PP30 The Human dichotomy: Fantasy vs Reality
G'day, my name is Bruce Robertson and this is Pirate Philosophy, the channel in which I describe the Pattern Paradigm, an original philosophy that is rigorous, logical and accurate; and one that I claim makes better sense of the world than any other philosophy. Welcome.
Today I want to discuss something of a tricky topic, yet it is an important one. It relates to the model of the world which we create for ourselves and which is inherent to all of us. Within that model there are elements of reality and elements of fantasy. It is important to be able to distinguish reality from fantasy in order to make better sense of the world.
This discussion draws, to some extent, on what has been discussed in earlier videos. So if the concepts are unfamiliar to you, you can watch the earlier videos; I will provide references to them as we go along.
So diving right in, we can start with exploring the question of what is reality and where does it come from. The only link that our brains have to the world of reality is through our senses. Without our senses, we would be locked into an abstract and meaningless world of chaos. So it is only through our senses that we can begin to make sense of the world of reality.
The only logical process by which our brains can begin to make sense of the data from our senses is through the logical process of pattern identification. This process was first introduced in the video PP9 Patterns, Time and Space. It was continued in PP10 Pyramids, Patterns and Why we Sleep, where it was shown how a recursive application of the logical process of pattern identification can be used to create a hierarchy of patterns, one which I call a pyramid of patterns. This pyramid of patterns is effectively equivalent to one's model of the world.
The essence of the pattern identification process is to identify a pattern that fits the data without losing too much accuracy and in this way extract information about the nature of reality. In mathematical terms this is a compression of the data; the amount of information required to describe the pattern needs to be less than that required to describe the raw data, for otherwise it does not constitute a compression and no pattern has been found. If the identified pattern is a good fit to the data, then it can be used to recreate the data.
This model of the world that we create from patterns is, in effect, the world in which we live; it constitutes all that we know about the world-beyond-our-senses. (The world-beyond-our-senses being what some might call 'absolute reality')
The efficacy of our model of the world is affirmed by our ability to use the model to interact with the world in order to meet our physical needs of warmth, food and so on. In this way our model of the world that is encapsulated in our pyramid of patterns is considered to be real. This was discussed in the video PP11 The Foundations of Reality and Purpose.
However, sometimes the patterns that are considered to be the best available may in fact be very crude and are not able to fit the data accurately and efficiently; nor are they able to reproduce the data. Also sometimes the form of the pattern itself is so complex that it does not compress the data at all. Such poor patterns are best considered as mere possibilities or if they are very poor, as fantasies. A fantasy being an idea that has very little connection to reality. Nevertheless these poor outcomes are common when trying to identify patterns from the data.
In considering the distinction between fantasy and reality it would seem that there is no clear dividing line between the two. It is perhaps best considered as a continuum with absolute fantasies at one end and absolute reality at the other and with possibilities somewhere in the middle.
-------------------------------------------------------------
l l l
Absolute Possibilities Absolute
fantasy reality
I would now like to turn to the decision-making process that is used by people to interact with the real world. This was discussed in the video PP13 The Logic of Decision Making. The aim of the brain in this decision-making process is to maximise its happiness in both the short-term and long-term. This aim of happiness is not so much a goal as it is a direction used to guide decision-making. The brain's aim of happiness is associated with the well-being of its physical body in terms of, for example, food, warmth and reproduction. The specific form of this happiness within a species or an individual will have been determined through the process of evolution.
All decisions are based upon this aim of happiness and apply not only to decisions regarding the movement of one's limbs but also to decisions of what to say and even to decisions regarding what to believe. A person will choose to believe whatever they consider will maximise their long-term happiness and perhaps also their short-term happiness. It is this choosing of what to believe that is significant for this discussion.
Typically in our modern society there are many ideas floating around that have but little connection to the real world. Often there are cultural and social pressures for a person to adopt these ideas as their own beliefs even if they don't make a lot of sense.
Therein lies the human dichotomy: whether to believe only those things that one has learnt for oneself from one's own senses or to believe those things that don't really make sense but which other people seem to believe. Invariably people will choose those beliefs that they consider will maximise their happiness. Sometimes people will choose to believe ideas that are little more than fantasies.
To believe in fantasies is not necessarily a bad thing. For they can provide entertainment and personal comfort, a sense of community and perhaps guidelines for other decision-making. However it is important not to hold them as firm or immutable beliefs for they are, at best, just possibilities. Fantasies need to be recognised as fantasies and not claimed as truths nor extrapolated into the world of reality.
Typically such believed fantasies lie in the domains of religion, politics and people's own egos.
For example, in religion, the concept of 'God' is highly complex and undefined; as such the theory of God does not compress the data. Neither can the concept of 'God' recreate the data. Hence the concept of God belongs more to the domain of fantasy or perhaps remote possibility than to the domain of reality.
In politics, people often start from their own personal experience and seek generalised improvements but surround their intentions with wordy justifications based upon cherry-picked data that belong more to the domain of fantasy than to the domain of reality.
With regard to people's personal egos, many people like to believe that they are the best or that their culture, community or sports team is the best. However not every person, culture or sports team can be the best. It is just wishful thinking to consider that they are the best. Hence such notions belong more in the domain of fantasy than in the domain of reality.
People choose to believe these fantasies for reasons that could include peer pressure or that it makes them feel good about themselves or they think they must be good things to believe as everyone else believes them. They choose the beliefs that they consider will maximise their personal happiness.
However, there are caveats to be considered with regard to believing fantasies.
First, there is no means of achieving consensus between people who disagree about their fantasies, as there cannot be any recourse to evaluating them in terms of the facts of the real world as they only exist in a fantasy world. So while specific communities of people can agree on their fantasies, a different community will inevitably have different fantasies and there can be no rational path to agreement. Then if people are fanatical about their fantasy beliefs and consider them to be an integral part of who they are, as people, they may feel motivated to use violence to resolve their disagreement. This is evident in the many religious and political wars that have been fought over the centuries and still continue to this day. Also, as so often happens, when a clash of personal egos leads to violence.
The other problem with believing fantasies is that we actually live in a real world and beliefs in fantasies are likely to lead to poor decisions and hence bring about a harder road to happiness.
Another problem with believing fantasies is that people will inevitably communicate and share their fantasies with other people, especially their children, in aspects of, for example, religion, politics and culture. Yet it is hard for a child to incorporate fantasies into their model of the world as fantasies cannot be easily integrated with the patterns that they have constructed from sense-data and which describe the real world.
This can lead to anomalies in their model of the world. These anomalies can create unsettling discontinuities in their pyramid of patterns, which can lead to psychological problems. This was discussed in the video PP17 Culture and Schisms.
While there is a place for fantasies and for believing them in popular culture, there is no place for fantasies in philosophy; at least nothing more than the identification of them as fantasies or fictions. This is because philosophy has no goal of happiness.
In philosophy, if something is identified as being unknown with no good pattern to fit the data; rather than indulging in fanciful thinking and allowing a fantasy to fill the gap, that unknown something is best simply tagged as being 'unknown' which would then allow for further investigation and exploration.
Nevertheless, Standard Western philosophy, which primarily exists in the world of words, does not delve beneath beneath the level of words to the world of reality and sense-data. Neither do its theories have the capability of reproducing the data. As such, it cannot be claimed that its theories belong to the domain of reality; instead they can be considered as belonging to the domain of fantasy.
In contrast, the Pattern Paradigm philosophy that I have been describing in these videos, fits well with the facts of the world and sense-data. I have also put it in such an explicit and simple form that anyone can follow the paths of inference to reach the same conclusions. Hence the Pattern Paradigm can be considered to lie in the domain of reality.
So how can one identify a fantasy and distinguish it from the domain of reality?
The domain of reality is founded on pattern identification of sense-data. Any ideas or patterns that can be linked directly or through a series of logical inferences to pattern identification of sense-data can be considered to be a part of the real world. Any ideas or theories that do not meet this requirement can be considered to lie in the domain of fantasy.
Perhaps an example would be useful to illustrate this. Consider electrons and ghosts. Are they fantasies or real?
The evidence that electrons are part of the world of reality is explicit and public. The data and the logical inferences used can be reproduced by anyone with a sufficient interest and motivation to do so. It would incorporate ideas and experiments about electric charge and the quantisation of charge. Other experiments could determine mass. If such experiments were re-enacted it is most likely that the conclusion reached would be that there is a particle within the domain of reality that can be identified and labelled as an 'electron'. Electrons are a pattern that can be linked directly to sense-data.
Ghosts are a different matter however. The evidence for ghosts is exclusively heresay; people have stories about encountering strange phenomena and then imaginatively interpret them as being created by 'ghosts'. However people's stories about such things cannot be relied upon. There are no experiments that indicate the existence of ghosts nor places one could go where one is likely to encounter a ghost. Nothing about ghosts can definitively be linked to facts or sense-data. As such the theory of ghosts can unequivocally be consigned to the domain of fantasy.
The dichotomy between fantasy and reality is a uniquely human predicament. For humans uniquely have a comprehensive language and without a comprehensive language there would be no world of fantasy, there would only be a world of reality.
I daresay that some people prefer living in a mostly fantasy world, but in that case they are reliant on other people who live in a mostly real world to fulfil their material needs.
For ultimately we live in a world of reality and so it is important to identify and separate the world of reality from the world of fantasy and to make decisions based on that world of reality.
Well, that is all I have for you today. I hope you have enjoyed this video and if you have any comments, please leave them in the section below. And if you would like to continue this journey with me, please subscribe to my channel, give it a thumbs up and ring the bell. You can also visit my website: ThePatternParadigm.com for transcripts of all these videos.
Thank you.
Comments