If, as some philosophers hold, the "real world" is only conceptual?

Question

why do most people conceive it in the same way?

Please note that I put the words "real world" in quotes. For all we are aware, we are parts of a quantum universe which our dreams touch upon. Like an Escher print perhaps. To parse a question is not to answer it, and no offense is meant.

Answer 1

Wow. You know how to ask the tough deep questions don`t you.
The "real world" is definetly conceptual. For instance, there is no such thing as solidity. Atoms are made up of 99% empty space, so what we perceive as solid objects - may indeed look like ghostly images. It is the order of our minds, that makes this ghostly images of empty space into solid everyday objects. Why do most people conceive of it the same way? Two answers
1. Evolutionary progression - All mobile animals need a certain amount of conciousness and/or brain. Obviously we need this awarness to navigate through space and time to survive.Plants are stationary organims therefore they have no need of concious minds. This answers the question as to why we conceive of anything in the first place, but why do we conceive of it the same way?
2. Security - We want to know what is going to happen and when it is going to take place. Our routines in life, the order of our systems, proves that we have a deep desire for security. If everyone conceived of life in their own way, this would shatter this desire which we all so desperately need.
Better that we all agree on the "Real world" so that we can all fullfill this desire.

When you are referring to the "Real World" I`am going to assume you are talking about the "Out there?" Meaning the world outside our minds. Throughout history we have been born and bred with the Newtonian classical mechanical picuture that the "out there" was as is independent of our minds. The advent of "Quantum Mechanics" proves that the observes affect the observed. Meaning their might not be an "out there", "out there." One strange and rather weird suggestion of Fred Wolf aka. Dr. Quantum is that there may be an only "In here." The Universe and everything in it may be a holodeck. The order of this holodeck and the so called "real world" may be the order of our own minds.

Answer 2

I have no idea where the quantum universe thing was going. However, the idea of the real world being purely conceptual is to suggest that existence is predicated upon perception.

If you look at an object, and you turn away from it, is the object still there? I would say so, based on the belief that objects still exist while nobody is perceiving them. I base this on experience, since an object has never ceased to exist when I looked away and then looked back. However, some people believe that no amount of empirical evidence (i.e. experience) adds up to absolute truth. For example, if you look away from the object 999,999 times, and that object has been there every time you looked back, what is to say that it will be there on the 1,000,000th time?

There are people that believe that you cannot truly know that the object will still exist when you look again. I feel that this outlook is laughable, and if one truly believed that the results of the 1,000,000th test might truly be different, then they might expect all manner of ridiculous things to happen. Never in human history, when the sun has come up, have dozens of pink unicorns fallen from the sky. But who's to say that tomorrow won't be different?

Anyway, all of this is to say that reality and existence do not depend on our perceptions; rather, our perceptions depend on reality. Let's take imagination as an example. You can imagine all kinds of things and places that have never been seen, but these things are all built from pieces of what you have already perceived. You can imagine a pink unicorn because you have seen something pink, a horse, and a horn. Can you imagine something with five dimensions? Can you imagine it in a color you've never seen? This is how we know that perception depends upon reality.

Ahh, but consider this: What if, when I see the color purple, I am seeing a different color than you are? What if the color that I know as purple, appears to you to be the color that I know as yellow? Does the sun actually shine black for you, and you have just learned to call it white because that is what everyone else calls it? When you look at an elephant, do you really see a pink unicorn, but you only know to call it an elephant?

The answer is that it really doesn't matter, which for us is the same as no. Consider what is happening when you visually perceive something: Your eyes catch photons (light) which are bouncing off of the object in certain wavelengths, and this creates a signal that is passed through your optic nerves into your brain. Your brain, through a series of electrochemical exchanges, processes the object and stores that information. Exactly the same process happens when I perceive the same object. If, in the window of your mind, an elephant appears to you the way that a pink unicorn appears to me, it is of no significance, because you will react to it based upon what you know about elephants. For you, they have looked like pink unicorns your entire life, and you have no knowledge of what an elephant might look like to the rest of us, and so believe this to be perfectly normal.

So, finally getting back to the point, there is no guarantee that we perceive anything in the same way as someone else. However, our reaction to those perceptions makes it clear that we are at least processing those perceptions the same way. Because of this, we can see that reality is, on a physical level, the same for all of us, even if we perceive it differently in our heads. Therefore, the real world is not conceptual, but exists independently of our perceptions.

Answer 3

Because we have all happened to conceive the same thing.....for example everyone in the world agrees its a table, so its a table. But if you look closer, people perceive things very differently.

There's a big difference between perceiving and conceiving. I think you've got the two slightly mixed up.

Answer 4

conceptual? the way we see the world in out own imagination? Why are most in agreement ? I would have to go with the belif that most people believe that the Bible contains the best explaination of the creation story available, and that the "real world" at large is considered in much the same light of understanding!

Answer 5

For those philosophers who hold that the real world is only conceptual, that is merely their concept and may or may not be an accurate reflection of reality.

Answer 6

I think your question is very intriguing and it definitely leads to more questions so I have answered it here with a couple of them. Could it be a joint hallucinatory dream? If not why not?

Answer 7

You're assuming other people exist. It could be that you are the only sentient being, and you are imagining the whole world and everyone in it.

Answer 8

How do you know other people's perception of reality. And if they told you, they could have been some machination of your mind.

Answer 9

we all have the same sensory receptors..

we will respond to "reality" (outside stimuli) in much the same way, so we will conceive reality in much the same way..

Answer 10

:O either that or you just conceive them conceiving it the same way. They may or may not just be part of your conception.