I have been thinking a lot lately about what is real and what is not (i.e. UFOS, Ghosts, Loch Ness Monster etcetc). Then I began t think about whether or not we are real.

I now have an idea that maybe we don't exist. Maybe we all exist in some dude's imagination....

For instance, I because I think I am thinking, am the central character, and everything else is cripted to relate to me in some way. There are enemies and there are friends....the sad thing is I can't disprove it . I can't take anyone's guarantee that they are sentient which is a real bitch.

Anyway comments?

I think someone has a little too many fish on the brain.

Pufferfish that is.

I take your reply as an example.
I can't prove (disprove) that you exist. Even if you protest your existene, you could still be scripted.

My brain hurts

You had better hope the Bilderbergs' never find out that you think YOU are the "central character" in the universe.

They'll be a little disgruntled.

The who?

People I really need help with this dilemma!
Is there anyone smart enough out there who can solve this puzzle for me???

whether or not anything is truely existant is irrelevent, you see my words on this screen so i am real to you. personally i am more or less a nihilist but that doesnt mean i cant give meaning to the seemingly maeningless random events and characters i experience.

if i might quote a famous man you may know: "i am who i am", you figure out the rest

'and thats all that i am'.....

Thanx for your input....
God I better figure this out before I go to university or the other students will thin Im mad.....

hehe

I'm me and if I wasn't me, then who would I be, for me, is the man I used to be. Now I am whatever you desire me to be.

i thogut of the same thing once
about how I am the central, and everything else in the world is just for my exsistance

watch the movie, Vanilla Sky. it has Tom cruise and Cameron Diaz in it
its about how people could make themselves live in dreams where they were the central and everyhting there was for their life and exsistance

watch it

Could you even be thinking this if you didn't exist?

Somewhere, somewhen you must exist. Whether it in for the brief 15 second dream of a god or on the Earth we call home, why does it matter?

You need more important things to ponder than whether you exist or not. There is no way you can ever answer it if you keep thinking the way you do. Do I exist? Yes. Do I not exist? Yes. Who is to say which is right? No one, not even "God".

You've got it all wrong.

I'm real. I'm sentient. You are placed in this world for my entertainment. How much are they paying you?

Im glad people decided to reply.
However, maybe you're not 'people' at all. Im gonna go visit the loony bin for a while, where other people dont exist as well........


The final irony in life is death....

*bump*

We cannot live in someone elses imagination, simply because the characters, and or people, and things in my imagination are not conscience. I know this for a a fact. Therefore you, being a character, in this hypothetical situation cannot be conscience in side someone elses imagination.
Another thing, our existence is a lot more complex then dreams, and consciousness, it's far far more complex. The very fact that you sir can comprehend your existence brings us to a paradox in this cycle. The second you understand, it becomes more complex. Do some drugs. DMT maybe, Salvia, then you may understand a little more. I've had some real insight on Salv.
There you have it.. but don't listen to me because this is completely scripted right? You self-centered bastard.

every reply so far tries to define a multifaceted reality in physical and human terms. there is almost surely more than the physical plane and more than this physical reality as we know it.

you cannot define a thing such as reality in human terms because they are part of reality. to be truely accurate you must define it in terms of something outside of reality. confused yet? you probably should be since no words can explain it, you have to see it for yourself.

try looking into some different definitions of reality such as brahman. also examine time as you know it. is there defintly a future and past? or are they simply figments of your imagination. looking into some other worldviews will help you gain insight in this question.

Red your a moron that just said you cant do this when u turned around and said u could Syphon is totally correct Every human being faces these questions to ones own importance and own reality in this place we call a world its only naturall just like we all dream a few times a year about faling from a cliff and waking up before impact its all naturall but if you want someone to really discuss this with you and the person has a considribal knowlege of what hes talking about even if he hasent bein licesend or has a degree in pshycology you should listin to art bell on the Am band and e-mail him here at artbell@mindspring.com and goto his site http://www.artbell.com and find his radio station in your area belive me hes a kick ass mother who lives in nevada wants pot to be leagal and does crazy stories on like loch ness big foot ufos and what he really rules in are ghosts but he does a lot of indepth shows to look in the human mind

I have listened to Art Bell since I was 10 (no joke). I'm 18 now, haven't listened to him in a while, but much of my liberal thought is do to him. I hope you know though half that shit is fake, and just for entertainment. Please don't attack me, I don't think you completely understood what I meant. I think Syphon is correct also, however, and I know this egocentric kind of philosophy is only natural in humans. But what I am trying to say is that egocentric philosophy is nothing compared to the philosophy of a greater consiousness. Not that egocentric thought isn't wrong or right. It makes sense psychologically, but I still think it is a dead end in the fact that ones someone deems themself God.. the search for the truth is over.

Hmm. First off, limpet, how do you know UFO's, ghosts aren't real?

A lack of personal experience of something is not a proof that it doesn't exist, it just means you have yet to experience it.

That being said, I'd define 'reality' as the common consentual agreed-upon MODEL of consciousness and existence.

I say model for the exact reason that syphon pointed out - our perceptions, senses, are the raw information we take in, then we file it, arrange it, place a little sprig of parsley next to it, and we have conclusions about our sensory data.

Our conclusions, then, are a creation of ours, NOT the raw stuff of experience itself, but what we've concluded about it.

Alan Watts said, "The map is not the territory; the menu is not the meal." Ponder that.

A part of something cannot percieve the whole something, so whatever it is we are part of - whatever it is your mind/consciousness/sentience is part of, you'll never really know. Not genuinely. Not in my opinion, anyways.

I prefer to see it like this: Reality is a game we have all agreed to play, for our own individual reasons. There are some game-players who play so well (or so poorly) that they've forgotten they're playing, and there are other game-players who are playing jsut to remind themselves that it's all a game.

Regardless of whether or not this is true or not (and here's the crucial part) - seeing existence as a game makes itfun.

But this isn't like Scrabble, or poker. It's not a zero-sum game. Not a win/lose dichotomy. It's more like a roleplaying game - you play to develop your persona, to further your experience, to learn, grow, and enjoy the game for the sake of playing.

It works for me, and provides an overall optimistic attitude towards most aspects of this game.

[This message has been edited by Nephilim_777 (edited 10-03-2002).]

we can't even come close to reality. we're bound by the limitations of our senses and our bodies. our senses are our only windows into reality, and they reveal precious little about it, because everything our senses record and transmit goes through so much processing that the experience of reality in our consciousness is only a vague representation, a collection of data skewed by opinion and conventional rationality, a pattern of electrochemical signals bouncing around in a pile of meat sitting in our heads. the only hope of "knowing" anything about the real universe is through truly objective, inorganic means, as our senses are such poor indicators. i put knowing in quotes because of the fact that the universe is not only stranger than one imagines, it is far stranger than one can imagine.

i forget who originally said that last quote, so i'm plagiarizing it. sue me.

quote:

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Originally posted by loyal_limpet:

I now have an idea that maybe we don't exist. Maybe we all exist in some dude's imagination....

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Solipsism. I've pretty much discounted that. If someone sneaks up behind you with a lead pipe and busts you in the head, your going to feel that pain and it's anything but imaginary.

someone say matrix

I know the truth. Will you ever know?

aside from the fact that we may or may not exist , we are still here (or maybe not). regarless of what is happening we still have influence (unless we do not exist) in this ream that we call reality (if that is what it is.).

The oracles of this reality (see above comments) are pinpoints of human conciounsess expanded and rising above the matrix (for a lack of any better term) of this reality. The oracles i speak of are the tarot, astrology, palmistry, as well as other forms of diviniation. diviniation in this sense is becoming one with the reality you are in and rise above the barriers imposed upon you.

Nobodys real, and they are willing to let you know, nobody's real and they feel it tonight. our time has only begun, let the new order of a new age begin, let there be peace and prosperity, fight the machine.

This is as stupid and time-wasting as trying to solve :
the statement below this is true
the statement below this is false

(yes i know, i got it off another thread from this bulletin board)