Reality is an illusion, but ...

[bkc]

...illusion is also reality.

Your an Idiot.

[I_Like_Traffic_Lights]

I love when people call other people idiots in a manner that proves themselves to be idiots.

On the matter of the topic at hand you really don't give me a lot to bite on. How do I respond? What exactly is it you're getting at, and why do you feel this way?

Are you referring to some sort of bhuddist "house on fire" illusionary world? Some cartian "real world" reality?

[bkc]

quote:Originally posted by I_Like_Traffic_Lights:

What exactly is it you're getting at, and why do you feel this way?

When scientists thoroughly investigate real phenomena, they aren't able to pin down reality, they just keep finding more questions. Why is that?

Is there any reason to think that they are going ever get to the end of their quest? Has any question ever been answered finally? Please give examples.

[I_Like_Traffic_Lights]

I suppose no question has really been fully answered. In practical purposes, however, you have to assume that the theory is correct as you question it further to the degree of a different theory.

Sounds silly but you kind of have to. I mean, you're using the internet. You're inside a building on the internet, right? You're putting a tremendous amount of faith into the unanswered questions of many things with the internet and the structure through physics of the building you're in.

[bkc]

quote:Originally posted by I_Like_Traffic_Lights:

In practical purposes, however,...

Yes, one does put a certain amount of faith in the illusion or reality, and I'm not saying I don't.

But here we're talking about absolute answers to the big questions. But then we want to use our temporal experience to answer these questions; questions that aren't temporal.

how about, 'reality is imagined when the imagination is realized.'

these are koans, btw. they are examples of intuitive logic, meaning that they do not appeal to our desire for resolution like traditional deductive logic, but instead to our sense of quandary. when so much of our education is focused on presenting the ultimate answers that will quell all further inquiry, our senses of wonder and awe atrophy. even to the point where we begin to feel uncomfortable holding even the most insignificant things in question.

what results is fear, confusion, denial, egotism, irrational arrogance, frustration, and anger. after all, there are only certain things that should be questioned - scientific/materialistic things, and mathematic/financial things. when we encounter anomolies/spiritual things, we instinctively try to fit them into a category of things already answered, because of our discomfort with our own ability to question - as if no one else has ever had to question the existence of exotic potentialities.

it is endemic to our postmodern cultural worldview; even the proper progress of curiousity has been answered.

[Fuck]

Nice post, Eil.

[---Beany---]

quote:Originally posted by Eil:

how about, 'reality is imagined when the imagination is realized.'

interesting

[I_Like_Traffic_Lights]

I did have a somewhat decent post on physics/scientific vs theological/spiritual questions and where they lead and to what purpose. It went into taking the centralized and making it marginilized, and vice versa. Then "deconstructing" that to some sort of free form thinking (yeah I borrowed some of what I was talking about, so what?)

But then my computer went insane and decided to tell me it didn't exist. The forum that is, it'd be kind of silly for my computer to tell me it doesn't exist.

This, in turn, has ramification to the topic at hand. One could speculate on the relevance of such ramifications, but it's there none-the-less. The point is "Reality" disagreed with itself, and pissed me off while doing so.

quote:Originally posted by madamwench:

I'm an Idiot.

I concur.

[bkc]

What happens if you answer a question and then question the answer, and then just keep doing that?

Answer the Question

Question the Answer

it depends on the degree of discomfort caused by the initial question.

quote:Originally posted by Fuck:

Nice post, Eil.

thanks, not to suck your dick or anything, but i appreciate that coming from you.

What I've enver understood is why people can't seem to grasp the idea that science has described. Once something can be experienced and repeated, it is thus real. This world that I am seeing with Totse and all of you is real to me as certain as I am. No matter whether this is the "true" world or not, that does not make this any less real. If what you experience is different, then that too is real but only for you.

Since most people, assuming they are not figments of someone's imagination, all describe reality relatively similarly, one would assume that sometime during the beginning of all that is all of mankind "decided" what reality was and thus all people experience it. How can this be proven? Most can be inferred except for the past. That guy has been a mean bugger to nail down.

uh.... HUH??

[LostCause]

Deep.

Cheers,

Lost

[evolove]

what's the sound of one hand clapping?

Oh it's so beautiful, everybody should see it, worth more than the greatest books and greatest movies that have ever been seen, you've all seen haven't you? Why didn't anybody tell me?

[ArmsMerchant]

Ah yass, the old switcheroo.

Seriously, we all know that many traditions hold that the visible world is mana, illusiion. I hear tell there is some obscure Tibetan buddhist sect which holds that the spiritual world is likewise mana, illusion.

To be perfectly honest, I think humans have pretty much proven that they are incapable of deciding what is real and what is not... but when large stones fall on their heads or they are involved in a large explosion of some sort - they all typically die. Now, maybe they didn't really die, maybe they weren't really born - or maybe the reality/illusion thing just doesn't make any sense to talk about in the first place. If reality is an illusion, then what?

Furthermore, SO WHAT?

If illusion is reality, then... great. Lets just call it reality and move on.

You could just say "Perception is Everything, reguardless..."

Reality is in fact virtual.

This thread is great.



Sometimes I think the answer is obvious. Sometimes I think there are people who have figured it out. Sometimes I think I have figured it out.

The worst thing one can do however, is think they have something figured out absolutely.

To Sempre Solipsist: if everything is an illusion, thinking something is real might make it real. Thus if we know it as an illusion it might just go away. Or, maybe we could all start flying and breathing underwater.

Hell, lets start believing we can fly right now just in case.



[This message has been edited by penjo0in (edited 10-25-2004).]

^we can fly... never seen an airplane? we can fly higher and faster than any other animal on earth.

do you think our ancestors took it for granted that man would one day fly? nearly all of them probably doubted it. it was the few who could imagine flight that made it possible.

You are of course correct we can fly in an airplane. What I hoped the reader would intuit is that we might not be held to the earth by anything but a belief in gravity(or just the fact that no one has ever risen into the sky unaided by known forces).

and my point was that it is not our beliefs in the things that are that limit us, it is our beliefs regarding the things that could be.

so since I can imagine being able to walk through walls, you believe that one day that might be accomplished?

in other words our imagination is our limit

yeah, i believe that one day we'll be able to walk through walls... from a quantum mechanics perspective, it's not impossible, although it might not be as simple as just walking through a wall... after all, we already imagine that our walls keep enemies out, hold up our roofs, and keep everything inside from, well, being outside.

the thing is, was that possible before i imagined it?(assuming im the first to imagine it, which im not but assume that anyway). does thinking it make it possible?

you're missing the point... if you can imagine it, why haven't you walked through a wall yet?

Granted my imagination has not allowed me to walk through walls.

Quantum theory says that by observing something one effects the outcome. When someone is inventing something really new, do they create the way it works, or was it there undiscovered?

This really reminds me of religion because either way cannot be proved. If it isnt there until someone goes looking how do you prove it wasnt there before, because its effects still existed perhaps, but as with religion that can be explained away with enough typing.

or it might be really easy to disprove my thought, meh

welcome to the tight rope upon which all dualistic entities tread... on the one side, total madness... on the other, overbearing mundanity.

and thus, the importance of balance.

ultimately, it is not all that important whether your imagination influences reality, or the other way around.

what's important is your approach to the unknown...

naivete

come again?

quote:Originally posted by madamwench:

Your an Idiot.

No, perhaps you're the idiot.

naivete, how one should approach the unknown

interesting point of view. it would be a very honest route.

but can naivete be a choice? and is it always favorable for one to enter naively into the unknown?

Someone said that it isnt growing old that slows down our ability to learn, but the aquisition of "known facts".

Holding a naive world view helps keep us open to everything, to continually be able to change our minds.