How far can we get as a species if we can't even agree on what reality is?

[Taverner]

A couple bites their infant daughter 20 times to excorsize demons from her.

Why? She was making funny noises, that's why.

Now you and I would think: upper respiratory infection? Mucous in the airway? Worse? and we would go right to the doctor.

But these folks, these folks "knew" that their daughter was posessed by the Devil. They didn't suspect it, they outright "knew" it.

Mohammed Atta "knew" the minute the 747 hit the WTC, he would be in heaven with 72 virgins.

Phred Phelps "knows" gays are evil, and have to be killed.

James Dobson "knows" he can cure gays by praying.

Yet reality, the mostly agreed on reality brought about not by reading stupid books, but by the scientific method, tells us different.

So as a species, how far can we get when we have deluded individuals who "know" their "reality" is more real than the one we can prove?

[Parche]

1. Reality

"When fear is too terrible, when reality is too agonizing, we seek escape in manufactured danger, in the thrills and pleasures of pretending-in the amusement parks of our unamusing world. Here, in frantic pretending, Man finds escape and temporary peace, and goes home tired enough to sleep a short, deep sleep. But what happens here when night comes? When pretending ends, and reality begins?"

[ixion]

2. not very far...

as would be evidenced by the near total lack of intellectual evolution, collectively speaking, since humans first organized into tribes. Sure, we've got a few more bells and whistles, but the underlying operating motives are largely unchanged.

Do we have the potential to? I used to believe so. Individually, we have the potential. Collectively, not so much.

[HamdenRice]

3. Like Stalin, Pol Pot, knew, the way to eliminate religious superstition was to kill religious people

The examples you cite are of disturbed, perhaps sociopathic or psychopathic people. But people who don't have supernatural belief systems also do horrible things.

Stalin and Pol Pot each killed millions although they had no supernatural belief systems, and part of the killing was designed to rid the world of religious "superstitions."

The common factor is that the people involved are evil, not that they are subscribers to a belief system you disagree with.

As for your larger question: what can we accomplish without agreeing on an ultimate understanding of reality (I admit: I tweaked your statement a bit), I would say a lot.

What matters is our behavior and our consensus, not what we ultimately "believe". I remember South Africa in the 80s where atheist members of the South African Communist Party (maybe the best communist party in the world) and the South African Council of Churches, worked together like hand and glove.

What difference did it make that they had different perspectives on the "ultimate" moving forces of history?

[Taverner]

8. Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao went after religions not because of their seperation of reality with science

But because they wanted to control what was "real", and the Communist Party of those days was a religion. They had the same elements, the same belief in some kind of paradise for the faithful, the same idea of immortality in the minds of the proletariat, etc. They just wanted to replace one brand of Opium with another.

They even changed science to fit Marxism. I forget the name of the guy, but basically he denounced all genetics as "bourgeoisie science" and made up his own bullshit.

[damntexdem]

4. Reality? With the toxic-mortgage mess, we can't even agree on ...

the definition of REALTY!

[Silent3]

7. Ah, now I understand.

"Realty" is a "reality" that "i" am not involved in.

Now, if I could only believe in that fiercely enough to make my new mortgage payments go away. :)

[Taverner]

9. The problem is Gay Mortgage!!!!

Those folks are ruining the sanctity of mortgage!

[SidneyCarton]

27. That's no problem, I'm sure the alliance to preserve traditional (interest-only) mortgage

Here in CA is already working on a Proposition.

[wryter2000]

5. Some people know that crystals cure illness

Other people know that lowering taxes on the rich will make everyone prosperous. Other people know that we were visited by aliens in ancient times. Other people know that Bill O'Reilly is looking out for them. Other people know they have ESP. Other people know their houses are haunted.

Michael Shermer wrote a whole book called "Why People Believe Weird Things." Off hand, I don't remember that any of it had to do with religion.

On the other hand, lots of religious people know that the Earth is millions of years old and humans and apes share a common ancestor. They know that the humans wrote the Bible, and it's a humanly imperfect document. They know that E equals MC squared.

[Taverner]

12. Yes, but those folks who you mention

The 'Reasonable Christians' lets call them - I see their churches as a little differently than most Atheists do.

Take your Evangelical Free Lutheran Church, your United Methodist, your UCC church, and I see a group trying to assuage a population from the drug addiction that religion can be. And just like many meds, you have to step down on this one. First, start to believe that the bible may not be a perfect book. Then start to think that the account of Jesus might not be 100% accurate...and then go from there.

The Bible is a horrible, horrible book. It mentions killing much more than saving lives, it advocates genocide, ritualistic killing of your kids, slavery, wife beating, wife murdering and rape, yet has a strange preoccupation with sex, food and women. As in those things are all bad.

Now say you are an organization dedicated to being ethical. "Don't be evil" is your secret motto. Yet you are stuck with this POS of a book to go by. What do you do?

[wryter2000]

14. How unbelievably rude

It must be nice to have the ultimate truth. I don't. Maybe that's why I'm an agnostic rather than an atheist.

[Taverner]

16. What was rude? The Bible being a very horrible book?

I'm sorry if you feel that way but have you ever read the Bible?

I have - and I know of what I speak.

Just read the entire book of Joshua. Then let me know how you feel. Especially about the "kill every man woman and child, but after having your way with the women and girls."

And for the record, these were all preemptive attacks on cities that did them no harm.

Nice guy that Jehovah.

[NOW tense]

6. Do you know everyones reality?

In theoretical physics, M-theory is a new limit of string theory in which 11 dimensions of spacetime may be identified. Because the dimensionality exceeds the dimensionality of five superstring theories in 10 dimensions, it was originally believed that the 11-dimensional theory is more fundamental and unifies all string theories (and supersedes them). However, in a more modern understanding, it is another, sixth possible description of physics of the full theory that is still called "string theory." Though a full description of the theory is not yet known, the low-entropy dynamics are known to be supergravity interacting with 2- and 5-dimensional membranes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-theory

[Silent3]

10. So, you interpret M-theory to mean...

...than everyone gets their own reality where whatever they want to be is true is indeed true?

If not, then your point is what?

[NOW tense]

11. I interpret that science hasn't even decided what reality is.

We don't know what reality is. It hasn't been worked out yet. Until we do have figured out, my rule is be a good animal

[Taverner]

13. Reducto ad absurdum

Seriously

I can't tell you whether there is a planet a brazillion light years away that has enough oxygen to support life. I can't.

But I can tell you about photosynthesis. I can tell you about evolution. I can show you a fossil that proves evolution. I can even show you evidence today that proves evolution.

Take the Bible now - a horrible book that advocates killing people much more than helping them. I can prove its all bullshit. Hell, the history is even off! Take Herod, supposedly the King when Jesus was born according to Matthew. Yet he wasn't, he died 4 years before Jesus was even supposedly born!

So we can deduce: The Bible? Not real. Not even close. Scientific Method? Better.

[Silent3]

15. That's just a silly game of pretending that until ALL knowledge...

...is required before ANYTHING can be known with a reasonable degree of certainty, and before the relative merits of different claims can be discussed.

You don't need to know all of the inner workings of a car to understand that the car is real.
You don't need to know how many planets there are in the whole universe before deciding that you're standing on one.
You don't need to know the inner subatomic structure of matter and the ultimate theory of gravitation to know that a six-foot long boulder is probably heavier than you can lift without mechanical assistance.

M-theory doesn't have the slightest bearing on whether people who believe in Reiki have or do not have a better handle on reality, whatever the ultimate details of reality are, than those who don't.

[NOW tense]

18. You guys are awesome

I find it amazing that all someone has to do to fuck with you is to have a differing thought than you. My point about reality is that I find that in the grand scheme of things we don't know what reality is in the largest context. That is all and you jump down my throat because you assume that I don't believe in science. I believe in science! I also believe in spirituality. Is that so wrong?
Last time I looked you posted this in the Religion/Theology. Why not post it in science.

[Silent3]

24. I didn't question your "belief" in science.

I questioned the value of your attempt to call play upon the unknown to fuzzy up the concept of reality, presumably because making the idea fuzzier leaves more room for vaguely "spiritual" things to dance about, for faeries to exist, on an individualized reality basis, if one happens to believe in faeries.

The question "Do you know everyone's reality?" has three basic possible answers: yes, no, and not sure.

If you answer "yes" that doesn't mean you know everything there is to know about reality, all it means is "Yes, everyone shares the same reality". It's not a matter of presuming special knowledge, it's a matter of a pragmatic definition of the word "reality", because only by assuming a common objective reality does meaningful communication between individuals become possible.

That which might be called "subjective reality" is better described as "viewpoint", "perspective", "personal feelings", etc. It's better to save the word "reality" for objective reality, to make "objective" a needless qualification of the word.

If you answer "no" or "not sure" to the question, which in some theoretical philosophical sense might be considered perfectly valid, you end up undermining the possibility of meaningful communication. Without the utility of assuming that some common touchstone of reality exists between individuals, words and meanings have no anchors, other individuals could simply be figments of one's imagination, etc.

Reality is whatever is left over when we set aside all of the things that can be different on an individual basis. That remaining reality may or may not contain things usefully described by the word "spiritual". If M-theory has any bearing on that issue whatsoever it isn't because it somehow throws the notion of reality itself into doubt.

[cosmik debris]

17. Perhaps progress is the process of elimination of mythology.

One myth at a time.

That only leaves verifiable reality in the end.

[Taverner]

19. Now this seems possible

Of course there's always that monkey wrench from new religions (Scientology, etc...)

[cosmik debris]

20. But I think over all we are winning

But we have to stop defining progress as acquisition of knowledge (as above) and define it as abolition of ignorance.

Another crack pot theory from a crack without enough pot.

[Taverner]

21. Well true, reality can only be one thing

And when we get it right, we are simply hitting the mark, whereas before we were always missing the mark.

[quaker bill]

23. and perhaps it is not.

Myths abound and in the absence of a good one, people make them up. Many still believe George W. Bush was a good President. This seems sufficiently mythological to me.

[quaker bill]

22. At least as far as we have gotten

There is no evidence of any previous agreement on reality that has recently dissolved. Best as I can tell, it has always been like this.

[JerseygirlCT]

25. Guess it depends on where we're headed nt

[SidneyCarton]

26. Because until we can get beyond perception, we will never understand it anyway

All our arguments about reality are based on our own perceptions. Yes there are universals (gravity, mortality, a Big 10 school in the BCS) that none of us can avoid, but beyond that the way one of us percieves the universe is in many ways fundamentally different than the way another does. We may write this off as superstition or fundamentalism, but one cannot force another person to change their mind. In the end we have to either agree to disagree, or work out a definition that works for a majority, and purge the unbelievers. As the latter strategy has been tried repeatedly without success in western civ, might I be so bold as to argue for the former. An Atheist and I have fundamentally different views about the nature of reality, but if the Atheist is right, then I will slip into oblivion and never even have a chance to be disappointed about the lack of an afterlife. As I see no reason to impose my beliefs on the Atheists (or anyone else for that matter) they should have little to be worried about from my belief.

We can live and let live or kill and be in turn slain such is our choice, for there will be no way to impose a single definition of reality on humanity, regardless of the evidence.