. We cannot determine what is and is not real.

It’s just that that is not the way I was using it. In the sense I was using it, we can and do determine what is and is not real.

-------------------

I always try to use the definitions from dictionary.com because that is a common resource that is available to everyone who posts on these forums.

And the only reason I left definition #2 out of my earlier post is because that definition was not applicable to my intended meaning.

I decide what is real.

I have that authority.

You can NOT decide what is real.

You can only decide what you choose to believe to be real, while keeping in mind that you may or may not be off target.

I don't know if a personal choice represents an authority. I authorise myself to see the colour green? Or I am authority over what I see? This is nonsensical to me.

I most certainly can decide what is real. I do it every day.

I do not decide what is real for you, only for me.

After all, I am at the very the center of my universe.

I am the decider.


If I see the color "green" I will say (and decide) "That is green."

If you come along and tell me that it is blue, I am not going to believe you, nor will I accept your word for it. If I see green. It is green.

I decided.

I looked up "authority" on Dictionary.com.

It gives at least 120 different definitions (not all different in meanings, strictly speaking) to the word "Authority".

I don't think you have the authority to decide in this thread which meanings of "authority" to use and which to discard. I don't have that authority, either.

My intuition tells me that one cannot exercise authority over himself if he's the only person in existence. It's the same as to try to decide that the only syllable in "door" is the first syllable, or the last syllable. The only syllable is the first AND the last syllable.

But when you talk about one person, ranking cannot be put on that person, such as "commander" and "subordinate". A supervisor cannot supervise his boss, much like the subordinate cannot supervise his supervisor. But if you insist that a one-man working unit, comprising of the only person in the universe, is in one person the boss, and the underling in one person, that's nonsensical.

Another way of showing that an authority cannot exist if he's the only person in existence is that rank means differentness from other ranks. A person cannot occupy the seats of two different ranks (such as authority and dilettante), because a person cannot be different from himself.

Therefore I maintain that Authority is impossible to occur in a situation where there is no group and ther are no groups whatsoever.

Skye, do you agree with what Jennie is saying here? Please do commit if I may ask you. "Yes I agree" or "No, I don't agree" is fine.

Thanks.

I am not going to use your answer to discredit Jennie at all. I will use your answer (if proper to do so) to discredit your own answer.