this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2024
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The signs don't exist. It's just a random collection of stars.
Stars don't exist, it's just a random collection of hydrogen.
It's one thing to say that constellations of stars don't exist. It's another thing to say that the constellation "Leo" doesn't exist because it isn't a lion and our perception of the spatial relationship of those stars has nothing to do with lions, or with mystical astrological significance.
Those stars are present in space in a certain way. And we can perceive them in our sky in a certain way. But whether those stars are "connected" in any meaningful way, or whether they contain any inherent Lion relevance is purely a creation of human imagination derived from real observable objective phenomena. We could just as easily have said that Leo was Orion, and Orion was Leo, and have been equally correct. It's subjective. Which doesn't mean it's meaningless for us, otherwise art would be meaningless. But it does mean that it isn't "real" in the same way that gravity or the sun are real. Anything whose continued existence is conditioned on belief isn't "real" in an objective sense.
Belief can certainly will unreal things into meaningful reality though. But, absent that belief, those things will not exist.
Really this is a discussion centered around the inadequacy of the English word "real." Perhaps other languages have specific words that would more clearly demonstrate this distinction. Because clearly gravity and Pisces are not both "real" in the same way. The former is objectively real and the latter is subjectively real. And we're talking past each other by not simply having seperate words that distinguish between those concepts
Except there really isn't anything more "objective" about all the stars in a direction vs all the hydrogen lumped together in a hot spot. I agree that the dense place fusion is happening is far more interesting and important than a direction of sky that got named after a pretty picture someone imagined a long time ago. That's a purely subjective distinction though. That direction from Earth, and everything in it, exists without us just as much as a star does. Words just describe the groupings we think are interesting enough to want to communicate about regularly. Sometimes other people like to talk about things we think are silly. That doesn't make us more "objective" though.
This reminds me of that vsauce video where he says that trogs exist and they're composed of a tree and whichever dog happens to be closest to it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXW-QjBsruE
It makes me feel really dumb when I watch this stuff. The entire time I try to be open minded. I’m left being impressed with the individuals ability to research and articulate an obviously very thoroughly studied topic. They are obviously intelligent, I guess more so than I can relate, because all I am left with from the content is how pointless of a topic it is. No kidding words that we created are a method of communicating within the environment we exist. It’s like the stupid boat example, most generally when referring to the boat people are referring to the one registered, just as he said in the video. The others made from the scraps are boats made from the removed components of that registered vessel. None of this stuff seems complicated to me. He and others even seem aware of the pointless ridiculousness of it when he discusses the eyelash in the fridge example. So I’m left feeling that I’m obviously too stupid to understand the value, or objective, in such a pointless pursuit where everyone already recognizes conditions to words apply to communication while somehow finding value in beating the horse to death and picking it to death, for what I imagine is some goal I just can’t understand.
Smiley faces don't exist, they're just a random collection of polygons (that are interpreted by the human brain as being analogous to a specific thing and thus have meaning through comparison...)
That's like saying people don't exist and they're just random collections of particles.
No it's like saying a person-shaped cloud doesn't exist.
To describe it as person-shaped is subjective and another viewer may describe the same cloud as butterfly-shaped. Because it's a subjective interpretation of a static objective object. Like abstract art.
People/animals exist and are "real" in that all of us have agency and a sense of self that is not conditionally dependent on the identical perception of others.
A person-shaped cloud is only "person-shaped" if viewers claim it is. An arrangement of viewable disparate stars is only "Orion" because the Greeks, and now us, decided it was. But I am me and you are you regardless of what anyone else thinks, and always will be.
We aren't a collection of particles, we are more than the sum of our parts. We have agency and a mind and self-identity. A cloud or a star constellation has none of those things. They are inanimate unfeeling objects that only gain meaning, (astrological, imaginative, or otherwise) when humans/sentient beings ascribe that meaning to them. Human beings, and all living things, have inherent meaning because of their sentience and inherent uniqueness. Which is why genocide is a greater loss than the destruction of a rock - it's the permanent death of unique living beings.
Such a romantic~