Individuality and how it ties into our perception of reality

[The Dude]

This is a topic that's been beginning to fascinate me as of late. Essentially, what I've come to believe is this:

There is no infallible way for human beings to confirm that the reality they experience is the same reality as experienced by someone else.

A fairly simplistic statement perhaps, because it kind of speaks for itself, but it ties into quite a few traits that I would define as characteristic of humanity. Because from that perspective, all attempts to create unity amongst us, and claims that our identity belongs to a greater whole (communities like nations, religions, ethnicity etc) are merely attempts to overcome our greatest shortcoming. Namely that we are a severely disconnected species. Our only frame of reference is us, and not even our next of kin or our loved ones.

In order to expand my ideas on the subject I'm wondering which philosophers deal with individuality and the reality/the truth? I'm pretty interested in finding out more on this topic and seeing what theories have been presented on this in the past. Are there any books in particular worth reading? I suppose I'd be looking for philosophers that are known metaphysicists, but even then that's a rather broad starting point.

Any help would be much appreciated.

[Vizsla]

I never have the time to read philosophers these days. Besides they are all sesquipedalian, which I hate.

I do not disagree with your initial statement. I simply choose to be more optimistic through an act of largely irrational will – here are my justifications:

Every organism in every species is disconnected – isolated in their own world. Individually ants are some of nature’s dimmest. Collectively ants can construct huge temperature and humidity controlled hives, relative to their size. They mastered agriculture, farming fungi, millions of years before our species existed. Many social insects with barely a handful of brain cells have complex societies. Individually they are thick as , collectively they are smarter than the average human – in some respects.
If one looks down on humanity from a similarly removed perspective then the same rules apply. Individually humans are ignorant and uncooperative. But the collective is hugely successful. I have no idea how to make a car because I don’t need to know. We only know what we need to know to function.
It is our individuality that is working for the greater good; billions of short-sighted, ignorant, stupid, insipid humans working for themselves and their immediate family results in cooperation, order and progress – eventually.
This makes me wonder why the Universe allows us to exist at all. If we build and create and procreate are we not creating more order? Shouldn’t the Universe destroy us according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics? Perhaps we are just a temporary intermediate reaction state destined to be eliminated – all our knowledge lost – to serve Entropy.

[Elfdude]

This makes me wonder why the Universe allows us to exist at all. If we build and create and procreate are we not creating more order? Shouldn’t the Universe destroy us according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics? Perhaps we are just a temporary intermediate reaction state destined to be eliminated – all our knowledge lost – to serve Entropy.

You sir do not understand the second law of thermodynamics.

While I agree with the OP's post the wikipedia entries concerning certainty might be useful. Basically yes, immutable fact can never be confirmed without omniscience. However accuracy isn't certainty, accuracy is how close to certainty you come to. The more accurate the idea the more certain it is. Thus all truths and facts must be considered with a grain of salt, they are accurate but they are not certain. Science was invented as a method for obtaining that certainty however once that certainty is obtained science is no longer required for we'd be omniscient.

It would be improper for this reason to consider science complete, or finished in any domain thus the greatest threat to science is the illusion of certainty in knowledge both in practice and in completion. As far as individuality goes this means accepting the fact you are not certain about anything around you except for yourself. Deductive reasoning however will always lead you closer and closer to that certainty.

[Demokritos]

There is no infallible way for human beings to confirm that the reality they experience is the same reality as experienced by someone else.

A fairly simplistic statement perhaps, because it kind of speaks for itself, but it ties into quite a few traits that I would define as characteristic of humanity. Because from that perspective, all attempts to create unity amongst us, and claims that our identity belongs to a greater whole (communities like nations, religions, ethnicity etc) are merely attempts to overcome our greatest shortcoming. Namely that we are a severely disconnected species.

If you're interested in thoughts about the perception as such versus reality, you may want to check the literature about phenomenology and phenomenalism. Perhaps also the debate regarding the Other Minds Problem. But the latter might just bolster your idea here.

As unique individuals, it may be true that no two persons experience the reality in exactly the same way. But we do not need to experience it that way in order to function together. All it takes is that we experience the same type of thing. Your perception of "blue" or "pain" might be different from mine, but it's similar enough for us to create a common language referring to those things, and act in an appropriate way when one of us is using the words for it. So, on the type level of things, we may have a lot in common through which we can unite to achieve common goals.

Being individuals are not necessarily a problem in co-operative endeavours. On the contrary, this can be an asset. History has already proven this many times (yet of course also the opposite as far as unco-operative clashes goes). If the community allows individuals to specialize in something particular according to his or her nature, everybody can reach a higher degree of accomplishment than otherwise. With specialists or geniuses on every position of an organisation working for the common good (for the attainment of things everybody needs or desires), like the assembly of different parts to form a bike for transportation (yes, I keep using the bike as an analogy - yes, I'm a biker - maybe I should write a new book called Zen And The Art of Bicycle Maintenance ) - all members of the community could pedal far farther than otherwise.

The biggest obstacle to unity is probably differences in the type of things people have experienced. Person A cannot understand a person B who refers to a type of experience which A never has had before. Adults often face this problem when trying to explain how the world works to children. But the same goes between adults of different cultures etc (as a sidenote here, one should remember this when trying to interpret the Bible: the religious reality it's meant to describe there might be too complex for the average contemporary mind to understand, in which case it would have to be presented in a simpler way, like a story for children). When two individuals honestly disagree about something, the disagreement can often be resolved through further inquiry revealing that one of them missed a relevant fact or made a wrong calculation from the facts. But it the disagreement stems from (emotional or ethical) values based on different types of experience, further discussion in an attempt to reach agreement is probably futile. Only further experience of life can then bring the two together.

One more thing. If God exists, and he has the universe as physical body, with human beings constituting some sort of atoms experiencing merely the interior of this body, then we ought be connected in some way. Perhaps spiritually on a level deeper than we normally can percieve.

[Henrik]

Individualism has to do with selfishness, with always think best for yourself, rather than the needs of people around you. Individuality has to do with his personality, with what you are.

The Individualism is "a theory that each person should enjoy the maximum freedom and responsibility to determine your goals, choose the means to achieve them and act on such assumptions. Maintains the self-determination, self-reliance and unfettered freedom of individual. " That is, although it seems a good idea at first, in the end, result in total anarchy and turmoil. Imagine if everyone did what they want without respecting what others think and feel! Being individualistic is not look the other does not talk, does not respect boundaries or duties. It's just to look inside and still not see what's inside and alienating themselves from reality.