Reality is an Illusion

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by TruthSeeker, Jun 9, 2006.

  1. BSFilter Nature has no kindess/illwill Registered Senior Member

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    True. Thats the kind of reality I would like to be in all the time though!
     
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  3. AAF Registered Senior Member

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    Your view in this thread is called 'hyper-skeptic's worldview'.
    It's based on three assumptions:
    1. Reality is unreal!
    2. Mental images of reality are hallucinations.
    3. Every mind is unique, closed, and isolated
    completely from ever thing else.

    The three assumptions, above, are false and
    have been disproved in three different ways:

    (1) The Cartesian disproof:
    You can doubt the reality of every thing,
    except the fact that you are doubting every
    thing right now. You cannot doubt that
    you doubt! And so your doubt is real. From
    the reality of your doubt, we deduce at once
    the reality of time, space, and the laws of logic.
    And then we use those deductions to prove
    the reality of all real things.

    (2) The physiological disproof:
    All human brains have the same anatomy.
    Therefore, they are the same and produce
    the same results.

    (3) The psychological disproof:
    The human mind is an integral part of reality,
    and can never produce any mental image that
    does not reflect reality directly or indirectly. Even
    the craziest hallucinations are produced by mixing
    up mental images of real things. In short, the human
    mind cannot generate or produce truly original mental
    images on its own.

    Is that clear?

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  5. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    In other words, if I look at a red color and you look at a red color what we call red may be two completely different colors?

    I cannot prove that my perception of red is the same as yours after all and all my associations with red (e.g. blood) may be the same as yours. I might be seeing blue and calling it red and you might be seieing pink and calling it red?

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  7. TruthSeeker Fancy Virtual Reality Monkey Valued Senior Member

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    How does the reality of your doubt make anything real?

    How do you know? What if we have solipcism?
    What if the anatomy is the same, but the brains are used in different ways? It's like computers that have same hardware, but different softwares. Something that runs in a Microsoft may not run in a Machintosh.

    Of perceived realities, yes. That doesn't prove that what we perceive to be outside is indeed what outside is.
     
  8. Andrej64 Registered Member

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    It depends on definitions. "Reality" is just a word. If you define it as what you perceive, then it is that. You may also define it as the outer world or what you expect to be in the outer world, because you know you can't trust your senses and you can only guess what does the world look like, like in the case of the sun in the mirror.
    They are both only images of one sun. The difference is that in the case of the one you see in the mirror, light is being reflected. However, you also can't exactly know how the light comes to you in the other case, it is being refracted in the atmosphere etc. Which one is real? None or both. From what you see you can only guess what attributes the sun (or what is expected to be the sun) has.
     
    Last edited: Jun 12, 2006
  9. AAF Registered Senior Member

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    That is not a problem at all
    By comparing the colour receptors
    inside your eye to the typical ones, any
    optometrist (eye doctor) can find out
    whether your sensation of the colour red
    is normal or not.
     
  10. TruthSeeker Fancy Virtual Reality Monkey Valued Senior Member

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    My point is that both suns are real. There's no one sun that is more real then another.
     
  11. TruthSeeker Fancy Virtual Reality Monkey Valued Senior Member

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    So it follows that objectivity is what we can agree upon. So what if all humans are perceiving it improperly? How come do you know that the one who is perceiving it differently is the incorrect one? How about a fly? Does it perceive colors the same way we do? Why aren't the fly's perspective more real then ours? Why the fly's perspective is wrong? Because it is certainly a different perspective, isn't? :bugeye:

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    :m:
     
  12. BSFilter Nature has no kindess/illwill Registered Senior Member

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    Im sure all humans ARE NOT percieving our world properly. After all the fool and the genius are exactly the same except their conscious.
    It is impossible to percieve something for what it actually is, without applying human concepts to it, hence Aristotles idea of "forms".
     
  13. Absane Rocket Surgeon Valued Senior Member

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    8,989
    In reaction to statement number 3.
    Like I said a page back in my series of questions: "Perhaps we are all blobs of thought energy in a vast sea of nothing all networked to create a coherent whole we call reality?"
     
  14. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Very nice. I might consider labeling them contradictions instead of disproof's (you can't prove a negative but can contradict a positive).

    I get the just of this one, but unfortunately it is very incorrect and I know this from personal experience. I've had hallucinations whose content has not been the result of mixing real things.
     
  15. Andrej64 Registered Member

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    In my opinion there is no way to prove which definition of reality is correct. Each word's meaning is assigned to it by people. Any definition you can think of came to existence this way. Eg milk is called milk because everyone calls it that. If someone said that white liquid is "fdsigobpgbs", there would be no way to persuade him it is not. Should it be milk only because the most people call it that? What about neologisms? Do they come to existence only because many people starts to use them? If so, what is the minimal number of people which have to use any new word for it to become a meaning in the language? I think there is no definition of the word reality which should be accepted by all the people. Everyone calls reality what they want to.
     
  16. TruthSeeker Fancy Virtual Reality Monkey Valued Senior Member

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    There's a difference between symbology and meaning. There are many collections of symbols (which we call "languages"). They are all correct. Semantics is just a little part of reality, though.
     
  17. AAF Registered Senior Member

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    TruthSeeker: "...How does the reality of your doubt make anything real?...".

    The reality of your doubt implies as a necessary consequence the reality
    of time, the reality of space, the reality of the law of identity, the reality
    of the law of contradiction, and the reality of the law of excluded middle.
    Otherwise, your doubt cannot be real and it would not work.


    TruthSeeker: "...How do you know? What if we have solipcism?
    What if the anatomy is the same, but the brains are used in different ways? It's like computers that have same hardware, but different softwares. Something that runs in a Microsoft may not run in a Machintosh
    ...".

    If their structure is the same, then their functions must be the same.
    As for 'solipcism', it is what the Cartesian argument is all about.


    TruthSeeker: "...Of perceived realities, yes. That doesn't prove that what we perceive to be outside is indeed what outside is".

    And doesn't mean it is not outside either.
    We have to check and re-check for that.
    That is what the Scientific Method is for.

    Did I make that clear?

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  18. AAF Registered Senior Member

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    Crunchy Cat: "Very nice. I might consider labeling them contradictions instead of disproof's (you can't prove a negative but can contradict a positive)...".

    But you can disprove it.
    Just prove (if you can) its opposite is true!

    Crunchy Cat: "...I get the just of this one, but unfortunately it is very incorrect and I know this from personal experience. I've had hallucinations whose content has not been the result of mixing real things".

    Can you describe those original 'hallucinations' of yours?

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  19. AAF Registered Senior Member

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    Well, 'blobs of thought energy' are more than
    fit to be given the grand title, which we call 'reality'.
     
  20. AAF Registered Senior Member

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    So far, you've refused to define 'objectivity & subjectivity'.
    Define them clearly and briefly!

    As for the normality or abnormality of the human senses, it
    is always judged, and correctly so, on the basis of what
    is typical And what is typical is what the vast majority
    of individuals (past & present) have.

    But in any case, it would be naive and misleading to look
    at those sensations of the senses as ultimate presentations of
    physical reality in itself. Because they are not!
    The output of the senses is the result of interaction
    between those senses and real objects. And the only
    function of those sensations is to be used as labels for
    important objects and as pre-language labeling systems.
    And so it is always possible, in principle, to have an
    infinite number of those labeling systems (physiological sensations)
    through interaction with the same objects (the same reality).

    Therefore, reality is based not on those 'physiological sensations'
    per se, but on their relations to each other. And that is
    why it's always correct to say the 'book of nature is written
    in mathematics
    ', i.e. clear, coherent, and self-consistent relations.

    O.K.?

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  21. Student of Yoga Registered Senior Member

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    Finally, someone begins to question reality. Think about it, everything we perceive is through our five senses; touch, sight, taste, hear, smell. We have to use an instrument to view reality and hence can not view reality itself. In order to view reality we need to restrict our senses and try and feel the truth itself. There is no right or wrong answer for this, it must be experienced as Lord Buddha did via meditation. Meditation is a great way to restrict the senses.
     
  22. TruthSeeker Fancy Virtual Reality Monkey Valued Senior Member

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    WHAT!?!?!? What the hell happened with the long-winded message I left here 5 hours ago!?!? Dammit!

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  23. TruthSeeker Fancy Virtual Reality Monkey Valued Senior Member

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    Let's try again... :bugeye:

    How do you know you are not imagining your doubt? I have doubted while dreaming. Does that make my dreams more real then what we call "reality"?


    They are not necessarily compatible. What is true to one is not necessarily true to the other. Maybe some of the functions must be the same, but certainly not all. Otherwise, they would be compatible. Same hardware does not imply same software.

    So what? No proof or disproff there...

    Sure
     

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