But there is no possible way for you to know that. I’m not trying to spout ideas about reincarnation here, I’m just saying that we know nothing about the world or how it functions. What if you didn’t start existing until about 3 seconds ago and all your memories are false memories implanted in your head. There would be no way for you to know. And one minute in the future, you will phase out of this existence and into a new one, where you are just being born, and guess what…you’re female. And maybe an alien too. Technically, it’s possible. Anything is.
nope. Not every imaginable scenario is actually “possible.”
I’ve definitely been alive longer than 3 seconds. I know it because i lived it, and i have no reason to doubt my senses *to that extent. Reality exists, or i wouldn’t be able to experience anything. This is all part of accepting who and what you are, and that we are indeed people, and that things are pretty much what they seem, until you start getting into “space between atoms,” which is virtually irrelevant to us, because knowing that truth doesn’t make a chair any less chair. It just means we better understand what the chair actually is.
I don’t know about that. You know it because you lived it? But you don’t know for sure that you lived it. There’s no way you can prove that you did. Reality exists, but this may not be it. I suppose you could say that “this” just being what it is creates it’s own reality. Either way it doesn’t matter to me. I’ll just keep going day by day, and whatever the hell happens, happens.
I don’t have to prove that reality exists. Most people can test it and see for themselves. I don’t experience the delusions that cause people to think it doesn’t, despite being directly connected to it through constant sensory information from various types of stimuli, including (but not limited to) actual objects and events.
“This” is indeed reality, regardless of our subjective interpretations of it. Enough people have attempted and successfully tested it, thoroughly enough to confirm, with sufficient rigor, that it is indeed real and actual, and that for the most part, people’s senses do tend to interpret it fairly accurately.
Reality exists despite us; we are merely part of it; even those who would prefer to believe this is all some “dream” or “hallucination” or “elaborate cosmic hoax.”
Anyone trying to say “this isn’t real” or “reality doesn’t exist,” is merely trying to stir up controversy, and typically relies on the “but you can’t prove it, and you don’t know what you yourself are actually experiencing,” the latter part of which is profoundly absurd… because anyone who can’t accept their own senses as accurate, and further discern between “real” and “not real,” truly has no place telling anyone else what they do or do not understand, feel, or experience.
Maybe i’m just “special,” and do actually experience The Reality, in a way that it is indeed quite certain, in many ways, and perhaps not everyone is capable of such things, due to some alternate configuration of their brains and/or CNS wiring.
Well, it can also depends on exactly what you consider “reality” to be. Your idea of it seems to be if you can see it and touch it, that makes it real. I guess this could be argued. Whether it’s reality or not, you still don’t know what the confines of this reality are, and what is or is not possible within it.
To me, the idea that someone can “attempt and successfully test” reality is laughable. You seem to feel that if the brain can process information about its surroundings, that means its surroundings must actually exist. I believe the brain is a very easy thing to fool.
They spend their lives testing the world we live in, trying to figure out how it functions. The “reality” of it, that’s for the philosophers to ponder. But I don’t believe there’s an actual solid way to test it.
But yes, I can see clevername’s point. Depending on your views on reality, it can be argued that since we experience it every day, that, in a sense, makes it undeniably “real”. My point still stands that you cannot possibly know the limits of this reality, simply through your personal experiences.
the brain can’t exist unless the surroundings both producing it and enabling its sustenance also exist.
The full extent of every knowable detail about reality is not necessary. It’s interesting, sometimes relevant, but rarely necessary.
Give me an example of something you can physically touch, feel, hold, see, and have any number of witnesses confirm… but isn’t real.
I can point to my desk and say “that is a desk; i can touch it, feel it, lean against it, and place items upon it, and it remains a desk. I still feel it if i close my eyes, and if i try to push or pull it, i feel the resistance resulting from its weight/mass.
The desk exists. Everyone else in the house has seen and felt the desk. Other people used this desk before i owned it.
There is no point in denying the existence of the desk, because i can test it. I’m using it /right now/.
I think we would be better served contemplating things that are a little more difficult. The desk clearly exists. There are more important and/or relevant questions we can ask, and more reasonable/justifiable places for our skepticism.
For thousands of years, people have been taught that a “god” exists. Yet, none of the tests i can apply to my desk, can achieve any evidence to suggest the existence of any “god.”
So, since nothing we can do, can find any evidence, we should most reasonably (if tentatively) assume that whatever “god” is claimed to be, it does not leave any discernible trace of its presence, in our observable reality. Which then makes you wonder: why do all these people claim to “experience” something that is not evidenced by any type of reasonable test upon observable existence? Why can’t any of them ever reproduce any of their alleged “experiences” when asked to show how an invisible and undetectable presence can be “known,” or even why it should be assumed to exist, when it has left no discernible trace of interacting with our environment?
I think I see your point – I think you are talking about perception. Yes, you are correct – perception of reality is subject to philosophical pondering.
The concept of reality itself though has no concern with observability, perception or even comprehensibility. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality
“the brain can’t exist unless the surroundings both producing it and enabling its sustenance also exist.”
Very true.
As I said, I can see your point. I rarely get into arguments on the internet that actually make me think, so thank you for that.
But, as much as this is going to annoy you that I keep repeating this, you still cannot prove the desk is not a deception, because you cannot prove that your experience of the desk is not a deception.
“The full extent of every knowable detail about reality is not necessary. It’s interesting, sometimes relevant, but rarely necessary.”
I didn’t say it was necessary. Still, you cannot possibly know the limits of this reality, simply through your personal experiences. You can guess through logical thinking, but you can’t know for sure.
As for the whole god thing, well, I think that’s easy enough to explain. Human nature, that’s all it goes back to.
People interested in ontology should read Being and Time by Martin Heidegger. He considers the common sense approach to philosophy like logic, presences, conscience and god to be erroneous.
I can know reality exists, and that i have a reasonably accurate interpretation of my self and my localized environment, without needing to know “everything about the limits of reality.”
The universe and all that can actually occur, is “the limits of reality.” Everything that cannot occur, is outside those limits. Some of those things we can know, and others we can’t.
It is what it is, and it is whatever it seems like it is, until it isn’t. That’s all there is to it really.
I think you’re right gillian. Sometimes I’m bad at explaining myself. Btw clevername, are you familiar with the brain in a vat argument? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on that.
“…are you familiar with the brain in a vat argument?”
Only superficially.
But like all other false-paradigm academia arguments, it’s not reality. It’s a thing people invented as an exercise.
For my brain to be currently existing in a vat, but fully connected to this entirely realistic experience, would require an unimaginable(!) amount and degree of extremely advanced technology (or even “magic”). It would have to be the ultimate “conspiracy” as well. If we had such technology (or rather, those controlling our vats), why would they use it for such blatantly absurd purposes? And who are “they?”
Also: if i’m The Solipsist… then how the hell did i put my own brain in such an unimaginably advanced “vat?” If i’m the only entity that exists, and all this is an elaborate illusion i created for myself, but my “self” doesn’t actually exist, and i am actually, instead, merely a brain in a vat i somehow created for myself, in order to make me believe i am alive… then why does so much stuff i despise continue happening? Why do i have any limits at all? Why can’t i literally know everything? If i’m the only thing that actually exists, then it would stand to reason that by simply being aware of myself, i would, by extension, “know everything.”
I think way too many people get caught up in trying to imagine that this life is something other than it obviously is, and some people are prone to delusional imaginings. Some people have trouble distinguishing between what is real and what is merely imagined. But i don’t. There are some obvious lines, barriers, distinctions… and i really don’t even have to think of them, to understand the difference between something that is “all in my head,” and “actually in reality.”
I tend to encounter quite a lot of people who have a problem with that; both for me, and for themselves. People seem to fight so hard to believe this life is anything other than what it seems… and that’s because life just sucks, just that much, for so many of us. And so they encounter the divider: believe it’s closer to what you wish, or accept the truth, as it is, and that it is not and will not be as you wish. I’m in the latter group, despite my wishing it were more like what i wish it would be.
20 comments
The only thing certain in life is that nothing is certain. Nothings changed in that regard. Great song.
Watch this:
I will never be born a woman. <– certainty
Not really certain. Technically, that’s still possible.
i was already born. That only happens once.
My genetics are already decided. There is no changing that.
Fake birth and surgical mutilation doesn’t count.
But there is no possible way for you to know that. I’m not trying to spout ideas about reincarnation here, I’m just saying that we know nothing about the world or how it functions. What if you didn’t start existing until about 3 seconds ago and all your memories are false memories implanted in your head. There would be no way for you to know. And one minute in the future, you will phase out of this existence and into a new one, where you are just being born, and guess what…you’re female. And maybe an alien too. Technically, it’s possible. Anything is.
nope. Not every imaginable scenario is actually “possible.”
I’ve definitely been alive longer than 3 seconds. I know it because i lived it, and i have no reason to doubt my senses *to that extent. Reality exists, or i wouldn’t be able to experience anything. This is all part of accepting who and what you are, and that we are indeed people, and that things are pretty much what they seem, until you start getting into “space between atoms,” which is virtually irrelevant to us, because knowing that truth doesn’t make a chair any less chair. It just means we better understand what the chair actually is.
I don’t know about that. You know it because you lived it? But you don’t know for sure that you lived it. There’s no way you can prove that you did. Reality exists, but this may not be it. I suppose you could say that “this” just being what it is creates it’s own reality. Either way it doesn’t matter to me. I’ll just keep going day by day, and whatever the hell happens, happens.
But yes, most likely the world is just as it appears. But you can’t rule out the possibility that it’s not.
I don’t have to prove that reality exists. Most people can test it and see for themselves. I don’t experience the delusions that cause people to think it doesn’t, despite being directly connected to it through constant sensory information from various types of stimuli, including (but not limited to) actual objects and events.
“This” is indeed reality, regardless of our subjective interpretations of it. Enough people have attempted and successfully tested it, thoroughly enough to confirm, with sufficient rigor, that it is indeed real and actual, and that for the most part, people’s senses do tend to interpret it fairly accurately.
Reality exists despite us; we are merely part of it; even those who would prefer to believe this is all some “dream” or “hallucination” or “elaborate cosmic hoax.”
Anyone trying to say “this isn’t real” or “reality doesn’t exist,” is merely trying to stir up controversy, and typically relies on the “but you can’t prove it, and you don’t know what you yourself are actually experiencing,” the latter part of which is profoundly absurd… because anyone who can’t accept their own senses as accurate, and further discern between “real” and “not real,” truly has no place telling anyone else what they do or do not understand, feel, or experience.
Maybe i’m just “special,” and do actually experience The Reality, in a way that it is indeed quite certain, in many ways, and perhaps not everyone is capable of such things, due to some alternate configuration of their brains and/or CNS wiring.
Well, it can also depends on exactly what you consider “reality” to be. Your idea of it seems to be if you can see it and touch it, that makes it real. I guess this could be argued. Whether it’s reality or not, you still don’t know what the confines of this reality are, and what is or is not possible within it.
To me, the idea that someone can “attempt and successfully test” reality is laughable. You seem to feel that if the brain can process information about its surroundings, that means its surroundings must actually exist. I believe the brain is a very easy thing to fool.
River, scientists spend their entire lives testing ‘reality’. Are you really willing to call all of them fools?
They spend their lives testing the world we live in, trying to figure out how it functions. The “reality” of it, that’s for the philosophers to ponder. But I don’t believe there’s an actual solid way to test it.
But yes, I can see clevername’s point. Depending on your views on reality, it can be argued that since we experience it every day, that, in a sense, makes it undeniably “real”. My point still stands that you cannot possibly know the limits of this reality, simply through your personal experiences.
the brain can’t exist unless the surroundings both producing it and enabling its sustenance also exist.
The full extent of every knowable detail about reality is not necessary. It’s interesting, sometimes relevant, but rarely necessary.
Give me an example of something you can physically touch, feel, hold, see, and have any number of witnesses confirm… but isn’t real.
I can point to my desk and say “that is a desk; i can touch it, feel it, lean against it, and place items upon it, and it remains a desk. I still feel it if i close my eyes, and if i try to push or pull it, i feel the resistance resulting from its weight/mass.
The desk exists. Everyone else in the house has seen and felt the desk. Other people used this desk before i owned it.
There is no point in denying the existence of the desk, because i can test it. I’m using it /right now/.
I think we would be better served contemplating things that are a little more difficult. The desk clearly exists. There are more important and/or relevant questions we can ask, and more reasonable/justifiable places for our skepticism.
For thousands of years, people have been taught that a “god” exists. Yet, none of the tests i can apply to my desk, can achieve any evidence to suggest the existence of any “god.”
So, since nothing we can do, can find any evidence, we should most reasonably (if tentatively) assume that whatever “god” is claimed to be, it does not leave any discernible trace of its presence, in our observable reality. Which then makes you wonder: why do all these people claim to “experience” something that is not evidenced by any type of reasonable test upon observable existence? Why can’t any of them ever reproduce any of their alleged “experiences” when asked to show how an invisible and undetectable presence can be “known,” or even why it should be assumed to exist, when it has left no discernible trace of interacting with our environment?
I think I see your point – I think you are talking about perception. Yes, you are correct – perception of reality is subject to philosophical pondering.
The concept of reality itself though has no concern with observability, perception or even comprehensibility. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality
“the brain can’t exist unless the surroundings both producing it and enabling its sustenance also exist.”
Very true.
As I said, I can see your point. I rarely get into arguments on the internet that actually make me think, so thank you for that.
But, as much as this is going to annoy you that I keep repeating this, you still cannot prove the desk is not a deception, because you cannot prove that your experience of the desk is not a deception.
“The full extent of every knowable detail about reality is not necessary. It’s interesting, sometimes relevant, but rarely necessary.”
I didn’t say it was necessary. Still, you cannot possibly know the limits of this reality, simply through your personal experiences. You can guess through logical thinking, but you can’t know for sure.
As for the whole god thing, well, I think that’s easy enough to explain. Human nature, that’s all it goes back to.
People interested in ontology should read Being and Time by Martin Heidegger. He considers the common sense approach to philosophy like logic, presences, conscience and god to be erroneous.
I can know reality exists, and that i have a reasonably accurate interpretation of my self and my localized environment, without needing to know “everything about the limits of reality.”
The universe and all that can actually occur, is “the limits of reality.” Everything that cannot occur, is outside those limits. Some of those things we can know, and others we can’t.
It is what it is, and it is whatever it seems like it is, until it isn’t. That’s all there is to it really.
I think you’re right gillian. Sometimes I’m bad at explaining myself. Btw clevername, are you familiar with the brain in a vat argument? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on that.
“…are you familiar with the brain in a vat argument?”
Only superficially.
But like all other false-paradigm academia arguments, it’s not reality. It’s a thing people invented as an exercise.
For my brain to be currently existing in a vat, but fully connected to this entirely realistic experience, would require an unimaginable(!) amount and degree of extremely advanced technology (or even “magic”). It would have to be the ultimate “conspiracy” as well. If we had such technology (or rather, those controlling our vats), why would they use it for such blatantly absurd purposes? And who are “they?”
Also: if i’m The Solipsist… then how the hell did i put my own brain in such an unimaginably advanced “vat?” If i’m the only entity that exists, and all this is an elaborate illusion i created for myself, but my “self” doesn’t actually exist, and i am actually, instead, merely a brain in a vat i somehow created for myself, in order to make me believe i am alive… then why does so much stuff i despise continue happening? Why do i have any limits at all? Why can’t i literally know everything? If i’m the only thing that actually exists, then it would stand to reason that by simply being aware of myself, i would, by extension, “know everything.”
I think way too many people get caught up in trying to imagine that this life is something other than it obviously is, and some people are prone to delusional imaginings. Some people have trouble distinguishing between what is real and what is merely imagined. But i don’t. There are some obvious lines, barriers, distinctions… and i really don’t even have to think of them, to understand the difference between something that is “all in my head,” and “actually in reality.”
I tend to encounter quite a lot of people who have a problem with that; both for me, and for themselves. People seem to fight so hard to believe this life is anything other than what it seems… and that’s because life just sucks, just that much, for so many of us. And so they encounter the divider: believe it’s closer to what you wish, or accept the truth, as it is, and that it is not and will not be as you wish. I’m in the latter group, despite my wishing it were more like what i wish it would be.