Talk:Consensus reality

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This article was nominated for deletion on 13 January 2005. The result of the discussion was keep.

Contents 1 (Who Coined) 2 (Reality Enforcement) 3 (Scientific community) 4 (Alan C. Walter) 5 Spot of humor 6 (Lack of References) 7 Materialism/solipsism 8 Change as reality 9 Protection

[edit] (Who Coined)

From the article:

Steven Leibowitz has coined the term "conframe" to refer to consensus reality or some aspect of it.

Who's he? Why doesn't Google have any hits on it?

See this. Admittedly to me this is a lot of jargon but for what it's worth. I am unsure to what if any extent this should be acknowledged/discussed in the article. --Daniel C. Boyer

Who coined "consensus reality"? In what contexts is it used?

I don't know who coined the phrase, but Andre Breton (for example), used it. --Daniel C. Boyer

The article claims "idealist, surrealist and other anti-realist" theorists use it. I'm familiar with many idealist and anti-realist philosophers, but this is the first I've heard this phrase. Do you mean that it's used, perhaps, among art theorists?

We aren't on "surrealism is an artistic movement" again, are we? --user:Daniel C. Boyer

I wouldn't know about that. One thing I do know is that most idealists and anti-realists (who actually deserve the name) would scoff at the suggestion that their theory involves regarding "consensus reality" as "false." (How can a reality be false? You mean beliefs about reality, perhaps.)

Obviously. Reread the first sentence and notice, among other things, the quotation marks around "reality." --Daniel C. Boyer 16:59 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

Anyway, this article confuses me because I really don't know who is being said to say all these things.

Also, who coined "reality enforcement" and in what context is it used?

--Larry Sanger

[edit] (Reality Enforcement)

The theory is open to criticism on the basis that "reality enforcement," on its face, cannot exist, as "enforcement" would play no part in a reality that exists a priori.

What does this even mean? Martin 23:08 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

That if reality exists or existed independently of the human mind or any human actions, one couldn't talk about "reality enforcement," because reality would just exist and wouldn't need to be enforced. For example, if The Matrix were real, it would have no need to employ Agent Smith. --Daniel C. Boyer

I don't think that logically follows. Consensus reality is "the "reality" accepted by the majority of individuals in a given place or at a given time". A consensus reality can exist completely independently of objective reality - in 1984, the consensus reality is that they have always been at war with Eastasia/Eurasia. 1984 has reality enforcers in the shape of thought police to enforce this consensus reality. All this has no bearing on the objective reality of the situation. Martin

You fundamentally misunderstand what I am saying and to some extent agree with me. Clearly the only need for reality enforcers would be if the consensus reality does not conform to the objective reality of the situation; the job of the "reality enforcers" (maybe it could be better understood as a sort of confusing shorthand for "enforcers of the consensus reality") would be meaningless if there were a complete correspondence of the consensus reality and the objective reality. --Daniel C. Boyer

What about in the following situation: a few people from an advanced culture get shipwrecked on an island of "primitives". They try to educate the primitives that, for example, the earth goes round the sun. The primitives agree with this, not least because the advanced folk have guns. So the consensus reality now matches the objective reality. But', if the advanced folk depart, the primitives may quickly revert to their old belief that the sun goes round the earth. Hence, the advanced folk act as reality enforcers, even though the reality they are enforcing is the objective reality. Martin

Seems to me that consensus enforcers would better describe them.--Dell Adams 07:46, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

"Reality enforcers" is a familiar term to be that I've heard used by multiple authors and speakers. While I agree that "consensus enforcers" would be more descriptive, I don't think it would be appropriate here if it's something you personally came up with. Archaeoptryx

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In reference to Wikipedia's entry:

An interesting entry defining consensus reality, although I do feel it is rather biased in favor of current theories. I wouldn't necessarily expect this from an encyclopedia, which should espouse definitions as close to impartiality as possible. Consensual reality can be considered in terms of the end product of thousands of years of cultural/ social evoluton, not to mention the findings of the scientific culture/ community. And it must be remembered that science itself, and all the theories it advocates, continue to be modified according to new developments in any given field. As a species we do not yet have all the answers, and many of the most common, everyday phenomenon are still poorly understood despite the great efforts made to bring total comprehension to a subject. There is very good reason why psychology is referred to as a soft science; our innermost processes are still poorly understood, making a concept such as consensual reality even more difficult to grasp. There is still a great deal of discovery to be made in this field (psychology) before a definitive definition of the subject at hand can be presented. I mention this in reference to the author's attempt to discredit other theories of consensus reality, when the currently accepted theories are themselves matters of debate.

[edit] (Scientific community)

>Consensual reality can be considered in terms of the end product of thousands of years of cultural/ social evoluton, not to mention the findings of the scientific culture/ community.

This is incorrect. The phrase "consensus reality" applies specifically to the consensus or agreed-upon -- here by mutual belief -- reality and can be used to refer to objective reality as opposed to the ravings of a deranged or insane individual whose reality is outside of the consensus.

The findings of the scientific community tend to affect only the consensus of the scientific community overtly. Whereas this may have an impact upon the consensus reality among scientists, it is not necessarily so for the general consensus reality.

[edit] (Alan C. Walter)

"(It should be noted Alan C. Walter uses the phrase "reality enforcers" in a highly idiosyncratic way..." Who is Alan C. Walter? GangofOne 07:25, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Spot of humor

Wikipedia talk pages shouldn't be abused, but nothing wrong with livening things up a bit... I came upon an excellent comment on slashdot.org about this type of thing:

I offer this argument to those who state "You create your own reality." 
I kick them in the shin. 
Then say, "Why did you do that?"

Just thought it was funny :) - JustinWick 02:23, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] (Lack of References)

Since I wrote the main body of text for this entry, I guess I should offer an explanation for why it lacks references. I did not, BTW, write the paragraph that talks about Objectivists or any of the material below the Contents box.

This explanation of consensus reality reflects my own personal understanding, though informed to some extent by the various concepts I gave links to within the text. As I hope I made clear, there is no overall agreement about what the term consensus reality refers to, and I tried my best to present the different POVs that I'm aware of without prejudice against any of them. However, since I am merely an unpublished 'freethinker,' so to speak, I can offer no reference or validation for my definition. In fact, my own understanding of the nature of reality is sufficiently different from mainstream thinking that I wouldn't expect it to appear in any publication.

I suppose, in a way, if there is lack of enthusiasm for this definition of consesnsus reality, then that in itself helps support my premise that one group's consensus reality might not be valid for everyone, even if that group includes 99% of the people.

It equally supports the idea that there is one reality and people just have different ideas about it. We can characterise varying viewpoints as different "realities" -- the question is whether we must or should.1Z 22:58, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, I posted this definition quite a while ago and, except for the addition of the paragraph on the Objectivist POV, hasn't been altered as far as I can see, so I imagine it's been satisfactory to those who've ventured onto the page during this time.

Manjusri053 05:00, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

While your contribution is, I think, interesting and valuable, Wikipedia does not allow original research. I am tagging it appropriately.Skomorokh 18:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Materialism/solipsism

This paragraph gives me pause:

"In considering the nature of reality, two broad approaches exist: the materialist approach, in which there is a single objective overall space-time reality believed to exist irrespective of the perceptions of any given individual, and the solipsistic approach, in which it is considered that an individual can verify little except their own experience of the world, and can never directly know the truth of the world separate from that."

I think this description is conflating ontology with epistemology. In principle one could be both a materialist and a solipsist (as descibed here) by saying "I believe that an objective reality exists, but obtaining certain knowledge about it is not possible". I'm debating whether to change the solipsism link to metaphysical solipsism, which is an ontological viewpoint, or just re-wording the description of solipsism to something like "[in solipsism] the universe has no existence independently from the individual's mind". Or both. Thoughts? — Xaonon (Talk) 21:37, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Change as reality

"Just as a person's personal view could be Idealist internally so can a society's view be Idealist externally and just as a persons reality can change so can a society's reality change. Is the world flat? Is it round or oval? Does the sun revolve around the earth, the center of the universe? We currently have new beliefs but are they true today? Is Pluto still a planet? Social and personal realities are in constant change and as such can never be real, the only reality is change.Change as reality"

This seems to be WK:OR, is vague, and unsuitable for an encyclopedia article as it asks questions instead of answering them.1Z 22:53, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Protection

Shouldn't the template be {{sprotected}}? I considered changing it myself with a pithy edit summary like "that the other template was false is self-evident" but decided it's best, as a non-admin, to be careful around administrative tags like that. --Random832(tc) 14:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)