question about passage from orwell's 1984?

Question

"Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy." Page 80

what is meant by "validity of experience" and "external reality?"

Answer 1

The "validity of experience" refers to what you know from what you've done. But Big Brother wants to replace your own common sense and experiences with its dogma.
"External reality" refers to what is real, versus what we percieve as real. For instance, you can pretend poverty doesn't exist, and deny the external reality that it DOES exist.

Answer 2

Validity of Experience: Is what we experience real, or imagined. Is it our imagination, or is it an idea planted there by someone esle. Can we make judgements, decisions, based on that Experience? Can we be sure that they will be good decisions if we are no longer sure that the Experience is real, or not someone's plan for us.

External reality: What's outside your head. But remember that what you see and hear is just that part of external reality that has managed to 'get inside your head'. And sometimes what get 'inside' has no resemblence at all to external reality. Can you really tell what 'external reality' is then? Well it can be difficult. IF someone tells you it 'doesn't exist' then they are telling you that everything you see and hear is 'flexible', it all depends on 'how' you look at things, which opens the door for THEM to tell you how to see, or look at things, and then they create your version of external reality inside your head.

Answer 3

"Not merely the validity of experience" -- many totalitarian or authoritarian regimes will claim that what someone experiences is untrue, as the Christian Church denied the facts of Gallileo's findings with his telescope.

"but the very existence of external reality" -- Big Brother would tell you that you are standing in sunshine WHILE it was raining. Deny, not only that your actual experiences were valid, but that your right to acknowledge external reality had been usurped by the government.

Answer 4

validity of experience - one having a valid experience

external reality - reality of someone outside the party's group think. for example, if the party says we are at war with A even if three seconds ago they said we were at war with B, then we must be at war with A - even if our external reality says differently.

Answer 5

I suggest the following.....Validity of experience - Having experienced something you now that it is the truth and not imagination.

External reality - what is actually happening and not what is in your thoughts.

I would think that the whole sentence means that the philosophy they espoused was in direct conflict with what they knew to be reality or truth.

Answer 6

external reality - the world around you

validity of experience - you know something because you try it ie: you know fire burns because you stuck your hand in it once when you were 5.