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Open Ended Question: What is Reality?


Jaydon

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Test your ToK skills and try to convince me of what reality actually is. I'm purposely leaving this question without explanation so that it gives you more flexibility in your answer. Please, no one-word answers.

I don't know what you might mean by it, but I use the word in two main senses.

Firstly, reality is the residue of the memories we seem to have accumulated through sensory experience. That is, we appear to accumulate data from our nervous systems through various interactions with our apparent surroundings, and all this is structured and stored in our memories. From what we know of the way the brain functions, this isn't to be fully trusted, because it is often reconfigured and restructured or even overwritten, but it's all we have.

Secondly, reality is any state that can be produced in the sense that 'real' has historically always been used to mean 'non-ideal'. You can have ideas, but the execution or material realisation (see how that word is formed?) of ideas is what is real.

Caveat: I'm not going into how we know something is real; I'm treating these two general definitions as empirical. To me, they're real. Maybe they aren't, but I can't be bothered with that. :)

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Test your ToK skills and try to convince me of what reality actually is. I'm purposely leaving this question without explanation so that it gives you more flexibility in your answer. Please, no one-word answers.

lol someone thinks they're a smart kid. oh please oh master of metaphysics please grace me with the honour of being judged by your superiorness.

spoilers: he got this question as homework and he's just going to copypasta your replies.

Edited by Grumps
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Test your ToK skills and try to convince me of what reality actually is. I'm purposely leaving this question without explanation so that it gives you more flexibility in your answer. Please, no one-word answers.

lol someone thinks they're a smart kid. oh please oh master of metaphysics please grace me with the honour of being judged by your superiorness.

spoilers: he got this question as homework and he's just going to copypasta your replies.

Oh please. As if I would be asking for this for my homework. I'm simply asking this to see who has their ToK brains switched on, and to see who will reply to an open-ended question such as this one. What I want is for people to offer a convincing argument, instead of just insulting my intelligence.

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So how's this for a convincing argument on an open-ended question?

Reality is Jaydon asking the IBSurvival community to do his homework and Grumps finding out before all hell breaks loose. From my experience, only ToK teachers have asked such open-ended questions that barely makes sense. I don't know who you are, so my best estimate is that you're a normal IB1 students who's just getting the hang of ToK and can't be coming up with such questions. My opinion was later enforced by the fact that you replied with the typical self-defense quote, "As if I would be asking for this for my homework." Since we've already suspected you of doing exactly that, the quote does nothing but assure as of what reality is. It is also, so far, the least convincing argument I've read in this thread. Of course, we could all be wrong, but then again, I could be living in the matrix and the internet (including you) don't really exist. So that is my reality at the moment.

No Hard Feelings :blum:

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So how's this for a convincing argument on an open-ended question?

Reality is Jaydon asking the IBSurvival community to do his homework and Grumps finding out before all hell breaks loose. From my experience, only ToK teachers have asked such open-ended questions that barely makes sense. I don't know who you are, so my best estimate is that you're a normal IB1 students who's just getting the hang of ToK and can't be coming up with such questions. My opinion was later enforced by the fact that you replied with the typical self-defense quote, "As if I would be asking for this for my homework." Since we've already suspected you of doing exactly that, the quote does nothing but assure as of what reality is. It is also, so far, the least convincing argument I've read in this thread. Of course, we could all be wrong, but then again, I could be living in the matrix and the internet (including you) don't really exist. So that is my reality at the moment.

No Hard Feelings :blum:

Okay, here's a better defense:

We're focusing on Reason vs. Emotion right now, and we had a debate in class today. I was simply asking the question to see what kind of responses I would get. I've actually done IB1 before (repeating a year) and I can write for pages if I wished on the definition of reality, but I am asking out of personal interest. yes, it's possible for someone to be personally interested about ToK... In regards to your experience, your experience has been changed and the reality is that not only ToK teachers ask these kinds of open-ended questions, as I just asked one.

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To what extent did you get totally shut down, use specific examples from the text.

Look, the thing is, Jaydon, that if you were actually interested in this subject you would give us an actual topic, rather than this worthless halfwit topic that IB teachers create so that even kids who fail grades (like you) can answer with something somewhat relevant.

Have a good day. :P

Edited by Grumps
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To what extent did you get totally shut down, use specific examples from the text.

Look, the thing is, Jaydon, that if you were actually interested in this subject you would give us an actual topic, rather than this worthless halfwit topic that IB teachers create so that even kids who fail grades (like you) can answer with something somewhat relevant.

Have a good day. :P

Kids who fail grades... hmm... I got a 20/20 on my ToK Presentation and full marks on my (trial) ToK Essay, and I can't be beaten in a ToK debate. I asked this question to that I can see the diversity of the results that I would get, and obviously I'm just getting flamers.

Let me ask you another, more specific question then, and let you answer this one: Is Sense Perception a valid way of knowing when determining the distinctions between reality and irreality?

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To what extent did you get totally shut down, use specific examples from the text.

Look, the thing is, Jaydon, that if you were actually interested in this subject you would give us an actual topic, rather than this worthless halfwit topic that IB teachers create so that even kids who fail grades (like you) can answer with something somewhat relevant.

Have a good day. :P

Kids who fail grades... hmm... I got a 20/20 on my ToK Presentation and full marks on my (trial) ToK Essay, and I can't be beaten in a ToK debate. I asked this question to that I can see the diversity of the results that I would get, and obviously I'm just getting flamers.

Let me ask you another, more specific question then, and let you answer this one: Is Sense Perception a valid way of knowing when determining the distinctions between reality and irreality?

Of course not; if so, movies like Sucker Punch wouldn't be made.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrIiYSdEe4E

And that would be a real shame.

Edited by Proletariat
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Think about one thing - one thing. If we all saw colours differently (because we can only use introspection to tell what colours look like relative to others) how would that change our perception of reality? In school we're all taught that certain colours look different to each other, but what if we all saw colour differently? What about people who are colourblind, what do they see? They don't see the same reality that we do, do they?

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To what extent did you get totally shut down, use specific examples from the text.

Look, the thing is, Jaydon, that if you were actually interested in this subject you would give us an actual topic, rather than this worthless halfwit topic that IB teachers create so that even kids who fail grades (like you) can answer with something somewhat relevant.

Have a good day. :P

Kids who fail grades... hmm... I got a 20/20 on my ToK Presentation and full marks on my (trial) ToK Essay, and I can't be beaten in a ToK debate. I asked this question to that I can see the diversity of the results that I would get, and obviously I'm just getting flamers.

Let me ask you another, more specific question then, and let you answer this one: Is Sense Perception a valid way of knowing when determining the distinctions between reality and irreality?

Seriously? What's with the, 'I can't be beaten in a TOK debate.'? I agree with James, and the others on this one. Wow, I'd never thought in a million years....just wow.

“The truest characters of ignorance are vanity, and pride and arrogance.”

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Rather simple answer in my head. Reality is what the person makes it. Reality is defined by the person, and no one else. You can claim ANYTHING but it will ultimately fall on the person to create the reality around them.

and a 20/20 on the tok presentation means you can play the system very well (tok is just a system, follow the rules, get the grade) and an extended essay doesn't show anything towards your philosophical thinking...just sayin'.

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Just to try and stop the vitriol, I think it's great you're asking these questions (this is the point of TOK - something which doesn't often get appreciated), however I think for the purposes of this question it would help everybody get started if you yourself defined your position on the matter, and then people can work around that framework. It might not be the question you were asking, but it definitely lends an atmosphere more conducive to this sort of question.

Finally humulity can go a long way, but other members comments about repeating the year because of fail grades is equally rude. I am repeating Y13 and it is absolutely nothing to do with grade issues, but emotional problems I had last year. Understanding before speaking also goes a long way (and I'll get back to the question of reality once I've finished my maths coursework). :D

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