If every person's experiences are different,is agreeing on a common concept of what's real an impossible goal?

Question

This is the fully worded Q: If it is true that every person's experiences are different, does that mean agreeing on the general concepts of what is "real", or what constitutes "reality", are out of the question?

This is part of or one issue of many raised by the "problem of other minds."

side Q: From a philosophic POV, how do you deal with the diversity of opinions on the concepts of real and reality as issues?

Someone insightfully has said w/o answering the Q this:"What IS", is the real. We all experience "What IS", yet it is what we "think" about what IS that can differ greatly. & yet what we "think" about "What IS" never(?)changes IT at all." My reply: This deserves its own Q since it is a different issue; namely, the issue of the connection betw the concept & the thing referred to or the thing signified. We humans attach qualities to things," the its", outside of us by modifying the concepts to fit our experience of them. We even have a term for the darn things, the qualities we subjectively attach to the its of our experience.They are called "Qualia" & recognizing them raises all sorts of interesting cognitive Q's! Your A was more stimulating than you realize. You have time to edit it to A the Q asked built on your brilliant comment /distinction. For example consider your distinction in relation to the "it" called *time" Did U know I asked a Q about the "its" many Q's back.

"Philosophical arguments on reality are too detached from reality," I am sad to see you learned that from experiences you have had. My experience was totally different. I had great teachers in college and I find my continuing studies in philosophy and sciences are as interesting as ever-more so bec I bring a lifetime of experience and knowledge-gathering to the discussion or investigatio laboratory table!

Anyone heard of Wittgenstein and his "private language argument?

This is not a religion Q or a science Q. It is a philosophy Q.

Answer 1

"What IS, is the real. We all experience "What IS", yet it is what we "think" about what IS that can differ greatly. And yet what we "think" about "What IS" never changes IT at all.

Answer 2

To me something real is something I can physically touch, feel, manipulate, manhandle, see, understand and know. The chair is REAL, the words I choose to describe it will be different to the words you choose to describe it, but I think its pretty clear and obvious that we'd both agree it is a chair, that it is there and exists. Whereas if you have some visual hallucination and "see" snakes on the wall, there isn't one other person on this earth who'd agree with you and say they also saw them. So it would be safe to conclude its not REAL.

I think things are real if there is an agreement and some sort of shared awareness / experience of them.

But with things like emotions, yes they are also real, even though they are very individual and very personal. If YOU feel it then its real to you, not matter what anyone else things, says, does or feels.

What matters is what is real to YOU. You shouldn't need verification from everyone else. There is real because you feel it, real because you know it, real because it exist in a physical form, and there is real because you believe it to be. (I am thinking in terms of God here, many many people believe god is real and exist, when there is no evidence or proof).

Answer 3

You are partially right because there is no absolute reality in the worldly experiences. Latest physics, psychology etc. have proved that everything is relative. Space is relative. For example when I say "I went up, up and up" from India, to a person in the US it is "down, down and down".
Time has been proven relative. Matter is energy.
So everything is relative.
Then how does the world progress. By agreeing to disagree. Each party should know that they are having different experiences because everything is relative.
You would have seen lot of pictures which are used in management training. eg. there is one famous picture which looks like an old lady of 75 years old as well as a young dame of 17 years!! It is there in the book of Stephen Covy tittled "7 habits of heighly effective people".
So it is practically impossible to agree on what is real. But people can agree about each other's experiences and go forward

Answer 4

Everyone's experiences aren't that different. Just talk to the other person without philosophical baggage and focus on commonalities such as family, friends, social circles, work-schooling-life experiences, and you'd soon find out.

Philosophical arguments on reality are too detached from reality, i.e, what makes life really real, such as seafood boil, good recipes, outdoors fun, for some--kids, etc.

Answer 5

This is more easily understandable if one considers the actual scale of the components of an atom. If one takes into account the fact that the neutrons, protons and electrons of an atom actually have huge spaces between them it becomes clear that the atoms that make up seemingly solid objects are made up of 99+ percent empty space.

This alone does not seem too important till you add the idea that the atoms that make up seemingly solid objects are more of a loose conglomeration that share a similar attraction but never really touch each other.

At first glance this does not really seem relevant, but closer analysis reveals that this adds a tremendous amount of empty space to solid objects that are already made up of atoms that are 99 percent space. When so-called solid objects are seen in this light it becomes apparent that they can in no way be the seemingly solid objects they appear to be.

We ourselves are not exceptions to this phenomenon.

These seemingly solid objects are more like ghostly images that we interpret as solid objects based on our perceptual conclusions.

From this we must conclude that Perception is some sort of a trick that helps us to take these ghostly images and turn them into a world we can associate and interact with. This clever device seems to be a creation of our intellect that enables us to interact with each other in what appears to be a three dimensional reality.

I hope that helps to answered your question.

Love and blessings Don

Answer 6

does that mean agreeing is out of the question?...
I would say no...
different opinions may exist because of different experiences,
however,
everyone who has an opinion about what constitutes reality that is different than mine...
is simply
wrong...
My experiences and opinions are the only ones that matter, so as long as they accept their ignorance and embrace my omnipotence, then we can all agree on the same general concepts...

Answer 7

you are missing virtuality and reality. our experiences are only real to us and virtual to others . someting real is some thing we all agree to be , when a thing is real we know not think. if we have a virtual issue to decide our perception come into play from our experiences .every body experiences a real thing in the same way if not nothing would have been definate by now ,but even you know that what inside you is true is also true to another person and yet your experiences differ in many areas.

Answer 8

the experience is different but not necessarily contradictory. there are many dimensions to each experience. by mutual sharing, the experiences get more meaningful. for example, regarding human body, one may experience physical qualities while other may mental ability and so on.

Answer 9

Damn good Q but to me being a Calvinist only Gods own have logically real arguements that they have been given by God(real knowledge and wisdom) that is shown by their faith and true beliefs but I hope im one of em.

Answer 10

Get yourself a good book on solipsism.