Friday, September 21, 2007

"my reality is more real than yours"

In the spirit of the entry about reality disagreements, permit me to provide the service of reminding everybody that claiming a belief system's level of correctness based on its level of "reality" is talking in circles. One's belief system is an important factor in what one's overall concept of reality is.

Someone can't prove a set of propositions, like the content of a belief system, to be true without: 1) assuming the truth of one or more statements in the set (known as axioms), or 2) building on a true statement independent from and external to the set. The nature of reality is part of a belief system. Using a belief system's notion of ultimate reality to try to prove that belief system is ridiculous! It's comparable to a Christian claiming God exists because the Bible proves it (since the Bible's authority is grounded in God's existence, its authority can't logically prove God's existence on its own).

The next time someone says "reality has a ____ bias", ignore it for the snide hooey it is.

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