How to deal with non-realism?

loup-vaillant

From Being a Realist (even if you believe in God):

theists and untheists can and should meet half way and at least agree on the logical necessity of being a realist.

My mother, who doesn't call herself a theist (I think she's agnostic), doesn't even accept realism. She doesn't even agree with this:

There is something. All that there is, we generally call "reality". Note that by this definition, reality is unique. The corollary is, we all live in the same reality. We do not percieve it in the same way, but our perceptions and reality itself aren't the same thing.

Every description of reality that matches it is true. Every description of reality that doesn't match it is false. In this sense, truth is unique and universal.

(We can nuance the truth/falsehood dichotomy with probability distributions. Some probability distributions are closer to reality than others, and so on.)

That's little more than tautologies here. Yet it elicited an impression of being forced to believe. I know because she told me about the totalitarian dangers from such narrow thinking.

I'm happy to have finally found the root cause of our ongoing disagreement, but now, how can I deal with that? It looks pretty hopeless, but just in case, does someone have a suggestion, or should I just leave it at that? (My ego doesn't like it, but giving up is an option.)

Now I'm relieved to know that in near mode, she's a complete realist. This craziness only shows up in far mode.

From Being a Realist (even if you believe in God):

theists and untheists can and should meet half way and at least agree on the logical necessity of being a realist.

My mother, who doesn't call herself a theist (I think she's agnostic), doesn't even accept realism. She doesn't even agree with this:

There is something. All that there is, we generally call "reality". Note that by this definition, reality is unique. The corollary is, we all live in the same reality. We do not percieve it in the same way, but our perceptions and reality itself aren't the same thing.

Every description of reality that matches it is true. Every description of reality that doesn't match it is false. In this sense, truth is unique and universal.

(We can nuance the truth/falsehood dichotomy with probability distributions. Some probability distributions are closer to reality than others, and so on.)

That's little more than tautologies here. Yet it elicited an impression of being forced to believe. I know because she told me about the totalitarian dangers from such narrow thinking.

Now I'm relieved to know that in near mode, she's a complete realist. This craziness only shows up in far mode.

Maybe I didn't convey the meaning I wanted to. The reason I wrote this article was because I was called intolerant for merely pointing out that, given that I strongly believe X, I also strongly believe those who believe non-X to be mistaken. Merely noticing the link is enough to be called intolerant. This is nuts. Human, I know, but nuts nevertheless. Consistency is not intolerance.

I perfectly understand that I can be mistaken about X (infinite certainty, biases, and all that). I just can't stand when people disagree and see no problem whatsoever. Then when I point out that there is a problem, I am called intolerant. I suppose people believe I want to force them to my side. Factual opinions are not utility functions, but people keep forgetting that. As if changing your mind meant you lost. Actually, you usually win when you do that.

I do understand that we, as imperfect humans, can agree to disagree. But not on principle. I'm okay with admitting that at present, trying to resolve the disagreement doesn't seem worth the trouble, but we should at least reckon there is a problem.

The bottom line is, when there is disagreement, and one cares about truth, then there is a problem. This problem may, or may not, be worth solving, but pretending everyone can have contradictory opinions that should never be attacked is just weak.

Of course, we should never attack people.

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How to deal with non-realism?

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How to deal with non-realism?

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