People experience hallucinations and believe what they are seeing is real.

So, what's to say that existence in its entirety isn't a hallucination caused by your imagination.

Is there any way to prove this is not so?

quote:Originally posted by ---Beany---:

...

Is there any way to prove this is not so?

No there isn't.

Our senses may be far from flawless but they are the only known connection to the things outside of our bodies. So not much choice here.

You should read meditations be Rene Descartes(sp?)

René Descartes was a rationalist. He believed we could never rely on our senses about knowledge of the external world.

David Hume, on the other hand, was an empiricist. He believed that our senses are the only way of acquiring knowledge about the external world.

Links:

René Descartes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes)

David Hume (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume)

you might as well trust your senses, cuz you don't have any other options. what are you gonna do? close your eyes and plug your ears and think deep thoughts? everything you know is based on what your senses have told you about the world, so you kinda have to trust them.

quote:Originally posted by bonkers:

René Descartes was a rationalist. He believed we could never rely on our senses about knowledge of the external world.

David Hume, on the other hand, was an empiricist. He believed that our senses are the only way of acquiring knowledge about the external world.

Links:

René Descartes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes)

David Hume (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume)

More importantly:

Descartes was a Dualist.

Hume was a Materialist.

The former: Self-exalting.

The latter: Rationalist.

The belief that that existence in its entirety is a hallucination caused by your imagination is pretty much idealism - everything is just ideas in your head and you can't prove that anything exists for certain based on ideas in your head...it pretty much leads to solipsism.

What are we talking about here, solipsism? Then I'm really talking to myself aren't I...

Well my existance is just an idea in your head given to you by your senses

Niiiice, Daz! ^

um, why don't you try hallucinating

I suggest DMT

quote:Originally posted by ---Beany---:

Is there any way to prove this is not so?

More effectively, is there any way to prove that it is so?

We don't assume assertions are true unless they can be shown to be.

Start off with "everything is false" and base your reality around that which can be shown to be real.

That theory adds an extra, unecessary factor to the rest of reality that fails to explain anything. So, occam's razor dictates it should be discarded.

Solipsism is for nutcases