Jin, Postmodernist Apostate

[osprey_archer]

In Historiography, we've been discussing Postmodernism/Post-structuralism recently. Today we began talking about the Reality Postulate, which - with regards to history - is the postulate that the past actually happened.

This is the class where we discussed Kant and Herder and Hegel, and has mostly been very good to me; but it's hard to find words to convey how utterly pointless I find discussing the Reality Postulate. Whichever side of the argument you come down on, whether you think the past is real or unreal, your position is unfalsifiable. "The past happened" has common sense and Occam's razor on its side, but I can't prove it anymore than I can prove that the earth doesn't stand on the back of an elephant, that dinosaur fossils are more than a test of faith from God, or that we don't live in the Matrix.

Ultimately, all study rests of faith - the faith that our senses correspond to actual external phenomenon, and the faith that the universe/God is playing fair and not, say screwing with planetary orbits so we think the sun is at the center of the solar system when it's actually Jupiter. Descartes tried to put a logical platform under his philosophy by going back to the absolute basics - "I think, therefore I am!" - but how do you know that kobolds aren't planting those thoughts in the thing you like to think of as your brain, Descartes? Hmmmm? Answer me that!

And if the kobold question, or the question about whether the past happen, fascinate you - fine; discuss them all you want. But I think they're pointless and boring and I want to study questions in which one can at least hope to asymptotically approach actual answers.

Comments

[ochre54.livejournal.com]

I prefer to think that we all live in a slightly different version of reality, and that sometimes the past happened, sometimes it didn't, and sometimes it's still happening and if we could only figure out how to make a time-machine work, it could be our present and future, too.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Oh sure; I think we all perceive reality differently, and if one wants to write, say, a history of the D-Day invasion, one must realize that for every soldier it was a slightly different battle.

But I think that generally, all our different realities converge fuzzily around something that's actually there. Reality is a magnet, and we're iron filings.

[ochre54.livejournal.com]

I think I mean that I mostly like the possibilities it has to offer as a theory, even if there are no answers.

I'm finding it hard to think of instances where, if one person's past is not real there is not at least another being who will know at least some of what actually happened in its place.

Maybe a Groundhog day kind of thing? But then, time still passes, just on a loop. I think possibly it only works conceptually, in imaginary space.

Which would make the generally perceived reality real in the space perceived as real. How's that for the lousiest definition ever?

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Postmodernism offers great possibilities as story fodder. (I'm old-fashioned enough that I would probably retreat whimpering, but I've never been fond of time-travel stories.) It's only as an academic tool that I find its more out-there ideas exasperating.

[melonbutterfly.livejournal.com]

I get what you mean, it sounds pretty much like discussing opinions. but the earth doesn't stand on the back of an elephant, we'd see that on the satellite pictures, wouldn't we? or is the elephant metaphorical? or is the elephant actually pretty normal-elephant-sized and seemingly lying somewhere on his back, when actually he's carrying earth? I'd find it boring too, after exploring both sides' logical (...or not...) arguments :/

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Clearly, the satellite pictures are all lies. Rather than being traces of something that actually exists - an earth that does not stand on the back of an elephant - they are...I don't even know what they are. A text we need to deconstruct until our ears bleed, probably.