Does reality really exist ?

Watching the Republican Convention on TV, and hearing all the wonderfull things people tell, one wonders whether there is a truth than can be shared between people. Does every individual has his own truth ? I am not referring to people that would lie on purpose. I really believe that people genuinely tell the truth, at least what they perceive as being the truth.

How then could we communicate ? How do we do research ? Is it at all possible to communicate anything "objective" and research anything "objective"? Is what we observe really there, or is it only the pair of glasses that we choose to look through, that makes us see what we see ?

These are all important questions, at least in my opinion, on which we are still making many assumptions. Are people living in their own (imaginary) world, that for them is real of course, but that is almost unaccessible for any other person ? And as somebody once said, does it matter ?

And now we want to manage the world (in politics), or somewhat smaller, manage a company. Can we do anything else than managing the diversity of each and every individual, probably organising the necessary networks of interaction ? Isn't this what complexity theory is all about ? We still have a long way to go before we are able to understand consciousness, and as long as we do not understand consciousness, I am afraid it will be difficult to manage effectively.

Comments

[Postmaster]

I do believe that what we call "truth" is nothing more than an individual perception of what surounds us, called the environement and that our culture, background and knowledge and even education interfers into it.
For example : it is said that Italy looks like a boot. But if we had never seen a boot before what would have we compared it to?
We have been taught to identify this form as being a boot, our brain has been trained to recognize this form and put a name on it, that's it.
But what happens for the people that have a bad view, do they see this same form or don't we tend to guide them in this direction and in a way, force them to see what we see?

To me reality is a convention, a global and mutual agreement of one community that sets rules and make them be "the reality", it is a reference. And we invite people to refer to it.

There is also another game that consists in writing in different colors the names of thoses colors. But the words are not written in the appropriate colors.
For example, the word "blue" is written in green. And the exercice consists in trying to read the words accordind to what is written, not what we see.
Well, after one or two minutes, we soon realize that it is impossible to seperate from our "references", at least what has been programed in our mind and we tend to read the colors, not the words.
Just to show you that our brain has been formatted to follow a pre-set road.

A fool is not considered as a person that sees te truth as his point of view does not fit to the standarrd view and this view is considered as non moral.

Yet I think that we can manage and cultivate diversity and that's what will save us from "chaos".
In our "Innovation Strategy of Competitives Companies" course we saw that taking as much distance as possible from our "references" and also expectations (concerning the accountancy) was the best way to lead a company to success and lots of them are aware of that as they tend to stimulate any kind of creativity among their employees.

I may be totally wrong and if it is the case, I would appreciate it if someone could help me thinking another way.

MS

[JCC]

TRUTHS or REALITY ?

When somebody says that he suffers, even if he doesn’t have
anything, it is true. It is His truth.

What I perceive of reality, which is for me My truth, is only what is
picked up by my sensors, filtered by my beliefs.

As a human being, my sensors are limited by the number of my
senses, and those are not always very reliable. My 5 senses enable me
to build an image of the world which I can perceive. I am, on the
other hand, not able, for example, to tell the difference between two
temperatures within half a degree, nor to imagine the difference
between 1,000 and 10,000 degrees.

Reality can not be limited only to these analyses. Even if our
senses were infinite not only in number but also in their
precision, reality could not be reduced to the sum of all these
analyses.

Pascal wrote: "I believe only what I see, I see only what I look at, I
look at only what I want..."

Everything is belief. I wrote a sentence several years ago which
appears to me to summarize my current state of mind: "man believes
that he knows, a wise man knows that he believes"

Beliefs are the essential engines of our actions. They are
built through our culture, our experiences, our relationships but they can be
worked on if they cause us to behave in ways which are not appropriate. The work of the analysis can be the basis of the
comprehension of the construction of these beliefs and the rebuilding of them.

Is to try perhaps already the first step to succeed?

[Walter]

I agree with both comments, but I get lost if we start teaching in innovation courses that we should take as much as possible distance from references and expectations. Concepts of complexity theory clearly explain us why in the first place this is impossible, but furthermore that it is certainly not desirable either.

[Vi]

où se trouve la limite de la réalité?
Qu'appelle t on réalité?
Je crois qu'il est vraiment difficile de savoir si on vit dans la réalité ou non.Nous sommes bien réels mais nous avons tous nos idées de la réalité.La réalité ne peut être quelque chose d'unanime, la réalité ne peut pas être qu'objective sinon nous ne serions pas là.
Souvent nous confondons la réalité avec la vérité, avons nous raison? Chacun a son image de la réalité, alors est ce vraiment la réalité ou est ce tout simplement une idée de la réalité? je crois que la métaphore de Platon avec sa caverne soulève exactement le même problème.
Après la lecture de cette métaphore, nous savons que nous devons prêter attention à ce que l'on croit être la réalité, mais rapidement nous baissons notre garde car la réalité que nous voyons nous plaît.

[Pailleux]

Réalité et vérité semblent être deux concepts bien différents. La réalité part du fin fond de l'univers, le traverse, et nous passe dessus comme la vague du temps. La réalité est temporelle, un jour elle est le suivant elle n'est plus car les règles qui la font ont changé. Le temps est passé, la réalité à changer. Il y a probablement une réalité globale, commune à tous, qui est tangible. Par exemple, la Terre tourne autour du soleil. De cette réalité découlent des vérités, souvent scientifiques. L'eau boue à cent degrés voilà une vérité. Il ne peut y avoir d'interprétation de ce fait. Dans le système judiciaire la vérité est établie à partir de faits, en principe. La vérité serait un fait ou un écheveau de faits, un réseau? Probablement: petite histoire africaine: au début était La Vérité, une et unique telle un grand miroir. Un jour, le miroir est tombé et s'est brisé, depuis chacun détient un petit bout de miroir.
La réalité est mobile, changeante et bien qu'une partie de la réalité soit partageable, la réalité personnelle, celle qui touche l'Homme dans son for intérieur ne peut être que subjective puisqu'interprètée par l'individu (avec ses propres expériences, ses capacités cérébrales, ses souvenirs...)avec son propre formatage qu'il lui ait été "fourni" ou qu'il se le soit fabriqué. Ici c'est une question de survie car sans conception propre de la réalité soit l'Homme se cantonne à la copie des autres ( et certains s'en accomode très bien mais en souffrent tout de même) soit il devient fou car on ne peut vivre dans un chaos permanent. Il faut une cké de pénétration et d'interprétation de ce que nous voyons sans quoi le sens n'est plus, donc la réalité disparait et son corollaire de vérités avec.

[Vincent Martino]

What is real?
The recent news gave us the last nobelprize laureates.
Then, I have a weird question about the reality.
Someone got the nobelprize, 1973 (search a little...) for having put an end to the Vietnam war.
On another hand the same person was responsible for the incidents of 11/09/1973 the SAME YEAR in Chile, also responsible for having led a democratic country to years of dictature.
What is the realler? The appearance of wisdom of this former US-secratary, or the blood of the 30000 disappeared person he let flow?
Before to leave, I'll add the fact that this Politician was a specialist of "REALPOLITIK".

[Elena Sadykova]

What is reality and what is not?
Every person will give different answers to this question, for every person lives his own life, gains different experience and is influenced differently. But are we really that different? I believe not. After all we are all lead by two forces in this life, first is self recognition and the second is relation between sexes. And every step in the life can be described from these two points of view. The diffrence of humans i believe is the way they treat these forces. Some consider self realization more important than relationship, and vice versa.
Are people living in their own world? No, we are all living in one world; the fact is that we are different by our nature and every person considers himself to be special and his view on life a right one. And this is what can be called his reality.
After all if we consider that every person is living in his own world that only for him is real and unaccessible to others, what can we say about education institutes and people that work there passing their knowledge to us? How we should treat the information we get from our professors?

[Praful MENDAPARA]

Reality may be a truth for observer and false for another. It’s depending on the perception of person how he/she looks the issue? Mahatma Gandhi (M.K.Gandhi), who gave freedom to India is noble soul for all Indians but may be not for Nathuram Godse who killed him.
If you will see white objects by wearing red glass, you will find it red! To live in reality we should to change ourselves as per surrounding atmosphere, not to the world.

[Alessandra]

A few thoughts:
I also agree there is one reality and this reality can be grasped to different degrees by different people (from zero to a lot). Does reality matter? Of course. Does different interpretations of reality matter? Obviously, it´s what usually causes wars, for example.

I wondered by your post if you were only able to see people out of touch with reality when you watch the Republican convention, and fail to do so when you watch the people in the Democratic convention. I hope that´s not the case, or you are your best example of how a person´s interpretation of reality can be out of touch but only see when others are like this. (Or as someone once quipped, "The definition of political propaganda is anything *I* don´t agree with.")

And for your comment, that you wish for a different international politics from Mr. Bush, and someone other than Bush, I don´t think you will get it. First because Mr. Bush himself is quite irrelevant in the global US scheme of things. Things will pretty much continue in the direction they are now (and have been in the last 100 years), with or without Mr. Bush. Secondly, because Democrats/liberals are waging a culture war against family/traditional social structures in the US and that mobilizes support for conservatives and Republicans. Although the Republicans were probably at their sharpest in these elections with the terrorism fear push button strategy, and have been controlling the election outcome partly because of this, many Americans support Republicans (or are against Democrats) for internal lifestyle/society reasons, not external politics.

What many people outside the US don´t get is exactly this. A lot of Americans do not want to live in a sleazy, violent, dysfunctional society, which is what they get with liberals/Democrats. As long as these are the only two political options in the US (and look what the Democrats did to Nader), Republicans will remain strong.

Alessandra

[aurelie]

la réalité existe t'elle??
pour répondre a une telle question il me parait indispensable de réfléchir dans un contexte précis qui est la vie en société.
en effet d'après moi chacun est à même de se créer sa propre personnalite et donc sa propre vision de la réalite.
d'où l'importance de la communication et des échanges pour l'enrichissement personnel !! ce la peut expliquer une diversite presente de realite
de plus pour justifier cette argumentation il ma parait interessant de citer et conseiller à tous ceux qui liront mon message la lecture du roman de Eric Emmanuel Schmitt : Milarepa .
En effet cette nouvelle d'apparence ludique est aussi un monologue sur l'esprit du boudhisme tibetain mais surtout et avant tout un questionnement philosophique.
la problématique qu'il en ressort est: "la réalité exixte t'elle en dehors de la perception que l'on en a ?"
cette question me parait parfaitement repondre a la question "la realite existe t'elle ?"
je pense qu'elle existe mais que chacun en a sa propre version

[yelena lvova]

"If you were in my shoes!..." - said one of my co-workers when he tried to explain to me one of his action... Well, I definatelly could not have! And it is true for all of us... just for some, our "shoes" are more alike and therefore we understand things similarly and persive the outside world in similar fashion, but still.. "..truth is the the eyes of the beholder..." Thinking of truths and realities the story about the blind men trying to describe an elephant comes to mind (I will not post the story here, you've heard it enough) - each tells the truth, but none is fully correct... All these men give their projection of the reality, or of an object, which is an elephant... It reminds me of a blue print of some mechanical part - you have a view from the front, from one side, may be a cross-section... since it is not possible to put on two-dimensional piece of paper a three-dimentional object. For me REALITY has more then just 3 dimentions we can persive... but on the blue print when you have all the views, you can build the mechanical part correctly... So in order to construct the TRUTH you'll have to get the perspective of ALL PEOPLE, which is not, of cause, possible, and put them together... and even then the error margin would've been huge.

To add to the complexity of REALITY and TRUTH I believe we all have somewhat different reference systems, different system of coordinates... Therefore in trying to manage such a diversity of TRUTHS in a company, for instance, the managers should establish some sort of coordinates system that will be accepted by the staff and will allow to minimize complexity at least a little bit... simple rules might help as well, even though they most probably will be persived very differently.

For me the REALITY is like a horizon... it seems so obvious, but everyone sees a different line, depending on where one stands, and further more, you think you getting close to it, but you never actually are.

[de certaines]

J’interviendrai sur les concepts de réalité et de vérité.
La réalité est pour moi commune à tout le monde. Aujourd’hui il pleut sur Luminy……est ce contestable par quelqu’un ? n’est ce pas une réalité ?
Ci par contre j’explique qu’il pleut et qu’il fait un temps pourris c’est une vérité mais elle est contestable par une personne qui va me dire : »il pleut serte mais ce n’est pas un temps pourris un temps pourris c’est la neige et le froid ».La vérité ne semble donc pas êtreb universelle.
Cependant la frontière entre réalité et vérité est elle nette ? la réalité n’entraîne elle pas des vérités.
La deuxième guerre mondiale a fait 60 millions de morts, c’est une réalité et une vérité qui s’en dégage c’est que la totalité des pays qui y ont participé en ont souffert c’est une vérité qui n’est malheureusement contestable par personne donc cette vérité n’en devient elle pas une réalité ?
La question que je me pose alors est : y a-t-il des vérités qui sont communes à tout le monde et qui en deviennent donc des réalités.

[Damien]

" La réalité, c'est ce qui continue d'exister lorsqu'on cesse d'y croire."
Philip K. Dick.

[aurélien]

Une réaction sur la citation de Pascal:"I believe only what I see, I see only what I look at, I
look at only what I want...". C'est surtout pour l'anecdote, mais j'ai trouvé ça énorme: un animal, en général, quand il a faim, chasse; il chasse ce qu'il peut plus que ce qu'il veut, donc ce qu'il voit et qu'il peut atteindre. Ce qu'il ne voit pas, il ne va pas le chercher...sauf le singe capucin! En proportion, c'est l'animal qui a le plus gros cerveau, ce qui lui permet de voir ce que les autres ne pensent même pas trouver là. Camouflage, cachettes,...sont inutiles pour les insectes à la mesure de son appétit. Des tests relativement poussés ont démontré leur intelligence supérieure aux autres animaux. Tout cela parce qu'il sont capables de percevoir une réalité plus grande que les autres?...

[claire]

La réalité existe-t-elle vraiment?
Au vu de tous les messages que j'ai lu précédemment je pense que nous pouvons parler de "réalités" car il est évident que la perception que chacun se fait du monde et des choses est différente.En effet selon nos valeurs, notre éducation et notre environnement nous n'appréhendons pas le monde de la même façon.C'est pour cela qu'il est très difficile de s'adapter aux gens et à leur façon de réfléchir, d'agir, de penser.Pour moi par exemple(et ce ne sera pas l'avis de tout le monde mais c'est pas grave c'est MA réalité)l'intelligence est avant tout la capacité d'adaption d'un individu à son environnement et aux personnes qui l'entourent.C'est pourquoi il me parait très complexe de manager un groupe de personnes et plus largement une entreprise.En effet le management nécessite des capacités d'écoute et de'adaptation, un bon manager doit accepter la réalité de personnes différentes et trouver le plus de compromis possibles entre tout ce monde qui est dans un autre monde.

[Philippa]

This short comment posted by Walter Baets in the front page concerning the real existence of reality ("Does reality really exist") may seem interesting for a philosopher, for a researcher...but would it really attract a manager's eye ? Thinking about it, it wouldn't at first, but while reading the comment, it just popped up to my mind.
Of course! so many management problems stem from the fact that individuals live in different worlds, that they see reality through different glasses. Thus misunderstanding occur...
Reality is COMPLEX.
And the most important sentence I caught in these few complexity resources is : WE CANNOT CONTROL REALITY. We cannot control individuals and situations, so there has to be oppositions between people, in particular between employees in a company.

Thank you for making me understand this precious statement...