"real" reality...

The philosophical postmodernists, a rebel crew milling beneath the black flag of anarchy, challenge the very foundations of science and traditional philosophy. Reality, they propose, is a state constructed by the mind, not perceived by it. In the most extravagant version of the constructivism, there is not "real" reality, no objective truths external to mental activity, only prevailing versions disseminated by ruling social groups. Nor can ethics be firmly grounded, given that each society creates its own codes for the benefit of the same oppressive forces.

Wilson, Edward O., Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, Vintage Books, 1998, p. 44.

...is in the mind of the beholder? ...originator?

knowledge, language, learning...

I have been describing the problem of acquisition of knowledge of language in terms that are more familiar in an epistemological than a psychological context, but I think that this is quite appropriate. Formally speaking, acquisition of “common-sense knowledge” – knowledge of a language, for example – is not unlike theory construction of the most abstract sort. Speculating about the future development of the subject, it seems to me not unlikely, for the reasons I have mentioned, that learning theory will progress by establishing the innately determined set of possible hypotheses, determining the conditions of interaction that lead the mind to put forth hypotheses from this set, and fixing the conditions under which such a hypothesis is confirmed – and, perhaps, under which much of the data is rejected as irrelevant for one reason or another.

Chomsky, Noam, Language and Mind: Linguistic Contributions to the Study of Mind , Source: Language and Mind publ. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1968. One of the six lectures

...language first? ...mind first? ...questions a priori?

signs...

Semiotics is the science of communication and sign systems, in short, of the ways people understand phenomena and organize them mentally, and of the ways in which they devise means for transmitting that understanding and for sharing it with others. Although natural and artificial languages are therefore central to semiotics, its field covers all non-verbal signalling and extends to domains whose communicative dimension is perceived only unconsciously or subliminally. Knowledge, meaning, intention and action are thus fundamental concepts in the semiotic investigation of phenomena.

"Semiotics & Communications Theory," Course of study description, Victoria College, British Columbia, Victoria College - Semiotics

...out there or in here with language?

is there in truth...

What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms -- in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.

We still do not know where the urge for truth comes from; for as yet we have heard only of the obligation imposed by society that it should exist: to be truthful means using the customary metaphors - in moral terms, the obligation to lie according to fixed convention, to lie herd-like in a style obligatory for all...

'On truth and lie in an extra-moral sense,' The Viking Portable Nietzsche, p.46-7, Walter Kaufmann transl.

...no beauty?

to be or not to be...

Nothing in the universe can stand by itself - no thing, no fact, no being, no event - and for his reason it is absurd to single anything out as the ideal to be grasped. For what is singled out exists only in relation to its own opposite, since what is is defined by what is not, pleasure is defined by pain, life is defined by death, and motion is defined by stillness. Obviously, the mind can form no idea of what "to be" means without the contrast of "not to be," since the ideas of being and non-being are abstractions from such simple experiences as that there is a penny in the right hand and no penny in the left hand.

Watts, Alan, The Way of Zen, "Mayahana Buddhism," 1957, p. 63

...it is not a question?

an indication of something...

A sign stands for something to the idea which it produces or modifies....That for which it stands is called its object, that which it conveys, its meaning; and the idea which it gives rise, its interpretant.... [the sign creates in the mind] an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. That sign which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign. This sign stands for something, its object. It stands for that object, not in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea which I have sometimes called the ground of that representation."

C. S. Peirce, quoted in Umberto Eco (1979) The Role of the Reader 7.2

or something else...?

strange...

...attractor?

into the chaos...

The Universe has a fundamental pattern of fourfoldness throughout all scales of magnitude. When applied to Nature, including Man, the Law of Four manifests as the four attractors. These attractors balance entropy, providing order from out of chaos. When applied in the microcosmic level "the four" manifests as the four basic energies or forces: electro-magnetic, gravity, and the strong and weak forces. In human consciousness its the four functions of sensing, thinking, feeling and willing. Understanding how the Attractors work in the meso-cosmic world can help us make sense of our world, and make sense of our consciousness functions....

The four attractors act on all levels of reality to form Cosmos out of Chaos. They make up a newly discovered Wisdom Law fundamental to making sense of what is happening in the real world. The world is not really totally ordered as previously believed. It is fundamentally disordered, chaotic, but it contains forces or attractors of cosmos that create patterns of order over time. They are anchors of order in an otherwise stormy sea. Full understanding of the Attractors requires a new understanding of space and time....

There is no apparent order at all to the actions of the Strange attractor. On the surface it appears to be pure Chaos, but nevertheless there is order of a subtle kind which only appears over time when looked at in the right perspective. Its analogy in consciousness is the willing function. Yet, when tied to Awareness - the Zero - it is spontaneous, unpredictable. It appears to be chaotic, yet it has order of a subtle, fractal kind.

The Four Chaos Attractors

...it appears over time?

real, reality, realization, realism, realist, realty...

Quietism is the attitude of people who say, "let others do what I cannot do." The doctrine I am presenting before you is precisely the opposite of this, since it declares that there is no reality except in action. It goes further, indeed, and adds, "Man is nothing else but what he purposes, he exists only in so far as he realises himself, he is therefore nothing else but the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is."

"Existentialism and Humanism" by Jean-Paul Sartre. Trans. Philip Mairet (Brooklyn: Haskell House Publishers Ltd., 1977), pp. 23-56. First published in French in 1946 under the title "L'Existentialisme est un humanisme*."

* Note: The translation from French to English actually is "Existentialism is (a) humanism." The indefinite article (a) is always used in French with most nouns, as are definite articles (the), unlike English where articles can be understood to be there. As the reader can see, this other translation of the title declares something very different than the translated title "Existentialism and Humanism."

Translation can be a very tricky job. Does the translator need to change the form of what is being said into the idiomatic language of the translated? Is there a need to do literal translation? Can translation change the meaning of what is said? These are all vey important considerations, especially if "language" may be the only thing that can prove what is real, reality, realization, realism, realist, realty...

Reading the two translations shows that they mean two very different things. "Existentialism and Humanism" leads one to initially compare and contrast the two. "Existentialim is (a) humanism" can go in different directions in and of itself. Is existentialism a type of humanism? Are existentialism and humanism one and the same thing? Can we have one without the other? What is the interaction within the two? The entire conversation changes. Consider one of the key phrases in the quote...

..."there is no reality except in action"?

In the French the langauge for this phrase is "...il n'y a de réalité que dans l'action." It can also be translated as "there is reality only in the action." [emphasis mine]

...the action? What about the thought?

existence a priori...

What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world--and defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself. Thus, there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it. Man simply is. Not that he is simply what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills, and as he conceives himself after already existing--as he wills to be after that leap towards existence. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself.

"Existentialism and Humanism" by Jean-Paul Sartre. Trans. Philip Mairet (Brooklyn: Haskell House Publishers Ltd., 1977), pp. 23-56. First published in French in 1946 under the title "L'Existentialisme est un humanisme."

...i am, therefore I think?