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Originally Posted by alegro  I have covered this point in one of my first posts on this board. Since it has been brought up before I thought it is worthwhile addressing it.
I basically got very little feedback to it - except that a factual error was pointed out for which I am very grateful. But nobody has yet explained to me how the concept of subjective reality is compatible with our experience of the world.
How would someone who believes the Earth is flat experience a trip round the globe? How come that Quantum Mechanics and the Theory of Relativity (or other bizarre things about Nature) were manifested if nobody believed in them even after the first experiments came out? |
I've answered some of these questions many times myself. That's the nature of forums, eh?
How you or I experience the world is subjective reality. Objective reality on the other hand has little to no compatibility with the way we experience the world. If there were such a thing as objective reality it would be absolutely true in comparison to anyone's subjective version of it, which is a logical fallacy according to rationalism itself. That means that even the most tight, hardcore rationalist is a subjective fool like the rest of us.
I would say that many skeptics are trying to escape reality as much as the true believers they critique. They want a world where everything is comprehensible by their senses and quantifiable by reason, where any anomalies and irrational thought processes and behaviorisms are eliminated. Such a world does not exist. As Nietzsche might say, we are all too human.
In answer to your first question, I would like to ask you a question. What if you took a trip around the world and discovered it was a saucer riding on the back of a giant turtle? Would you continue to believe the earth is round?
My guess is that you would assume you had been fooled or perhaps drugged. All your life you believed one thing and here is contradictory evidence. If you knew for certain that this wasn't a trick and you were quite sober, you may re-evaluate your belief that the world is round in light of your experience. I'm guessing that this is how a person who believes the world is flat would react as well.
Regarding the second question, the 'weird science' discovered through the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics come from the stated assertions of each theory respectively. For example, in Newtonian physics, there is no such thing as a 'quark' and gravity is a force not a field as it is in Einstein's universe. The changes in assertions are based on new evidence, but the assertions are specific interpretations of that evidence. Those interpretations brings light to new observations about the nature of reality. It also 'black's out' other observations. For example, scientists assume that the universe is not a conscious entity, so they black out any rationale that might lead to that conclusion.