Seems to me as though this is more about how our "subjective" reality has changed through the ages rather than disproving the existence of "objective" reality.
Yes thank you for saying. Science says that actually yes, there is an objective reality. Proof of this is that things can be measured to be true outside of our own experiences.
@@mrsuperwill1 Apologies on the confusion. You stated, "Science says that actually yes, there is objective reality." I'm not sure how science does this, as it relates to the aggregation of observed variables. We only measure what we can, in principle, observe. So how do we measure the un-observable?
I think the point is that we assume that our current perception of reality is the true reality when (in reality) that is totally impossible to know. Ancient people believed in Gods that we now know likely don't exist. Similarly we today believe things that future civilisations (if there are any) will also know don't exist or isn't true. That doesn't mean there isn't value in these beliefs or perceptions of reality though.
Perception of reality is the same for all the people in history, we are born with the same eyes. With reality, he means the summa of the society's pillars that form the status quo in your community; the set of shared values in a society.
@@antoniousai1989 Utter nonsense that is simply refuted. There are people whose perception of the universe includes magic and gods. There are people whose perception of the universe does not include magic and gods. There you go...proof that the perception of reality is NOT the same for all people.
@@TheGamingAddict2000 We believe more in the ‘value’ of money, the god of economics - which is no different from ‘what the fool gives for it’ or a kind of frozen energy -- than we recognize the reality of something we cannot see or measure!
@@TheGamingAddict2000 no. If that was the point he would be saying "we don't the absolute truth of what reality is like". He constantly confuses reality with claims about reality
Perhaps it's not an objective claim - it's a subjective one. We've got a worse model of reality by assuming there is just one objective model. Doesn't seem so baseless to me.
I break Reality down into types. Generally: 1. Objective Reality - This exists, though we cannot know it in its entirety. 2. Subjective Reality - Reality as we see it from our perspective. 3. Consensual Reality - Reality as we as a group agree upon. There can be several of these within each individual, depending on the group we are with at the time.
I would agree... And I find it disturbingly dangerous to further the notion that objective reality does not "exist". That just pushes people that already deny reality by choosing "their own truth" over physical reality further into denial and dangerous and/or self-harming behavior. Kind of like the speaker in this talk.
Leprechauns, saiyans, donkies, ligers - those "mythical animals" were real and alive before they were exterminated by humans, like the whales, the monkeys, the butterflies, the dodo, the starling, the ...
The premise of this talk was that objective reality doesn’t exist. No good argument was presented to support that hypothesis. The best I got was “people believe all different stuff, so they’re all right.” Post modernism “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”
Summation of the talk, if i understood it correctly: Each person sees the reality depending on his mindset, the mindset of the time and the society he's living in. In a sense all these "realities", or perceptions of reality, are like ideologies, where you can learn something good from each, but only believing in one makes you blind to other truths. Therefore it's good to be open minded, be exposed to more different ideas to get a better sense of what reality actually is. Did i miss something or could this Ted talk be much shorter? The majority of the time i was having problem understanding what point he's trying to make.
I wouldn’t say that every perception is inherently idealogical, no. But the speaker is encouraging us to consider what it may be like to perceive the world around us differently.
The point is, we use ideas inherent in our mind to interpret our reality. The brain isn't made to perceive reality objectively, it distorts, dissects, and confabulates. Greg's argument is about how we use ideas passed by our society, or culture, to interpret the phenomena around us. Hence, the assertion that reality isn't objective. Reality is objective, yes. But the way we perceive and interpret it isn't so. And considering that our perception is the only reality we have access to (mostly), it's not wrong to say that reality is completely subjective.
He falsely equates, therefore, the distance of experience with objective reality with there being no objective reality. Nothing about the distance between any/all perspective and reality speaks to there being no objective reality. If we assume what is hard or impossible to experience *isn't* then we are actually assuming our experience *does* apprehend the truth. Because we say "we can know our experience is subjective, so there is only subjective reality." It begs the question why we should bother to accommodate other views unless they objectively exist outside our own view. Only in an objective reality can we escape our subjective apprehension to apprehend someone else's unique perspective.
@@garmatey3816 Without objective reality Math and Physics would've been impossible. However, in those domains, you operate within narrow constructs that mimic hard reality. And even their theories are simplifications of reality, not reality in-itself. I think you misunderstood the speaker's argument. He never said anything about Physics or Maths, he's talking about day-to-day experiential reality.
The fascinating thing about this idea is that it is so widespread, popular and accepted today; yet it is so obviously wrong and easily debunked. The fact that people had different concepts and lived accordingly says nothing about whether those concepts were in fact true; that is, whether their descriptions of reality actually matched objective reality.
I didn't really pick up on it being deemed insubstantial. I saw it more in the framing of the perspective of reality. The things they hold important and the ways they go about thinking of them are different. For example, how we might individually imagine the flow of electricity across a circuit. Some imagine a flow like water from positive to negative, negative to positive, or even just as numbers and graphs. It is not necessarily right or wrong, substantial or insubstantial, but just a different way of coming to think of it.
It mean's that you can't know if reality is insubstantial without being biased to your own perspective (of reality being substantial), or that's my perspective, a bit self contradictory yes
There is such thing as objective reality despite what this sellout fool is saying. But in this backwards fallen world there might not be objective reality anymore.
If you imply current medics, that is like saying that the car that ran over and killed your child has a beautiful color. But it depends on the illness. If it is cancer, they give the same treatment for 75 years now, with appalling results. It is an industry that brings in 500.000 dollar per patient. Follow the money. Diet cures many lost cases, internet has loads of testimonies.: Big Pharma is a criminal organisation. I´d probably opt for a natural cure.
@@gammaraygem What natural cure could replace a required emergency surgery? If you think today's medicine isn't better overall than it was thousands of years ago, please provide a better justification
@@gammaraygem this is blatantly false and could do real damage. Cancer medication is growing leaps and bounds as we’ve furthered our understanding of cell receptors and drug manufacturing techniques. Please stop spouting this non-sense, it spreads a distrust of medicine that leads to real people being hurt by inferior treatment
@@Brogustus No it is not blatantly false, and Big Pharma has deliberately suppressed dietary cures for 70+ years now. There is no money in kale and carrots. There is an excellent two hour documentary, named "Healing Cancer from inside out" by Mike Anderson, which goes deeply into the root causes why there still is no official cure for cancer. The FBI can no longer shut down the clinics that actually cure cancer, because of the internet, and there are thousands of testimonies of people who were cured by strict dieting. Stop promoting an industry that makes money on the torture ,maiming and killing of people, and stop spreading the lies they promoted for the past 70 years. Nowadays, on average, people live longer and happier without any treatment. In the past we called that kind of treatment murder, nowadays it is legal. It is sheer horror. Wake up. Watch the documentary, and after that, come back with comment, not before.
@@xrealluzion638 we as humans can‘t come to objektive truths without other people only through perception. Thats why we have the scientific method to come close to objektive truth.
Yes and it's almost like when he's talking about how "our model of reality has failed," he's talking about OBJECTIVE facts, not merely "our reality." If it's just OUR reality we're dealing with, then it can't fail, since what we believe will produce success will produce success for us. Every claim he makes depends on him referring to objective facts for anyone to take it as a meaningful statement. This is the self-refuting nature of any "theory" that rejects a single reality and objective facts. Those who are actually serious about genuine, rational philosophy need to learn from Ayn Rand how to avoid self-refutation.
There is such thing as objective reality despite what this sellout fool is saying. But in this backwards fallen world there might not be objective reality anymore.
I'm not so sure that Ancient Greece was in harmony with nature. Greece was deforested in Ancient times. The Delian League was essentially a protection racket. A greater proportion of people died from violence then than do now.
Objective reality is true regardless of what your perspective on it is. Just because people are mistaken about what is real doesn't make their reality true. Objective reality is true and they are just wrong about it. There for the primes of subjective reality is fundamentally flawed.
@@minetime6881 If i'm holding an apple in my hand people may see me holding another fruit and argue it's not an apple, we can't get into other people's minds and we actually don't know if they exist or not aka solipsism. Who knows maybe this discussion i just jumped into only exists in my mind since my mind knows i'm having quite a boring thursday night and creates this illusion to please my sense of wellbeing.
@@albin4323 I think you’re confusing uncertainty with impossibility. Just because we can’t be certain that you’re holding an apple, doesn’t mean the apple doesn’t exist. If it looks like you’re holding an apple, and you don’t have anything wrong with your senses, then you’re probably holding an apple. Occam‘s razor. Right?
The real message of this video is that ”objectivity” is not the whole picture. There are things you can never describe or communicate. An example is the question ”what's it like to be a bat?" No matter how hard we study bats' biology, no human will ever be able to feel what being a bat is like. Not even with super advanced VR because that only serves as an interface between an immutably human mind and an immutably bat mind.
What I believe he is calling for is "synergy" between our mind's internal subjective reality and the external universe's objective reality. Unfortunately some minds may break in the process. "And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it." ~ Morpheus, The Matrix.
he is just talking about individual perception of reality. This has nothing to do with objective reality, this is just a historian shitposting on something he has no educational basis in and somehow got it on ted talk.
@@wildtangent6890 He fundamentally conflates the ideas that motivate people, with the objective reality as we can describe it. You might choose to work out only because your ancestors hands guide you to get off the couch with their eternal divine strength. Same thing could also be true, except it was their feet, or their spirit, or the god of every other day motivation, while you were lazy yesterday. You may know that horoscopes aren’t not impactful because they’re illegal, it’s because we understand that they aren’t real and would have low return on investment if we followed them. He’s a midwit trying to argue the same thing fascists have said, yet he’s somehow even less logically sound.
@@Sheeshening I'm not sure I understand what you are saying, could you elaborate? also as a side note, I didn't know horoscopes were illegal (although after a quick google search I can't work out where)
There is such thing as objective reality despite what this sellout fool is saying. But in this backwards fallen world there might not be objective reality anymore.
Reality is nevertheless a fuzzy idea. Since our reality is only perceived through our senses and processed through past experience. And our experience of reality lies within a narrow band of information, within a not too big, not too small, not too hot not too cold envelope. What at our scale seems like an illusion of solid matter may on a much smaller scale just be crisscrossing and divergent fields of force coming into and going out of existence with nothing anywhere we would recognize as solid matter. So yes, reality is the same for everyone. But none of us has an inkling what it really is.
@@endoalley680 I've been thinking about how our brains use our senses, like sight, to perceive reality, but true reality can't be seen, touched, or smelled. It made me wonder about the infinite number of senses we could have had that would have completely changed our perspective on the world. If there is no way to sense true reality, what is it? Is death closer to true reality than having senses, and if so, am I in some weird dream? Does death sometimes dream?
@@sennaevil The natural world is always outside our direct experience. The only evidence we have is from information we receive from our senses. Our brains seem to be put together such that they can easily make a working representation of a world from our sensual experiences. At least that part of the world that we find significant to our needs and survival. Just never assume that our mental representation is the actual natural world itself.
Reality is definitely not the same for everyone. We all have different realities. Different friends, different relationships, different locations, different perspectives.
@@nosson77 Reality? Or perception? I think most humans share a reality of three spatial dimensions and one forward moving temporal dimension. Most understand hot and cold as a sensual dimension. Most humans have a sense of Earth's gravitational pull on them keeping them pushed up against the hard surface of the planet.
My office has no window, after work I come home at night my house has heating and air conditioning, and lights. I see no difference between day and night. I experience no seasoning. I eat food from a metal box called refrigerator. My social friend is called smart phone. I talk to no one. I used my fingers to communicate so-called text. I go church via Zoom. This is my reality! I don’t have objective reality. I have a reality whatever is upon me.
Absolute tuth can not not exist! Absolute truth and subjective truth are not mutually exclusive. The only thing that we can do is to perceive the Logos in a subjective way, but that doesnt meat at all that "there is no truth" as the post-truth movement says.
@@ChipmunkRapidsMadMan1869 the Absolute Truth cant be truly known. Again, lets not confuse absolute with objective. As the talk refers, there is no objective truth because all truths are subjective as any experience. So any truth that I can language is subjective, but all subjective truths are coming from an absolute one which is what hermetic philosophy calls The ALL
@@detodounpoco37 reality is built around fundamental laws. The same laws governor us as they did the Ancient Greeks. The only thing that changes is our understanding of those fundamental laws.
@@ChipmunkRapidsMadMan1869 I dont see the relation of what you mention with the original conversation. Truth doesnt depend on laws. Truth IS the law that governs all physics, life and reality.
I prefer to use the term "culture" instead of "reality" in the context of this talk. And this man simply said: there were many different cultures in the history.
You speak of culture from an external point of view from which you see many of them. The point is that for many of those civilizations there was only one culture and one set of beliefs so one reality, it wasn't possible for them to abstract, and we are probably making the mistake of believing we're the only civilization with the "right" set of values.
@@antoniousai1989 western civilization wants to kill anyone who disagrees. This is the only reason the western view is mainstream. Many commentators here would definitely be leading the inquisition and genocide.
@@zyrith9475 Well, I'm not making much of an argument in the first place. But I'm obviously not saying what you claim I'm saying. When did I say anything about "rights to speak"? A should claim is obviously different from claiming what someone may be allowed to do, i.e., what rights they have. (Edit for clarity: You shouldn't smoke but you have the right to.) Also, non-physicists and non-philosophers don't know "anything"? Come on, I specifically said that he shouldn't be talking about *this* stuff.
@@zyrith9475 Awesome. I agree that history is closely related with philosophy, even with (the rest of) science (even if scientists don't want to admit it). Also, absolutely agree that we should keep an open mind. I wrote the comment because his points are mostly weak, and someone who knew a little bit of the literature regarding realism, ontology or truth would be able to point out the issues. So it is like an NBA player giving a public speech about philosophy of sport or biology of athleticism. They may have some nice insights but they would probably so far removed from the academic literature that their points would be refuted, perhaps hundreds of years ago, or ill-formed in the first place, as is the case with the example at hand. But the issue with such a public speech is that there is no one to go and point out these issues. He is put into a position of authority, even though he isn't.
@@zyrith9475 Well, I know nothing about your level of education but your openness and clarity are very desirable intellectual traits imho. I also see your point that this may serve as an introduction, some way to get people interested in the subject. I guess I can appreciate what this guy has done in that light. I don't agree with your point that we should abstain from making should statements, since, as you can see, it is very hard to resist them. Even when one is trying to say that it is bad to judge someone wrt what they should do, one is expressing something one should do or avoid. Also, if you're interested in the issues discussed in this TED talk, I suggest you check out the articles on Realism on brittanica and stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Both are freely available online. Cheers.
There is such thing as objective reality despite what this sellout fool is saying. But in this backwards fallen world there might not be objective reality anymore.
@@outinthewild9476you are too coped up w the anomalies of your subjective reality that you cannot even open your mind to look outside the confines of it. everything within your perception is merely STIMULUS, meaning your sensory reality arbitrarily depends on how your own cognitive system responds and process this.
The reality of nature IS objective, while the reality of experience (personal, social, cultural, etc.) is subjective. Because natural reality is objective, its relationship to truth supercedes any subjective reality.
@@wanderinguser7665 Perhaps check the tests where the observations changed the nature of the outcomes. And even when you're right, the way we formulate our discoveries it very limited versions of reality and then act upon it as if it is all of reality is insane. Take the 'objective' research rapports on smoking by the tobacco industry, or our current fight: does climate change exist?
@@KootFloris the only reason why "observation" changes quantum behavior is because our instruments need electromagnetic radiation to observe anything. That means adding energy into a system. It has nothing to do with a metaphysical understanding of observation. At the quantum level, any additional energy (even visible light) changes quantum behaviors. Now, if we had a way of using dark energy to observe (since it is apparently materially and energetically inert), that would change the limits of our observational capacities.
I just randomly thought "can we really be objective?". I thought about it a little more, decided i'm not qualified to answer that question, googled "is there such thing as objective", and here I am
If you have 2 apples and I give you 2 more apples? How many apples do you have? If your answers is 4 then there’s objective reality, if your answer is anything but 4 then you’re just stupid
I love how he describes the validity of all previous realities then goes on to describe how our current “western” reality is wrong and must change. As if wars and atrocities and all other manners of evil are unique to individualistic capitalism, yet all of those evils of wars, genocide, greed, species extinction have occurred throughout the history of mankind. And it wouldn’t be a modern TED talk without the obligatory “global warming” (sic) reference.
I love when people get pissed at the assertion that objective reality does not exist, it makes people question their beliefs and in my mind thats a good thing.
People get worked up about it because it is but an assertion. This guy is critiquing the way we live our lives in our modern western society. It is completely separate from whether or not there is an objective reality. He misrepresents the scientific method, the honest pursuit of knowledge as "a bunch of scientists deciding something". He's either very confused or deceptive in his way of arguing.
We are individuals. We think in our own heads. We are not the Borg. We are born as individuals and we die as individuals. We cooperate in society, if we are wise, but we are not ants or bees.
@@zadiefluxx7140 Sometimes it makes sense to cooperate, and other times it does not. My main beef is with being forced to cooperate. And this is usually at the hands of government. If you can figure out how I can not pay taxes, I am all ears. They call paying taxes voluntary cooperation, even though it is neither.
I feel like I've heard this story before.. people like this are often accusing "modern society" of being very arrogant.. and yet the story is consistently told in an incredibly arrogant and haughty tone of voice.. why is that?
I like the way he has asked serious questions about capitalism, individualism, modernity and post modernity.. also, the way he has talked about collaboration and living with one another.. the talk has more to do with reflection and very less to do with what reality is or was or can be...
Reality is fixed. It is the knowledge of experience, ever evolving ideals of certainities and every human ordeals; that makes reality transfixed, uncertain, and continuously defined.
A lot of problems with this one. Debates in TH-cam comments ain't good, but oh well, here we go. Firstly: 1) While the way we perceive reality may be subjective, at some level we have to accept it, or we lose our ability to affect it. If you lose your trust in the existence of floors, how do you walk anywhere? 2) One of the reasons for this change in reality is improved scientific knowledge. I'm alive today (and several of my great grandmother's siblings are not) because of scientific advancements in the last century that pinpoint the specific cause of a disease I had as specific, treatable, micro-organisms. What would people have made of this disease in times when Gods were credited for everything from weather changes to natural disasters? 3) When people don't understand their reality, it's human nature to create stories or mythologies to try and make sense of the world. On a small scale this isn't harmful - it may even be beneficial - although we've seen what can happen when this tendency turns malign. Lots and lots of people perceiving others as "different" and therefore inferior, inhuman, or simply not worthy to keep on living, for one thing. Sadly this also seems to be a part of human nature. I hope I'm wrong about this because I'd rather not see a Holocaust or NKVD prisoner mass-killing in my lifetime, thanks. (Edit: not that there hasn't been enough ideological, political, religious and simply financially-motivated warring and killing anyway unfortunately.)
@@davruck1 That's a late reply! Technically I'm assuming EVERYTHING, since my perception of reality is also subjective. For example, the entire TH-cam comments section may just be a figment of my imagination. (Depending on which part of it you look at, this may be a good thing.)
@@H0lyMoley well you’re not the type of person who is going to kill people because they don’t share your view of reality, which makes you someone others should aspire to emulate. Lots of commenters here are very sure they know what reality is, and everyone else is wrong. It’s easy for me to see how “normal” people go along with genocide. They identify with the delusion we call reality and will become violently angry with anyone who questions it.
Science progresses from ignorance closer to true portrayals of reality. The model we now have for reality is indeed better than the one that Aristotle created. This is obvious because of the capability our science has given us.
Science is fundamentally subjective. From the start it's based on observations through sense perceptions, which are inescapably subjective. There's no way around this 😁
@@leleltea8921 Some things are more objective than others. Some things are more subjective than others. Counting and addition and measurement are more objective than are surveys and impressions and descriptions. Emotions are more subjective than measurements. You are right, that there is no pure objectivity. But that does not mean it is a good idea to approach the ideal of objectivity as well as you can in certain endeavors. We are more subjective when we speak of love or when we enjoy art. But we should be more objective when we do science. And the hardest situation to try and be as objective as you can is probably journalism. But today's journalists seem not even to value objectivity as a goal. They seem to be all about their political narrative.
@@freesk8 "some things are more objective than others" How do you know that? And what does it even mean for something to be "more" objective than others? Objectivity is binary - something either does exist independently of the mind, or it doesn't. If there's a gradient there then that's also fundamentally subjective ;) Journalism has always been about political narratives by the way. You just never realized it until now 😁
"We modern Westerners" - there it is. Not modern humans - is this going to be like yesterday's offering, that we view history through the lens of racism? No sensible person thinks that the mythos and logos of the modern world is the only (or right) way of viewing reality? His post modernist education has shut his mind to fundamentals of the human experience, which are universal.
Hogwash! Their reality was just as same as ours if you discount the stories/clothes/technological advantage. If you could pluck ancient Athenian and put them to current Athens, they would survive just fine. After few days of adjusting to modern living.
Exactly, the ancients just didn't have the tools to make sense of the exact same world that we are in. Their reality had gods because they didn't know what causes lightning, not that gods were real back in the day. This guy is clearly deluding himself. He says the world is being destroyed by capitalism, but what if that's just his subjective reality? What if the world actually is a giant spinning pancake revolving around a ball of syrup?
Those past Civilizations were powerful I always thought. Except it was talked about and dismissed. It's was great to hear your talk and expand my mind.
Almost all the ills He mentions of modern western society, with the exception of those directly tied to science, have existed in plenty among all peoples of the premodern age. The fact that he pretends these are somehow unique to us makes me question his legitimacy as a serious historian. Also, does anyone else’s get the feeling he is playing semantics here? Premodern people may have had a different worldview, one more supernatural in nature, but otherworldly forces still did not actually effect the world. It was not a reality.
You're watching them from an external point of view. There's not the point of what he said. Of course historically and anthropologically we can call these "realities" culture or societies, but that's not the idea. The idea is to realize that our own reality is based on a set of values and what we perceive is created by our own value. You live in your reality based on many things, they lived in a reality based on different things and their existence wasn't defined by things that we consider fundamental and unchangeable. Especially for science, science doesn't necessarily come to existence in a society that doesn't value or search for a precise and unique answer to everything, like we do. So you don't create the idea that you have to deduce how your reality is truly made as we do. It's all about belief, not about truth.
When I was 16 I got stoned objective reality as I knew it disappeared. Logically I knew the floor and furniture were there but I couldn't see it. I got to my knees so I could feel the floor as I felt my way back to bed. Needless to say I never smoked again
@@the2-minuteacademy845 Sure, first of all he mixes reality with our model of reality. There is only one reality, and a lot of possible models wich describe it, from which we can create different social systems. Greeks had different reality model, not different reality. Whole point is to create model which is the best possible aproximation, because the better model we have, the better lives we live. Greeks model with magical forces and social bodies is further away from real world than capitalism based on science, thats why it is not just different - its worse. Greeks were not programmed by nature to be some kind of 'social body'. Nature has given us reward system for our actions which is our nervous system. It is a goal of every person to balance his individual nervous system, not public nervous system. Science do not say that reality is subjective, it could not ever say that because science is based on science method, which is objective by definition. If reality would realy be subjective, than we need another method to describe it.
I agree that one has to respect and humbly learn from other 'realities' of different societies in the world as they have organized their own 'real-ity' to themselves to sustain their culture that led to their growth. But the title that TED gave to this video that therefore there is no such thing as objective reality is a stretch and self defeating. Because when we try to define the condition of multiple subjective realities, WE ARE setting a premise of objective reality, that is, co-existence of many subjective realities is 'objectively true' and real, therefore self defeating and proves that there is objective reality. Nice talk tho.
First of all, we must internalize the 'flatulation' of the matter by transmitting the effervescence of the 'Indianisian' proximity in order to further segregate the crux of my venereal infection. Now, if I may retain my liquids here for one moment. I'd like to continue the 'redundance' of my quote, unquote 'intestinal tract', you see because to preclude on the issue of world domination would only circumvent - excuse me, circumcise the revelation that reflects the 'Afro-disiatic' symptoms which now perpetrates the Jheri Curls activation. Allow me to expose my colon once again. The ramification inflicted on the incision placed within the Fallopian cavities serves to be holistic taken from the Latin word 'jalapeno'.
This is a poor argument against objectivity. Objectivity isn't the internalisation of an individual's interaction with the environment, it's the mass agreement of evidence and logical inference at that point of time. It's dynamic and has been accelerating since the internet. He accuses science and social science for being "arrogant" that our "reality" is correct but that's nonsense - science never stands still, forever questioning. Perhaps he should spend some time outside of his department.
Wow. I just, this so perfectly encompasses the conclusions I've come to about our existence. So beautifully told through tales from human history by a historian I madly respect. Thank you for this.
I suggest you read Probable Impossibilities by Alan Lightman. Our world view from the angle of theoretical physics. Also an eye-opener (although I would still go further than he does, but that is my personal opinion)
Thank you for sharing your awareness. I occasionally daydream of a life on Earth as a community contributor in ways of life that brings us closer to nature. We continue to rely on science and technology for efficiency and environmental concerns, but without the exchange of money to get the things we need.
The very statement “there is no such thing as objective reality” implies that it is objectively true that there is no objective reality. A direct contradiction.
@@RogueIntel I'm pretty sure jordan peterson wouldn't agree with the idea that our current model might not be the best, and that we should seek out something better
If you mean he should be a philosopher, he is practicing that with this ted talk. If you mean he should be a scientist, the nature of objectiveness still wouldn't be his domain, scientists do studies and experiments and stuff, and the idea of science is that you try to get closer to an objective reality. So someone else could still criticize whether there is an objective reality. There is no one who is an expert on objective reality, the best we can do is philosophy, and I think it's good to hear lot's of perspectives such as from a historian
There's nothing arrogant about following the evidence where it leads. It's the most honest thing you could possibly do. How you treat animals, whether you care for community or not, I would strongly agree that these are things we must consider. These things matter not just for the health and happiness of people, nor just creatures, but the entire world around us. We DO live in an objective reality, but that is separate from how you live your life. To suggest gods and magical beings were once "real" is an appealing, but deceptive way to try and manipulate people, just as many religions have done and continue to do to this day.
I think you are making some bold generalizations. I live in the west, but I don't think that my culture is superior to all other cultures. There are many who are anti-capitalist, collectivist, believe in God or gods, believe in immaterial forces, treat nature with respect, and think of the animals as equals or near equals. That being said, I do think we know more about the universe now than we did 3,000 years ago. For example, they didn't know that Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system. They didn't even know that there were other moons! I don't doubt that the people of the past had some good ideas, but I would rather my aunt's cancer be treated by a physician in the 21st century, rather than by one in ancient Greece. Chemotherapy beats spells and incantations every time.
TL DR: Some people believe X, which makes X their reality, while other people believe Y, which makes Y their reality. Ergo, there are as many realities as there are minds to conceive it. Nothing is objective. Because there is no such concept as "false beliefs". Just trust the guy in the video. Then he goes to say that our current model of reality has failed catastrophically. What happened with "We believe X, therefore X is our reality"?
He’s saying the beliefs that the majority of people hold have created this current hellscape. Most people are headed for death in the near future if they don’t change. The planet will continue without them.
Everything was correct except for the title of the video. Yes, we all perceive reality in an incredibly subjective manner. In a world of pure materialism we experience reality in such a way that there’s almost no room for a spiritual reality.. they did. The problem is that this doesn’t mean there is no objective reality. It just means we all perceive reality different. However, there are perceptions more based in reality than not. If a tree is in front of me and a blind man and I accept there is a tree in front of me and he doesn’t- while it is true he perceives a world where there is no tree in front of him and I do experience such a world- at the end of the day there is a tree in front of him he is just unable to realize the true reality. We will all be subjective but the idea is to become as objective as possible. Judaism actually recognizes that interestingly enough - unique to other religions - that’s why a main goal of Judaism is to work on your intellectual traits and your character traits in order to be able to become less subjective and have a better chance of understanding true objective reality - as much as we can
@@jamesthomas1244 Life experience is not evidence for the proposition that everything is a dream. Just because we have dreams in our lives does not mean our lives are in fact dreams.
@@BUGHUNTER6 I said "everything MAY be a dream". Key word "may". I dreamed of hills, trees and people. I woke up in the morning to hills, trees and people. You say that I have no evidence. Where is your evidence that what you are experiencing is material? It could all be a grand manifestation within the space of conscious awareness. In fact, much of the wisdom throughout the ages has pointed to just that.
The difficulty I find in what he says comes from the smallness of his definition of reality. To look at ancient civilization and say it it is predicated on a different reality is to not grasp the vastness of reality by definition.
this video is an argument for why subjective reality is just the human perspective of objective reality. Meaning if anything, subjective reality is the one that doesn’t exist as object truths are there regardless of the presence of human constructs
@@leleltea8921 so if a blind person walks in a park and can only experience the walk trough the other senses does this mean that, idk, the trees in the park don't exist just because the person can't see them?
The problems we have right now are not because we exist in a way to cause them. The problems we have exist because we can't regulate our industries and environment well enough to remove these problems. Also, because we can explain so many things that people before never understood or imagined, we can better judge our reality. That's not selfishness.
I'm not convinced. I think the last 300 years of science and technology have changed how nations, empires and civilisations evolve ... the old system of boom and bust is dead.
@@northcountryfisher2121 I hope you are right and I am wrong. Sadly our world is running on monopoly money. People need to work but there are less and less job opportunities. It we cared about each other we would use a check out person . But most people go through self check out which kills employment. I'm a retired bus driver. Autonomous vehicles will end driving jobs. This is bad for a person's self esteem. And the world is morally bankrupt. Resource depletion will also negatively impact our consumer society.
People think wether they live in 2021 or in year 504 that they are correct about environment. The reality changed all the time. Perhaps the future reality is a lot different than we know nowadays. Like Einstein sayd: everything is relatively
Objectivity is independent of any mind. Thank you for attending my Ted Talk.
that goes hard
Seems to me as though this is more about how our "subjective" reality has changed through the ages rather than disproving the existence of "objective" reality.
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Yes thank you for saying. Science says that actually yes, there is an objective reality. Proof of this is that things can be measured to be true outside of our own experiences.
@@mrsuperwill1
How do you measure something if you can't, logically, experience it?
@@DDogg43777 I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking. Do you have an example?
@@mrsuperwill1 Apologies on the confusion. You stated, "Science says that actually yes, there is objective reality." I'm not sure how science does this, as it relates to the aggregation of observed variables.
We only measure what we can, in principle, observe. So how do we measure the un-observable?
Too long: didn't watch version:
"I can't tell the difference between perception of reality and reality, therefore, perception is reality."
I think the point is that we assume that our current perception of reality is the true reality when (in reality) that is totally impossible to know.
Ancient people believed in Gods that we now know likely don't exist. Similarly we today believe things that future civilisations (if there are any) will also know don't exist or isn't true. That doesn't mean there isn't value in these beliefs or perceptions of reality though.
Perception of reality is the same for all the people in history, we are born with the same eyes.
With reality, he means the summa of the society's pillars that form the status quo in your community; the set of shared values in a society.
@@antoniousai1989 Utter nonsense that is simply refuted.
There are people whose perception of the universe includes magic and gods.
There are people whose perception of the universe does not include magic and gods.
There you go...proof that the perception of reality is NOT the same for all people.
@@TheGamingAddict2000 We believe more in the ‘value’ of money, the god of economics - which is no different from ‘what the fool gives for it’ or a kind of frozen energy -- than we recognize the reality of something we cannot see or measure!
@@TheGamingAddict2000 no. If that was the point he would be saying "we don't the absolute truth of what reality is like". He constantly confuses reality with claims about reality
If there's no objective reality, then he can have no grounds on which to say "there is no objective reality"
😂😂
Underrated comment!
KO!!!
To the top!
Perhaps it's not an objective claim - it's a subjective one. We've got a worse model of reality by assuming there is just one objective model. Doesn't seem so baseless to me.
I break Reality down into types. Generally:
1. Objective Reality - This exists, though we cannot know it in its entirety.
2. Subjective Reality - Reality as we see it from our perspective.
3. Consensual Reality - Reality as we as a group agree upon. There can be several of these within each individual, depending on the group we are with at the time.
Good job. These distinctions are important.
I would agree... And I find it disturbingly dangerous to further the notion that objective reality does not "exist". That just pushes people that already deny reality by choosing "their own truth" over physical reality further into denial and dangerous and/or self-harming behavior. Kind of like the speaker in this talk.
@@AJBtheSuede Well said. :)
4. there is no reality, neither 1-2-3
they are all complete delusion in the 2.
@@VahnAeris That is a possibility. The consistency of sensory input suggests otherwise, but it is unfalsifiable.
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
Checkmate, smart man
Filled with leprechauns and ligers and super saiyans everywhere!
@@defenderofwisdom ligers are real
@@TheHorseOutside Next you'll tell me donkies are real. Pfft.
@@TheHorseOutside Aha I should have specified ligers with magical powers.
Leprechauns, saiyans, donkies, ligers - those "mythical animals" were real and alive before they were exterminated by humans, like the whales, the monkeys, the butterflies, the dodo, the starling, the ...
The premise of this talk was that objective reality doesn’t exist.
No good argument was presented to support that hypothesis.
The best I got was “people believe all different stuff, so they’re all right.”
Post modernism
“If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”
Exactly what I see this guy is mad A complete lunatic and off his head.. a typical post modernist.
Summation of the talk, if i understood it correctly: Each person sees the reality depending on his mindset, the mindset of the time and the society he's living in. In a sense all these "realities", or perceptions of reality, are like ideologies, where you can learn something good from each, but only believing in one makes you blind to other truths. Therefore it's good to be open minded, be exposed to more different ideas to get a better sense of what reality actually is. Did i miss something or could this Ted talk be much shorter? The majority of the time i was having problem understanding what point he's trying to make.
I wouldn’t say that every perception is inherently idealogical, no. But the speaker is encouraging us to consider what it may be like to perceive the world around us differently.
The point is, we use ideas inherent in our mind to interpret our reality. The brain isn't made to perceive reality objectively, it distorts, dissects, and confabulates. Greg's argument is about how we use ideas passed by our society, or culture, to interpret the phenomena around us. Hence, the assertion that reality isn't objective. Reality is objective, yes. But the way we perceive and interpret it isn't so. And considering that our perception is the only reality we have access to (mostly), it's not wrong to say that reality is completely subjective.
He falsely equates, therefore, the distance of experience with objective reality with there being no objective reality. Nothing about the distance between any/all perspective and reality speaks to there being no objective reality. If we assume what is hard or impossible to experience *isn't* then we are actually assuming our experience *does* apprehend the truth. Because we say "we can know our experience is subjective, so there is only subjective reality." It begs the question why we should bother to accommodate other views unless they objectively exist outside our own view. Only in an objective reality can we escape our subjective apprehension to apprehend someone else's unique perspective.
But the plank length is still the plank length no matter who or what’s perspective
@@garmatey3816 Without objective reality Math and Physics would've been impossible. However, in those domains, you operate within narrow constructs that mimic hard reality. And even their theories are simplifications of reality, not reality in-itself. I think you misunderstood the speaker's argument. He never said anything about Physics or Maths, he's talking about day-to-day experiential reality.
The fascinating thing about this idea is that it is so widespread, popular and accepted today; yet it is so obviously wrong and easily debunked. The fact that people had different concepts and lived accordingly says nothing about whether those concepts were in fact true; that is, whether their descriptions of reality actually matched objective reality.
The argument seemed to be that because different societies perceive reality very differently that make reality itself insubstantial. I don't think so.
I didn't really pick up on it being deemed insubstantial. I saw it more in the framing of the perspective of reality. The things they hold important and the ways they go about thinking of them are different. For example, how we might individually imagine the flow of electricity across a circuit. Some imagine a flow like water from positive to negative, negative to positive, or even just as numbers and graphs. It is not necessarily right or wrong, substantial or insubstantial, but just a different way of coming to think of it.
It mean's that you can't know if reality is insubstantial without being biased to your own perspective (of reality being substantial), or that's my perspective, a bit self contradictory yes
He’s confusing it with subjective reality. I might be wrong
You really missed the entire point of the video. I’m starting to think most people are NPCs
@@RemotHuman nahh fam there’s a objective reality, you exist. Nyc is a place that’s objective reality. Nyc is the best city is different.
And that concludes my intake of word salad for today.
I don't think the word "reality" means what he thinks it means.
A very kind way of saying it. Nice 👌
Or maybe, hear me out 😉, you should think of and view reality a little bit differently 😊
What do you think it means?
Of course, it doesn't. But for them different civilization, it was their reality.
It's not about truth, it's about beliefs.
There is such thing as objective reality despite what this sellout fool is saying. But in this backwards fallen world there might not be objective reality anymore.
Question for Greg Anderson, which time period doctors would you rather be seen by and why?
If you imply current medics, that is like saying that the car that ran over and killed your child has a beautiful color.
But it depends on the illness. If it is cancer, they give the same treatment for 75 years now, with appalling results. It is an industry that brings in 500.000 dollar per patient.
Follow the money. Diet cures many lost cases, internet has loads of testimonies.: Big Pharma is a criminal organisation. I´d probably opt for a natural cure.
@@gammaraygem What natural cure could replace a required emergency surgery? If you think today's medicine isn't better overall than it was thousands of years ago, please provide a better justification
@@gammaraygem this is blatantly false and could do real damage. Cancer medication is growing leaps and bounds as we’ve furthered our understanding of cell receptors and drug manufacturing techniques. Please stop spouting this non-sense, it spreads a distrust of medicine that leads to real people being hurt by inferior treatment
@@gammaraygem which of these would you use to fix a bad headache, leeches, lobotomy, or Ibuprofen?
@@Brogustus No it is not blatantly false, and Big Pharma has deliberately suppressed dietary cures for 70+ years now.
There is no money in kale and carrots.
There is an excellent two hour documentary, named "Healing Cancer from inside out" by Mike Anderson, which goes deeply into the root causes why there still is no official cure for cancer.
The FBI can no longer shut down the clinics that actually cure cancer, because of the internet, and there are thousands of testimonies of people who were cured by strict dieting.
Stop promoting an industry that makes money on the torture ,maiming and killing of people, and stop spreading the lies they promoted for the past 70 years.
Nowadays, on average, people live longer and happier without any treatment. In the past we called that kind of treatment murder, nowadays it is legal. It is sheer horror. Wake up.
Watch the documentary, and after that, come back with comment, not before.
All reality is objective, only peoples' perception is subjective.
Is there anything outside of perception? All you conceive as reality is the sum of your perceptions, this is why it is subjective.
@@xrealluzion638 we as humans can‘t come to objektive truths without other people only through perception.
Thats why we have the scientific method to come close to objektive truth.
@@xrealluzion638 yes. The universe existed before us and will continue to exist after us.
Why though? How do you know that. Isn't the concept of objective reality part of our(your) subjective perception?
@@RemotHuman so tell me is Intersubjektivity a thing?
Or is Reality a Social construct ?
Postmodern af
That’s what I’m saying, this is crazy 😣
that's why it sucks lol
Yes and it's almost like when he's talking about how "our model of reality has failed," he's talking about OBJECTIVE facts, not merely "our reality." If it's just OUR reality we're dealing with, then it can't fail, since what we believe will produce success will produce success for us. Every claim he makes depends on him referring to objective facts for anyone to take it as a meaningful statement. This is the self-refuting nature of any "theory" that rejects a single reality and objective facts. Those who are actually serious about genuine, rational philosophy need to learn from Ayn Rand how to avoid self-refutation.
There is such thing as objective reality despite what this sellout fool is saying. But in this backwards fallen world there might not be objective reality anymore.
Their life was not "dictated" by nature but "Synchronized" with nature. We now challange day & night so we've lost our rythm.
I'm not so sure that Ancient Greece was in harmony with nature. Greece was deforested in Ancient times. The Delian League was essentially a protection racket. A greater proportion of people died from violence then than do now.
Omg, may I screenshot your respk se and save it? Wow!
@@meganthearchitectbrown1111 Sure!
Objective reality is true regardless of what your perspective on it is. Just because people are mistaken about what is real doesn't make their reality true. Objective reality is true and they are just wrong about it. There for the primes of subjective reality is fundamentally flawed.
Exactly! I don’t understand how this belief is so prodominant in our culture today.
It's the logical result of postmodern relativist thinking. You see this cancer everywhere in our society.
@@minetime6881 If i'm holding an apple in my hand people may see me holding another fruit and argue it's not an apple, we can't get into other people's minds and we actually don't know if they exist or not aka solipsism. Who knows maybe this discussion i just jumped into only exists in my mind since my mind knows i'm having quite a boring thursday night and creates this illusion to please my sense of wellbeing.
@@albin4323 I think you’re confusing uncertainty with impossibility. Just because we can’t be certain that you’re holding an apple, doesn’t mean the apple doesn’t exist. If it looks like you’re holding an apple, and you don’t have anything wrong with your senses, then you’re probably holding an apple. Occam‘s razor. Right?
The real message of this video is that ”objectivity” is not the whole picture. There are things you can never describe or communicate. An example is the question ”what's it like to be a bat?" No matter how hard we study bats' biology, no human will ever be able to feel what being a bat is like. Not even with super advanced VR because that only serves as an interface between an immutably human mind and an immutably bat mind.
This talk is full of assertions with nothing backing them up
I thought the whole bit on Athens was supposed to show how peoples worldviews have changed
What I believe he is calling for is "synergy" between our mind's internal subjective reality and the external universe's objective reality. Unfortunately some minds may break in the process. "And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it." ~ Morpheus, The Matrix.
This is the conclusion I just came to.
he is just talking about individual perception of reality. This has nothing to do with objective reality, this is just a historian shitposting on something he has no educational basis in and somehow got it on ted talk.
“Real to me” =/= reality
I think that was his point
@@wildtangent6890 He fundamentally conflates the ideas that motivate people, with the objective reality as we can describe it. You might choose to work out only because your ancestors hands guide you to get off the couch with their eternal divine strength. Same thing could also be true, except it was their feet, or their spirit, or the god of every other day motivation, while you were lazy yesterday.
You may know that horoscopes aren’t not impactful because they’re illegal, it’s because we understand that they aren’t real and would have low return on investment if we followed them.
He’s a midwit trying to argue the same thing fascists have said, yet he’s somehow even less logically sound.
@@Sheeshening I'm not sure I understand what you are saying, could you elaborate?
also as a side note, I didn't know horoscopes were illegal (although after a quick google search I can't work out where)
@@Sheeshening dude I dont think you understand enough philosophy to know what reality is.
There is such thing as objective reality despite what this sellout fool is saying. But in this backwards fallen world there might not be objective reality anymore.
I haven't even watched it. Yeah, uncertainty principle to the power of postmodernism.2+2 equals 5
I wrote something like this in high school and my biology substitute teacher had me erase the whole thing
I hope you learned something out of it.
@@dirkgonthier101 yeah, biology substitute teachers often suck
@@SenhorAlien Lol!!! :)))
School system doesn't want free thinkers
You had a wise biology teacher.
Someone’s been in the echo chamber far too long
Take a shot every time he says 'Real world'
The notice of Eviction I supposedly got is unreal. If you think otherwise, than that's just your reality man....
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And what is a home anyway? Be happy with the earth.
@@Alianger Oh so homeless aren't actually homeless? Nice. I doubt they look at it the same way, sleeping under a bridge and all
The reality is the same for everyone. What differs is how people experience it and make sense of it.
Reality is nevertheless a fuzzy idea. Since our reality is only perceived through our senses and processed through past experience. And our experience of reality lies within a narrow band of information, within a not too big, not too small, not too hot not too cold envelope. What at our scale seems like an illusion of solid matter may on a much smaller scale just be crisscrossing and divergent fields of force coming into and going out of existence with nothing anywhere we would recognize as solid matter. So yes, reality is the same for everyone. But none of us has an inkling what it really is.
@@endoalley680 I've been thinking about how our brains use our senses, like sight, to perceive reality, but true reality can't be seen, touched, or smelled. It made me wonder about the infinite number of senses we could have had that would have completely changed our perspective on the world. If there is no way to sense true reality, what is it? Is death closer to true reality than having senses, and if so, am I in some weird dream? Does death sometimes dream?
@@sennaevil The natural world is always outside our direct experience. The only evidence we have is from information we receive from our senses. Our brains seem to be put together such that they can easily make a working representation of a world from our sensual experiences. At least that part of the world that we find significant to our needs and survival. Just never assume that our mental representation is the actual natural world itself.
Reality is definitely not the same for everyone. We all have different realities. Different friends, different relationships, different locations, different perspectives.
@@nosson77 Reality? Or perception? I think most humans share a reality of three spatial dimensions and one forward moving temporal dimension. Most understand hot and cold as a sensual dimension. Most humans have a sense of Earth's gravitational pull on them keeping them pushed up against the hard surface of the planet.
Great subject. Just had very little data, and a lot of emotions
My office has no window, after work I come home at night my house has heating and air conditioning, and lights. I see no difference between day and night. I experience no seasoning. I eat food from a metal box called refrigerator. My social friend is called smart phone. I talk to no one. I used my fingers to communicate so-called text. I go church via Zoom. This is my reality! I don’t have objective reality. I have a reality whatever is upon me.
That doesn’t sound great! If your in Scotland I’ll come talk to you in person... you need to reach out locally, please do!!! Do it soon dude 🤗
There is no universal truth... except for the universal truth that there is no universal truth.
So which is it?
Absolute tuth can not not exist!
Absolute truth and subjective truth are not mutually exclusive.
The only thing that we can do is to perceive the Logos in a subjective way, but that doesnt meat at all that "there is no truth" as the post-truth movement says.
@@detodounpoco37 So are you positing this as an absolute truth?
@@ChipmunkRapidsMadMan1869 the Absolute Truth cant be truly known. Again, lets not confuse absolute with objective.
As the talk refers, there is no objective truth because all truths are subjective as any experience. So any truth that I can language is subjective, but all subjective truths are coming from an absolute one which is what hermetic philosophy calls The ALL
@@detodounpoco37 reality is built around fundamental laws.
The same laws governor us as they did the Ancient Greeks. The only thing that changes is our understanding of those fundamental laws.
@@ChipmunkRapidsMadMan1869 I dont see the relation of what you mention with the original conversation.
Truth doesnt depend on laws. Truth IS the law that governs all physics, life and reality.
I prefer to use the term "culture" instead of "reality" in the context of this talk. And this man simply said: there were many different cultures in the history.
Anyhow, you have your reality, and you think what he said reality is culture. But what about embed your reality into his context.
You speak of culture from an external point of view from which you see many of them.
The point is that for many of those civilizations there was only one culture and one set of beliefs so one reality, it wasn't possible for them to abstract, and we are probably making the mistake of believing we're the only civilization with the "right" set of values.
@@antoniousai1989 western civilization wants to kill anyone who disagrees. This is the only reason the western view is mainstream. Many commentators here would definitely be leading the inquisition and genocide.
0:20 "I'm not a physicist, and I'm not a philosopher." So, I probably shouldn't be talking publicly about this stuff. Right?
@@zyrith9475 Well, I'm not making much of an argument in the first place. But I'm obviously not saying what you claim I'm saying. When did I say anything about "rights to speak"? A should claim is obviously different from claiming what someone may be allowed to do, i.e., what rights they have. (Edit for clarity: You shouldn't smoke but you have the right to.) Also, non-physicists and non-philosophers don't know "anything"? Come on, I specifically said that he shouldn't be talking about *this* stuff.
@@ChocoDrum03 This Daniel guy is just a wannabe edgelord.
@@zyrith9475 Awesome. I agree that history is closely related with philosophy, even with (the rest of) science (even if scientists don't want to admit it). Also, absolutely agree that we should keep an open mind. I wrote the comment because his points are mostly weak, and someone who knew a little bit of the literature regarding realism, ontology or truth would be able to point out the issues. So it is like an NBA player giving a public speech about philosophy of sport or biology of athleticism. They may have some nice insights but they would probably so far removed from the academic literature that their points would be refuted, perhaps hundreds of years ago, or ill-formed in the first place, as is the case with the example at hand. But the issue with such a public speech is that there is no one to go and point out these issues. He is put into a position of authority, even though he isn't.
@@zyrith9475 Well, I know nothing about your level of education but your openness and clarity are very desirable intellectual traits imho. I also see your point that this may serve as an introduction, some way to get people interested in the subject. I guess I can appreciate what this guy has done in that light.
I don't agree with your point that we should abstain from making should statements, since, as you can see, it is very hard to resist them. Even when one is trying to say that it is bad to judge someone wrt what they should do, one is expressing something one should do or avoid.
Also, if you're interested in the issues discussed in this TED talk, I suggest you check out the articles on Realism on brittanica and stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Both are freely available online. Cheers.
Interesting that he took a historical perspective rather than the conventional physical one.
He had to because is would be obvious that his thesis isn‘t defendable.
It is no new thesis it is recycled...
And he is lacking important factors...
There is such thing as objective reality despite what this sellout fool is saying. But in this backwards fallen world there might not be objective reality anymore.
@@outinthewild9476 shut up with that fallen world bullshit
@@outinthewild9476you are too coped up w the anomalies of your subjective reality that you cannot even open your mind to look outside the confines of it. everything within your perception is merely STIMULUS, meaning your sensory reality arbitrarily depends on how your own cognitive system responds and process this.
The reality of nature IS objective, while the reality of experience (personal, social, cultural, etc.) is subjective. Because natural reality is objective, its relationship to truth supercedes any subjective reality.
Hahahahaha. Try quantum physics.
@@KootFloris Still objective even if random or seemingly random & regardless of entanglement.
@@wanderinguser7665 Perhaps check the tests where the observations changed the nature of the outcomes. And even when you're right, the way we formulate our discoveries it very limited versions of reality and then act upon it as if it is all of reality is insane. Take the 'objective' research rapports on smoking by the tobacco industry, or our current fight: does climate change exist?
@@KootFloris exactly!
@@KootFloris the only reason why "observation" changes quantum behavior is because our instruments need electromagnetic radiation to observe anything. That means adding energy into a system. It has nothing to do with a metaphysical understanding of observation. At the quantum level, any additional energy (even visible light) changes quantum behaviors. Now, if we had a way of using dark energy to observe (since it is apparently materially and energetically inert), that would change the limits of our observational capacities.
The way Greg describes Ancient Greece sounds like parts of India I've been to
I just randomly thought "can we really be objective?". I thought about it a little more, decided i'm not qualified to answer that question, googled "is there such thing as objective", and here I am
If you have 2 apples and I give you 2 more apples? How many apples do you have? If your answers is 4 then there’s objective reality, if your answer is anything but 4 then you’re just stupid
I love how he describes the validity of all previous realities then goes on to describe how our current “western” reality is wrong and must change. As if wars and atrocities and all other manners of evil are unique to individualistic capitalism, yet all of those evils of wars, genocide, greed, species extinction have occurred throughout the history of mankind.
And it wouldn’t be a modern TED talk without the obligatory “global warming” (sic) reference.
Tedx no less... bleh
I love when people get pissed at the assertion that objective reality does not exist, it makes people question their beliefs and in my mind thats a good thing.
People get worked up about it because it is but an assertion. This guy is critiquing the way we live our lives in our modern western society. It is completely separate from whether or not there is an objective reality. He misrepresents the scientific method, the honest pursuit of knowledge as "a bunch of scientists deciding something". He's either very confused or deceptive in his way of arguing.
Since there's no objective reality, you won't mind if I take all your property for my own benefit.
We are individuals. We think in our own heads. We are not the Borg. We are born as individuals and we die as individuals. We cooperate in society, if we are wise, but we are not ants or bees.
Don’t cooperate
@@zadiefluxx7140 Sometimes it makes sense to cooperate, and other times it does not. My main beef is with being forced to cooperate. And this is usually at the hands of government. If you can figure out how I can not pay taxes, I am all ears. They call paying taxes voluntary cooperation, even though it is neither.
I feel like I've heard this story before.. people like this are often accusing "modern society" of being very arrogant.. and yet the story is consistently told in an incredibly arrogant and haughty tone of voice.. why is that?
Only because he's got a British accent....
Perhaps because “the teacher” must meet us where we are, in the way we communicate now; otherwise we would not find it profound enough to listen?
@@MFILMS3000 Okay. Different people are responsive to different types of teachers.
I swear this reminds me of the Peter Weyland TED talk 2023.
own a time machine? :))
I like the way he has asked serious questions about capitalism, individualism, modernity and post modernity.. also, the way he has talked about collaboration and living with one another.. the talk has more to do with reflection and very less to do with what reality is or was or can be...
Reality is fixed. It is the knowledge of experience, ever evolving ideals of certainities and every human ordeals; that makes reality transfixed, uncertain, and continuously defined.
to be fair i think that's what he's saying. That was why he stressed that he was a historian rather than a metaphysicist or a philosopher
You contradicted yourself several times there
"Reality is fixed"
"It is ever evolving"
Pick one 😁
@@leleltea8921 I agree, the way nature works is fixed(substances,forces, enrgies), but it's forces interact is dynamic !
A lot of problems with this one. Debates in TH-cam comments ain't good, but oh well, here we go. Firstly:
1) While the way we perceive reality may be subjective, at some level we have to accept it, or we lose our ability to affect it. If you lose your trust in the existence of floors, how do you walk anywhere?
2) One of the reasons for this change in reality is improved scientific knowledge. I'm alive today (and several of my great grandmother's siblings are not) because of scientific advancements in the last century that pinpoint the specific cause of a disease I had as specific, treatable, micro-organisms. What would people have made of this disease in times when Gods were credited for everything from weather changes to natural disasters?
3) When people don't understand their reality, it's human nature to create stories or mythologies to try and make sense of the world. On a small scale this isn't harmful - it may even be beneficial - although we've seen what can happen when this tendency turns malign. Lots and lots of people perceiving others as "different" and therefore inferior, inhuman, or simply not worthy to keep on living, for one thing. Sadly this also seems to be a part of human nature. I hope I'm wrong about this because I'd rather not see a Holocaust or NKVD prisoner mass-killing in my lifetime, thanks. (Edit: not that there hasn't been enough ideological, political, religious and simply financially-motivated warring and killing anyway unfortunately.)
You’re assuming a lot.
@@davruck1 That's a late reply! Technically I'm assuming EVERYTHING, since my perception of reality is also subjective. For example, the entire TH-cam comments section may just be a figment of my imagination. (Depending on which part of it you look at, this may be a good thing.)
@@H0lyMoley well you’re not the type of person who is going to kill people because they don’t share your view of reality, which makes you someone others should aspire to emulate. Lots of commenters here are very sure they know what reality is, and everyone else is wrong. It’s easy for me to see how “normal” people go along with genocide. They identify with the delusion we call reality and will become violently angry with anyone who questions it.
Science progresses from ignorance closer to true portrayals of reality. The model we now have for reality is indeed better than the one that Aristotle created. This is obvious because of the capability our science has given us.
You’d think it would be obvious.. he just wants to go back in time and live then
Science is fundamentally subjective. From the start it's based on observations through sense perceptions, which are inescapably subjective. There's no way around this 😁
@@leleltea8921 Some things are more objective than others. Some things are more subjective than others. Counting and addition and measurement are more objective than are surveys and impressions and descriptions. Emotions are more subjective than measurements. You are right, that there is no pure objectivity. But that does not mean it is a good idea to approach the ideal of objectivity as well as you can in certain endeavors. We are more subjective when we speak of love or when we enjoy art. But we should be more objective when we do science. And the hardest situation to try and be as objective as you can is probably journalism. But today's journalists seem not even to value objectivity as a goal. They seem to be all about their political narrative.
@@freesk8 "some things are more objective than others"
How do you know that? And what does it even mean for something to be "more" objective than others? Objectivity is binary - something either does exist independently of the mind, or it doesn't. If there's a gradient there then that's also fundamentally subjective ;)
Journalism has always been about political narratives by the way. You just never realized it until now 😁
This Ted guy must be a spy...he never looks the same in any of his videos.
"We modern Westerners" - there it is. Not modern humans - is this going to be like yesterday's offering, that we view history through the lens of racism? No sensible person thinks that the mythos and logos of the modern world is the only (or right) way of viewing reality? His post modernist education has shut his mind to fundamentals of the human experience, which are universal.
How about you watch the video before commenting something completely wrong
@@benajminfelix7449 Don't think I was actually. I'm guessing you didn't see the one from yesterday.
@@marktyler3381 Uh, yeah this video wasn't about that.
@@noalear Pretty similar rant at the end. It's about cultural relativism, and that is a cornerstone of post modernism.
I can listen to this man talk about Tupperware and be entirely engaged.
Hogwash! Their reality was just as same as ours if you discount the stories/clothes/technological advantage.
If you could pluck ancient Athenian and put them to current Athens, they would survive just fine. After few days of adjusting to modern living.
Exactly, the ancients just didn't have the tools to make sense of the exact same world that we are in. Their reality had gods because they didn't know what causes lightning, not that gods were real back in the day. This guy is clearly deluding himself.
He says the world is being destroyed by capitalism, but what if that's just his subjective reality? What if the world actually is a giant spinning pancake revolving around a ball of syrup?
Those past Civilizations were powerful I always thought. Except it was talked about and dismissed. It's was great to hear your talk and expand my mind.
Almost all the ills He mentions of modern western society, with the exception of those directly tied to science, have existed in plenty among all peoples of the premodern age. The fact that he pretends these are somehow unique to us makes me question his legitimacy as a serious historian.
Also, does anyone else’s get the feeling he is playing semantics here? Premodern people may have had a different worldview, one more supernatural in nature, but otherworldly forces still did not actually effect the world. It was not a reality.
iT wUZ THeiR REEalitY
The talk sucks and can be summarized in 5 minutes.
You're watching them from an external point of view. There's not the point of what he said.
Of course historically and anthropologically we can call these "realities" culture or societies, but that's not the idea.
The idea is to realize that our own reality is based on a set of values and what we perceive is created by our own value. You live in your reality based on many things, they lived in a reality based on different things and their existence wasn't defined by things that we consider fundamental and unchangeable.
Especially for science, science doesn't necessarily come to existence in a society that doesn't value or search for a precise and unique answer to everything, like we do. So you don't create the idea that you have to deduce how your reality is truly made as we do.
It's all about belief, not about truth.
@@antoniousai1989 again worldview =/= reality, he should not use that word.
How do you know? You don’t. Which makes you arrogant and closed minded.
we are all simultaneously living in our own realities
Science and it's achievements wants to have a word with you...
"Im not a philosopher"
proceeds to make a giant philosophical argument
Wow, saying "there is no objective reality" is pretty subjective thing to say.
Yeah? And? Everything we ever say comes from our subjective perspective, there's no way around that
When I was 16 I got stoned objective reality as I knew it disappeared. Logically I knew the floor and furniture were there but I couldn't see it. I got to my knees so I could feel the floor as I felt my way back to bed. Needless to say I never smoked again
For language to work, you must have shared experiences, shared reality…
Well, it was really fun to listen and finding wrong assumptions or conslusions in almost every sentence, this guy is on fire
@Tomasz W: I am interested. Can you give a few examples?
@@the2-minuteacademy845 Sure, first of all he mixes reality with our model of reality. There is only one reality, and a lot of possible models wich describe it, from which we can create different social systems. Greeks had different reality model, not different reality. Whole point is to create model which is the best possible aproximation, because the better model we have, the better lives we live. Greeks model with magical forces and social bodies is further away from real world than capitalism based on science, thats why it is not just different - its worse.
Greeks were not programmed by nature to be some kind of 'social body'. Nature has given us reward system for our actions which is our nervous system. It is a goal of every person to balance his individual nervous system, not public nervous system.
Science do not say that reality is subjective, it could not ever say that because science is based on science method, which is objective by definition. If reality would realy be subjective, than we need another method to describe it.
Thank you for saying this. The assumptions in this talk both frustrated and annoyed me.
That's just your subjective perspective 😁
false
I agree that one has to respect and humbly learn from other 'realities' of different societies in the world as they have organized their own 'real-ity' to themselves to sustain their culture that led to their growth. But the title that TED gave to this video that therefore there is no such thing as objective reality is a stretch and self defeating. Because when we try to define the condition of multiple subjective realities, WE ARE setting a premise of objective reality, that is, co-existence of many subjective realities is 'objectively true' and real, therefore self defeating and proves that there is objective reality. Nice talk tho.
I think of "objective reality" as what science describes and predicts. I think his use of "reality" is instead "culture."
We overcomplicated life, for the sake of "progress", yet masses are dumber than before.
I refute it thus (kicks large rock)
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Well done
@@tobiaskurjata5083 It's a Dr Johnson quote (inventor of the first dictionary)
For some reason I found this video after watching a lot of Dumb and Dumber clips.
Brilliant! Standing ovation!
Listening to this on a Sunday gives me church vibes
First of all, we must internalize the 'flatulation' of the matter by transmitting the effervescence of the 'Indianisian' proximity in order to further segregate the crux of my venereal infection. Now, if I may retain my liquids here for one moment. I'd like to continue the 'redundance' of my quote, unquote 'intestinal tract', you see because to preclude on the issue of world domination would only circumvent - excuse me, circumcise the revelation that reflects the 'Afro-disiatic' symptoms which now perpetrates the Jheri Curls activation. Allow me to expose my colon once again. The ramification inflicted on the incision placed within the Fallopian cavities serves to be holistic taken from the Latin word 'jalapeno'.
Oh look Michael Eric Dyson has a TH-cam account.
Ha ha ha! Thanks Anton, it's been ~20 years & I needed that.
@@wanderinguser7665 Oswald*
@@ArtisanWindchimes Oswald Bates! I beg your pardon good sir, I will regurgitate my content. Thank you for clitifying that.
@@wanderinguser7665 you're absolutely quasi crystaline.. excuse me quasi modo
This is a poor argument against objectivity. Objectivity isn't the internalisation of an individual's interaction with the environment, it's the mass agreement of evidence and logical inference at that point of time. It's dynamic and has been accelerating since the internet. He accuses science and social science for being "arrogant" that our "reality" is correct but that's nonsense - science never stands still, forever questioning.
Perhaps he should spend some time outside of his department.
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I’ve never heard less said with so many words.
This comment section is seemingly based in objective reality. Thanks for not letting me down, dudes.
That's just your subjective perspective. You said it yourself in one word - "seemingly" 😁
Wow. I just, this so perfectly encompasses the conclusions I've come to about our existence. So beautifully told through tales from human history by a historian I madly respect. Thank you for this.
I suggest you read Probable Impossibilities by Alan Lightman. Our world view from the angle of theoretical physics. Also an eye-opener (although I would still go further than he does, but that is my personal opinion)
Thought Vision was giving Ted talks now from the thumbnail... that Ship of Theseus really got him thinking...
Thank you for sharing your awareness. I occasionally daydream of a life on Earth as a community contributor in ways of life that brings us closer to nature. We continue to rely on science and technology for efficiency and environmental concerns, but without the exchange of money to get the things we need.
The very statement “there is no such thing as objective reality” implies that it is objectively true that there is no objective reality. A direct contradiction.
Greg Anderson: Can I copy your Work?
Jordan B Peterson: Okay, But don't make it too obvious.
Greg Anderson's Work: (this video)
I thought jordan peterson rejects post modernism 😇
@@minecraftfanaaron He does. but i was talking about objective and subjective reality.
@@RogueIntel I'm pretty sure jordan peterson wouldn't agree with the idea that our current model might not be the best, and that we should seek out something better
@@tirobo I have said it above. I was only talking about the part of objective and subjective reality.
@@RogueIntel Ha, as if that was invented by Peterson. Read Plato's The Republic, it's all in there already (written 2,300 years ago)
Thank goodness for science
Next, let me hear a dentist's opinion on String Theory, lol
If you mean he should be a philosopher, he is practicing that with this ted talk. If you mean he should be a scientist, the nature of objectiveness still wouldn't be his domain, scientists do studies and experiments and stuff, and the idea of science is that you try to get closer to an objective reality. So someone else could still criticize whether there is an objective reality.
There is no one who is an expert on objective reality, the best we can do is philosophy, and I think it's good to hear lot's of perspectives such as from a historian
There's nothing arrogant about following the evidence where it leads. It's the most honest thing you could possibly do. How you treat animals, whether you care for community or not, I would strongly agree that these are things we must consider. These things matter not just for the health and happiness of people, nor just creatures, but the entire world around us. We DO live in an objective reality, but that is separate from how you live your life. To suggest gods and magical beings were once "real" is an appealing, but deceptive way to try and manipulate people, just as many religions have done and continue to do to this day.
I think you are making some bold generalizations. I live in the west, but I don't think that my culture is superior to all other cultures. There are many who are anti-capitalist, collectivist, believe in God or gods, believe in immaterial forces, treat nature with respect, and think of the animals as equals or near equals. That being said, I do think we know more about the universe now than we did 3,000 years ago. For example, they didn't know that Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system. They didn't even know that there were other moons! I don't doubt that the people of the past had some good ideas, but I would rather my aunt's cancer be treated by a physician in the 21st century, rather than by one in ancient Greece. Chemotherapy beats spells and incantations every time.
How do you know any of this? So yes you’re just as arrogant.
TL DR: Some people believe X, which makes X their reality, while other people believe Y, which makes Y their reality. Ergo, there are as many realities as there are minds to conceive it. Nothing is objective.
Because there is no such concept as "false beliefs". Just trust the guy in the video.
Then he goes to say that our current model of reality has failed catastrophically. What happened with "We believe X, therefore X is our reality"?
Good summary my man.
He’s saying the beliefs that the majority of people hold have created this current hellscape. Most people are headed for death in the near future if they don’t change. The planet will continue without them.
Everything was correct except for the title of the video. Yes, we all perceive reality in an incredibly subjective manner. In a world of pure materialism we experience reality in such a way that there’s almost no room for a spiritual reality.. they did.
The problem is that this doesn’t mean there is no objective reality. It just means we all perceive reality different. However, there are perceptions more based in reality than not. If a tree is in front of me and a blind man and I accept there is a tree in front of me and he doesn’t- while it is true he perceives a world where there is no tree in front of him and I do experience such a world- at the end of the day there is a tree in front of him he is just unable to realize the true reality. We will all be subjective but the idea is to become as objective as possible. Judaism actually recognizes that interestingly enough - unique to other religions - that’s why a main goal of Judaism is to work on your intellectual traits and your character traits in order to be able to become less subjective and have a better chance of understanding true objective reality - as much as we can
Just as in a dream our entire life experience happens within conscious awareness. Everything may be a dream.
Purely speculative. I'll consider it a possibility when there is evidence for it
@@BUGHUNTER6 Speculative? What have you ever experienced outside of your conscious awareness? You need more evidence than your entire life experience?
@@jamesthomas1244 Life experience is not evidence for the proposition that everything is a dream. Just because we have dreams in our lives does not mean our lives are in fact dreams.
@@BUGHUNTER6 I said "everything MAY be a dream". Key word "may".
I dreamed of hills, trees and people. I woke up in the morning to hills, trees and people.
You say that I have no evidence. Where is your evidence that what you are experiencing is material? It could all be a grand manifestation within the space of conscious awareness. In fact, much of the wisdom throughout the ages has pointed to just that.
@@jamesthomas1244 at least someone here gets it :)
The difficulty I find in what he says comes from the smallness of his definition of reality.
To look at ancient civilization and say it it is predicated on a different reality is to not grasp the vastness of reality by definition.
You said nothing intelligent
@@davruck1 there is no absolute truth
@@ChipmunkRapidsMadMan1869 then there is no objective reality. Just like I said and like what the professor said. SMH 🤦🏾♂️
@@davruck1 that statement is a philosophical paradox because it cannot be true.
@@ChipmunkRapidsMadMan1869 It’s only a paradox because you have limited imagination
How is it objectively true that there is no objective truth?
If objective reality wasn't a thing maths wouldn't be possible.
So many strawman arguments...
This statement in itself is a contradiction.
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yeah exactly, i take it as him meaning: there's no such thing as what the average person considers to be objective reality.
Doesn't mean that the alternative is true D:
Great talk
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Alright which one of you physicists pissed off Greg
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Water's still wet.
In the starting few seconds it felt like he's gonna offer me the matrix pills
this video is an argument for why subjective reality is just the human perspective of objective reality. Meaning if anything, subjective reality is the one that doesn’t exist as object truths are there regardless of the presence of human constructs
...Define what you mean by real, especially by objective.
Objective - existing independently of the mind
Nothing does
@@leleltea8921 so if a blind person walks in a park and can only experience the walk trough the other senses does this mean that, idk, the trees in the park don't exist just because the person can't see them?
The problems we have right now are not because we exist in a way to cause them. The problems we have exist because we can't regulate our industries and environment well enough to remove these problems.
Also, because we can explain so many things that people before never understood or imagined, we can better judge our reality. That's not selfishness.
History is a series of civilisations coming and going.
Our global civilisation is about to go
A new civilisation will arise
I'm not convinced. I think the last 300 years of science and technology have changed how nations, empires and civilisations evolve ... the old system of boom and bust is dead.
@@northcountryfisher2121 I hope you are right and I am wrong. Sadly our world is running on monopoly money. People need to work but there are less and less job opportunities. It we cared about each other we would use a check out person . But most people go through self check out which kills employment. I'm a retired bus driver. Autonomous vehicles will end driving jobs. This is bad for a person's self esteem.
And the world is morally bankrupt.
Resource depletion will also negatively impact our consumer society.
Idiocracy, if this video is anything to go by.
@@northcountryfisher2121 I wish you were right about the last part, but yes, evolvability is a thing.
You cannot separate the witness, the viewer, and their consciousness as the perceiver from the way the dimension of reality exists.
You assume this "dimension of reality" exists. That's just another thought in your subjective mind
The Earth revolves around the Sun.
In my reality the Earth revolves around a floating giant Cheeto
that's your subjective reality man, I live on the back of the celestial turtle
OMG ITS A *NEWT*
This was great.
People think wether they live in 2021 or in year 504 that they are correct about environment. The reality changed all the time. Perhaps the future reality is a lot different than we know nowadays. Like Einstein sayd: everything is relatively
It's amazing how someone can be so smart that it circles around to being dumb.