Real?

[Xbx_Inthusiast]

There really is no way of proving anything. Maybe we're living in a world just made up by computers or something, alot like the Matrix theory. Only chosen people are unplugged into the real world. Kind of a like a dream - only chosen people get to wake up. If this is a dream, it's gotta be a nightmare. And to dream, you have to be asleep. How can you be asleep? Dreams are a mass of ideas, fantasties and scary thoughts brought together by a bored brain while we sleep. It's something of a failsafe for our bodies. Without dreams, we would go insane.

[Cygnus Q'ol]

I guess I'm more of a blue pill person.

If this is my reality, then so be it, I will make the best of it.

 

I like a big, juicy steak.

 

 

However, sometimes I *do* get the feeling like...

[tk102]

I can percieve matter and thus infer know of it's existance.

You perceive matter and thus know the existence of your perception, not of the existsence of matter.

 

You have no objective means of proving matter exists. You say it can be measured -- but your measurement is also a perception.

 

Your response perhaps: It happens to be the same as when you measured it before. My friend can make the same measurement. If I write the measurement down, go away forget about it, and come back, I can take the measurement again and see it was the same as before. Surely something exists that is preserved outside of my perception.

 

Berkeley's response: The perceptions are preserved in the mind of God. That is what also keeps things consistent.

 

Of course this argrument makes a leap of faith, as it were.

 

Suspending that leap leads to egoism... that I am the only individual in this universe and all my perceptions are the universe. Even my own memory is a perception. And there is no explanation for why some measurements appear consistent in my universe. Pretty pointless though.

 

Berkeley's response is interesting when you start talking about quantum physics, as you suggested earlier. Here mind and matter appear to overlap and mere act of measuring affects the existence of matter. Perhaps then, matter as we perceive it is the mental energies of God and E=mc2.

 

More succinctly in Hinduism: All of the world is Samsara, brought about through the power of Maya. The Self (Atman) is only thing that exists because it is identical to the Brahman that is true reality.

[Darth InSidious]

I declare that the world is in fact an ostrich egg, no larger than a bookcase. What evidence do I have?

 

What evidence do you have that it isnt?

 

[Commander Obi-Wan]

meh, who cares?? i am who i am, and i live in the world i live in. sure as heck works for me.

 

Stole the words right outta my mouth.

[HerbieZ]

Many a time have i wanted this life to be all a dream and wake up on my bed in the Dantooine Academy. MANY a time! I believe that when i die, i will end up there and live the rest of my afterlife in peace.

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

@tk102-

If you start a fight with someone, and they punch you with their fist of matter, their fist will hurt and where ever they hit you will hurt. And, if you and another (and whoever else saw all this), both percieve similar things (pain from the "impact" of matter), would that not be proof that the matter that makes up the two of you exists? The logical conclusion is yes.

 

@Darth InSidious-

There's no ostrich inside. Me and ~8,999,999,999 people agree on that, making it true for all intents and purposes.

[Darth InSidious]

There are many ostriches inside

[tk102]

@jmac7412-

The existence of matter is one possible explanation. That is materialism. The difficulty of materialism is explaining the mind and consciousness. The antithesis is idealism, which is what I'm arguing for the sake of argument. The problem with idealism is trying to explain what appears to be "objective" reality. The usual solution is to resort to God or Brahman as the preserving and coordinating overmind.

 

So in the purely hypothetical scenario you describe , I would perceive pain from a perceived punch. My perceptions of this and the perceptions of others are synchronized through an all-pervading God-consciousness.

 

Surely, explaining this in terms of matter striking matter is succinct, but that is an easy scenario for materialism to answer. But how could my consciousness, my mind, experience a phenomenon of pain that came from something that is not mental to begin with?

 

Let's go back to your original post

Reality is defined by the chemical signals sent to your brain by specialized organs/organ systems in order to percieve the physical enviroment around oneself.

Where in the chemical reactions is consciousness? Does it just arise ex nihilo? Or should we argue that consciousness does not even exist? There doesn't seem to be any room for it in the materialistic universe you described. And yet, consciousness seems to be obvious. At least as obvious as the existence of matter and I have argued earlier that it is more obvious than the existence of matter.

[JediKnight707]

@JK707, Define thinking rightly? What makes you think that thought is applicable outside of your own imagination? Maybe thought doesn't exist in real life and is only the figment of imagination?

What if you are stuck in a perpetual loop, created from your own imagination, resulting from a conversation similar to this that you once had with a rather grumpy manhole cover?

 

Thinking rightly: Thinking as clear as you've ever thought. We've all had dreams (or have we? ) and we know the feeling. You aren't thinking clearly, with distorted thoughts. Perhaps, thought doesn't exist. Yet, I believe that since I have a brain and it generates things that I "think."

If I stuck in a loop that my imagination created, then how do I know that I even have an imagination? And that I'm not merely a reprecussion of something greater?

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

@tk102-

Define consciousness

 

There are many crispy ostriches inside

Fixed

[Sabretooth]

I had this weird dream today. It was like I was going through normal life - can't remember much of that... But somehow, I did something and I saw before me some sort of opening video, like one of those old cartoons like Thundercats and GI Joe. It was of some weird base set somewhere in snow. It was probably named "Echo Base" (out of coincidence), and I saw anime faces of people, whom I cannot recognize.

 

There was this room, well-lit with sci-fi lights and such. I was someone in authority working in the base. Before me was a young girl - somewhere in her adolescent years. She was wearing some sort of fantasy clothing, and probably had wings. A strange metal umbilical cord extended from her belly. It was like one of those futuristic snakes, and had an opening at the end, with claws - a lot like an arm of Dr. Octopus of Spiderman. She was an enigmatic beauty, and seemingly ignoring me. I asked her something, but I don't remember, and she answered my in mystical and riddl-like words. I don't remember what she said, really. But the umbilical suddenly started contracting, slowly and first but then really fast. I recall her saying - "I feel more like eternity than reality." The end of the umbilical suddenly came in front of my face and a snake-like mouth formed at the end of it. It grinned, like that evil grin and the girl turned back, but everything became white. And then suddenly I jumped out of my dream. And it felt as if I hardly slept.

 

Is Jonny's theory true?

[Darth InSidious]

@RJM: Yes, I do revel in the daftness of life, but equally well I don't really worry too much about whether it's real or not

 

@jmac: Crispy ostriches? What would happen when they leave the egg?

[Emperor Devon]

In my dreams, I can do or make people do whatever I want with my mind. If this was all a dream, everyone here (except me) would be a near-mindless slave with a lobotomy, driven on to serve their master.

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

@Darth InSidious-

http://www.rmcjobs.com/event/images/kfc.gif

 

@Emperor Devon-

If we all had lobotomies our brains could only perform basic functions necessary for life, like breathing. You'd basically be stuck in a world with a bunch people who would die without your constant care.

[Jae Onasi]

@Jae, Do you think when you dream? and uhh exiwhat?

 

Naw, that was just a very poor attempt at making a really bad existential philosophy joke. If I had actually spent more time in the Real World and less time in school, you all wouldn't be subjected to that.

 

The Descartes quote was an attempt to be serious, however. If I exist because I think, and I think when I am awake, then dreaming is separate from being awake, and my thinking state is my reality.

I wasn't a philosophy major, however.

 

What if you are stuck in a perpetual loop, created from your own imagination, resulting from a conversation similar to this that you once had with a rather grumpy manhole cover?

 

Uh, I've never seen a person talk to a manhole cover before, but I have seen someone try to talk to a couple plants as if they were real, but then again that person needed some serious medication.

[Hallucination]

@Hal, What if it isn't a nightmare, even as screwed up as earth is, what if it's your minds bright and happy attempt to suppress the nightmare that you actually exist in and can sometimes almost get back to until you wake up in a cold sweat?

Then I'm glad I don't remember the real world, because you make it sound like the worst place in the blenstrom world.

And what if your mind can't translate the memories of one into the other, and what you're experiencing now is a twisted deja vu experienced within what you call your nightmare?

Then I'll never know what it's like in the real world, and my opinions here don't matter, because it's all in my noggin.

[Jackel]

The true question isnt "what is real?" but "what is it that we percieve to be real?" To me all you are is a bunch of 0's and 1's flashed on to a tangible screen showing me images made of those numbers, nothing you type, show or know is real unless I wish it to be real. This statement might not be real for instance. Am I really standing on the edge of a cliff over looking a deep blue roaring ocean watching the sunset or am I posting on a internet forum so other people who may or may not be real can see what I have written? I can picture both clearly at the same time so which is really real?

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

The Descartes quote was an attempt to be serious, however. If I exist because I think, and I think when I am awake, then dreaming is separate from being awake, and my thinking state is my reality.

I wasn't a philosophy major, however.

The last place you'll find a philosopher is in the philosophy department

 

I forget who said that one though...

[Emperor Devon]

If we all had lobotomies our brains could only perform basic functions necessary for life, like breathing. You'd basically be stuck in a world with a bunch people who would die without your constant care.

 

Lobotomies can be performed on different levels, although it is extremely unlikely that someone could be lobotomized to want to be a willing servant. But if I ever see that I'll know I'm dreaming, so problem solved.

[RedHawke]

"I narf, therefore I am!" - Garfield the Cat

 

[JediKnight707]

Well, for my dreams, it was wierd. I'd want something to happen and it would. And whenever I wanted to get out of my dream, I always had this watch (for any who played the 007 game on N64, it was like the pause watch) and I'd "click" quit. And then I'd awake. Odd.

[Point Man]

I like Descartes: I think, therefore I am.

So if you say, "I think not," does that mean you cease to exist?

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

^^^^

It's in the sense of you're thinking and therefore you thinking is proof of your existance.

[lukeiamyourdad]

So if you say, "I think not," does that mean you cease to exist?

 

 

Except that when you say "I think not", you actually thought about saying it, therefore you do think, thus you still exist.