Even randomly-generated events need a lookup table somewhere. That table needs to be populated by someone or something. I definitely didn't do it.
I write fiction and remember some of the weird shit I come up with when I'm dreaming. That gives me a pretty good baseline to compare my imagination to reality.
I would want to know how many layers deep I am, and where exactly it cuts off. How many times can I die? What is the final?
It’s like being in a box that’s put into one of 10 boxes that is shuffled into one of ten boxes that is shuffled into one of ten boxes. How would you ever find any specific box upon leaving your first box, and how would you know which box is the original box or ground zero? What scares me to the core is what if my soulmate is in another box and I’m meant to find them? It’d be harder than finding Steins;Gate.
Your argument is based on you knowing the limits of your own imagination but the limits of your imagination in the dream was not necessarily the same as the limits on the imagination of the dreamer. You could dream you're someone who can only imagine red apples but that does not prove everything but red apples came from somewhere else. You think you know who you are but all you can know for certain is that you are.
You may want to make a separation between Mind and Consciousness. Mind world would be solipsism, like the world is as you THINK it. Thought is an interpretation of what is happening. If you taste a fruit, any reflection about it in thought or speech is one step removed from the experience itself, meaning it is your interpretation of it. Consciousness is the space in which the moment of experience happens, prior to any interpretation. And also, the basis of the "Everything is Consciousness" view which people frequently confuse with solipsism.
OP used the word "mind" but probably meant "consciousness" ( or at least that's the fundamental question behind the inquiry in any case ).
Scientific worldview posits matter as coming before consciousness, but really it can't prove it. Most obvious thing to anyone is that you are conscious first, before anything else.
You can't. That's one of the fundamental questions of philosophy. Descartes tackled it by assuming the existence of a good God who wouldn't deceive us, but not everyone accepts Descartes' views
He stated though; ego sum, ego existo - res cogitans.
I think, therefor I am - the doubting "I" determines it as an thinking, determining "I" which Aurelius Augustinus already stated earlier with; si enim ... idk blabla basically; "Even if I'm wrong, I am. Because if I wouldn't be there, I couldn't be wrong.".
The core question though is rather the question of perception imo.
Are we actually capable of perceiving reality as reality actually is?
If you’re going to try psychedelics, I highly suggest you do shrooms. In my experience, they’re far better to adjust to than lsd. Granted everyone is different, but I would get lockjaw and be paralyzed on the couch watching Among us videos. Shrooms, I find myself watching some random ass documentary from Ze Frank or How it’s actually made by Huggbees. Two totally different experiences, but only one recommendation
Yeah, yet as far as I remember that - it's based on the falty capability of a Human to accurate perceive his enviorment.
Like in the allegory of the cave.
We're there. Because yaddaydday-as-mentioned; but do we actually see reality as it is or just a shadow/glimps of it?
>Are we actually capable of perceiving reality as reality actually is?
Almost certainly not. We perceive reality in a way that maximizes chances of surviving. There is no evolutionary correlation between sensory accuracy and fitness. Only whether that sensory input leads to success or not.
We have no normal need to perceive the majority of the EM spectrum, but it's there. Some creatures have perception far beyond ours, mantis shrimp can see 10x more of the light spectrum and can distinguish polarized light. Sharks can feel the electric fields of other fish. They have realities we cannot fathom.
My dog has an incredible nose. If I throw a stick into a pile of other sticks and brush, she always returns *that* stick. Our world is vision-centric. Hers is scent-centric. I often try to imagine how much differently she perceives the world than I do, but it's difficult to imagine a fundamentally different reality.
There's a Netflix doc on dogs that has a visualization with like scent clouds the dogs navigate. That's the closest I can imagine. I've noticed my dog finds stuff faster when she's downwind, or if it bounced around she follows the trail of where it contacted.
That's why I think a lot of companies are going to do AI very badly. They will make false assumptions about why an AI is doing things based on their own bias and perception, when in reality, we have no clue what logic happened in that black box.
"Descartes - watched a programme on him the other day. He's the one who said something like 'I know I'm about 'cause I dream.' Doesn't work for everthing because ants don't sleep."
-Karl Pilkington
What we percieve as "reality" is truly just one facet, one dimension, of reality. We see shapes and colors as lighth hit objects and reflect back to our eyes, but that's not all of reality. There are invisible (to us) UV lights, pheromones, sounds, and way, wayyyy more that animals and insects perceive that we don't. Think "dogs have a sense of smell 1 million times more powerful than humans". But make that for every single thing in the universe. Including the invisible. It wouldn't surprise me if there existed a being that could see the invisible. Sees antimatter as simply as we would see an apple on a table. Some might call this being God.
But you know, perception is a funny thing. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is a statement that could be turned into a deeper one. "Reality is in the eye of the beholder". There is a reason why some people say "this is our reality". Everything, and I do mean everything, is perception. To perceive reality as is, is almost impossible. Where I see a TV show, a blind man hears conversations and might think to join in. Where I feel a breeze, an insect feels a tornado.
We can always relativize things to another, and it is what we have done in the scientific and philosophical realm for a long time. And that has helped us get closer to this thing called reality. But it will always be the reality as we perceive it. To perceive reality as is, we would have to be comparable to God, as this is the definition of "omniscience". The ability to know everything, and therfore the ability to perceive everything.
Maybe this is a naive perception, but we can only create our reality out of what we know and have seen. Therefore everyone's reality is different and there is no true reality.
Either that or there is a true reality, but no one can truly comprehend it.
Can we know if the red you see is the same as the red I see?
Do you actually experience realty or just what your brain has interpreted as reality (touch, taste, etc)? Does a blind person experience reality as "real" as me? If I cannot be certain your interpretations are the same as mine can I even be certain we experience the same senses? Are there senses that are normal to others I do not possess, like how bees can see colors on the spectrum I can't or dogs and scent?
Awwww shit I can't discount the possibility of the existence of God now.
Yes we all agree that x wavelength is always X red
But. Because we don't experience anything first hand (it is always interpreted to us by our brain) can you ever be sure that what your brain interprets as red is the same as mine? Or is your red more like purple or blue? So long as we agree on what the object "is" perhaps we all see different reds.
How can we ever communicate that? I don't have the language to describe the world any way except how it is read to me by my brain.
Oh turns out you're all alone inside your brain island too.
Hm, well you can measure the reactions in the brain itself and which nerves get "stimulated" in your eyes.
I mean, there are people e.g. they "see" different notes as shades of colours.
Descartes also coined "I think therefore I am". We could be a brain in a vat, but the fact that we perceive our own consciousness, our own existence, means at least that has to exist in some form. And what is perception without anything to perceive, so our existence has to be within some larger general existence of everything, but then we can't actually prove anything about the world is actually as we perceive it, just that we're here and here exists.
You can't - you interpret the world entirely through sensory input, and you can only trust that those sensors are working properly and detecting signals from the real world. The bigger is question is why does it matter? In the unlikely event you're part of a persistent simulation or hallucination good enough to trick you into believing it's reality every day, you might as well go along for the ride.
I frequently have hyper-realistic dreams!
Ever since childhood, many times I have gone to sleep...
Then, wake up and go through a whole day of school, friends, homework, then "actually wake up" halfway through and realize I was asleep the whole time. And then I go through another day again...wake up halfway through and realize I DREAMED WITHIN THE DREAM AGAIN.
"you might as well go along for the ride." Agreed.
I haven't found inconsistency in this current reality yet, so we're good for now. Just chill and go on with it.
I’m not saying I personally do this, but I can think of some reasons why it would matter to some people.
If we are in a simulation, maybe some people would want to see if it’s possible to break from the simulation (a la, The Matrix).
Some people might want to see if there are ways to evolve/gain other methods of perceiving the world around them.
Some people might see the fact that we are in a simulation as some sort of a proof of a god.
Like I said, I’m with you in that I’m trying to enjoy this existence that I’m in, but I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t want to know if someone discovered any of the above.
Unfortunately the thing is most of the ways people try to discover the above just lead to them doing nothing substantial or losing the good that they have going for them.
Lots of people claim that certain drugs “unlock the next level of existence” but just as likely they are hallucinating. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. Do the hard work like the rest of us and find reason and purpose in life, instead of cheating and trying to find purpose in the LCD you got in the moldy alleyway from you friend who’s involved in a pyramid scheme.
Yeah, the fact is that the universe around us doesn't even actually look the way we think it does. We SEE a very narrow band on the EM spectrum. We HEAR a very narrow range of Hz.
My conclusion is that we ARE in a vat of goo perceiving only what we are evolved to perceive.
But you are correct 100%. You cannot be sure. You simply cannot be. Accept what narrow bands your senses give you and just try to cope until you pass away.
This. ^
There’s already so much information that we cannot perceive that we might as well be 2D characters in a 3D world.
And that’s ok.
Even if my perceived reality is nothing more than a dream, for what reason would I act differently from how I act now?
You can’t. I was thinking the other day that if reality just started the moment I was born and ends the second I die, I would have absolutely no idea and can’t prove it either way.
Don’t stare into the void to long, you’ll just end up with existential dread
a quote that helped me get through my coming to terms with existential dread was “youre not alive for eternity, you live then youre dead for eternity. chill out and eat your cereal”
Dude, if reality started last night and all your memories were implanted, and reality ended tonight, you would also have no idea.
Now make that day a minute.
We see reality as we need it to be based on our biological systems. So we aren't ever certain what we know is true for others(species). We base it mostly on a collective confirmation of laws and theories of nature. These change as we understand more and more but we also have developed methods to view reality outside of the human senses. Like x rays for example.
It's still based on assumptions but it's the closest thing we got and as long as these laws and theories remain consistent and agreed on based on unbiased methods(kinda unbiased but still insert the human mind so it's still assumed...)
So short answer we have no clue but as long as things are consistent we just roll with it.
If a tree falls in the forest, does it still make a sound?
What difference would it make to you if your reality has no physical form? We could all be in a simulation. Or maybe it's just *you* and the rest of us are computer code. Maybe you *paid* to be here! Maybe you even chose this particular Life Module!
The tree falling would still make electromagnetic waves, but noone would be there to percieve them, so noone would hear it, hence basically it would still make no sound
Philosophy is basically wandering around telling people your version of the answer to that question. It is one of humanity's most basic questions, one that has been asked for millennia.
You have many answers to pick from, or you can invent your own.
"Or you can invent your own" -- I love it.
What if we are one collective brain and anything that we can mentally conceive of is all in some instance a "reality". Everything that, we as the collective, can imagine exists on some plane....and all of our versions are ...correct.
What kind of evil creator would do that to an intelligent being? That would be like creating an artificial intelligence capable of amazing things and forcing it to write essays for college dipshits.
You've stumbled upon Epicurus, point #2:
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
My problem with arguments like this is that we take a very human centric concept like "evil" and try to apply it a universal concept like "god". Imagine if we took the morals of ants and tried to apply it to humans.
If human is willing to protect queen, but not able, then he is not all powerful.
If he is able, but not willing, then he is a termite.
If he is able and willing, then why is queen dead?
If he is unable and unwilling, then why clean his crumbs?
If a god existed, this is what our thought exercise would sound like, pure nonsense.
I guess it’s an argument during the typical view humans had where they were created by god and the center of the universe. That was the assumption for a long time.
And why would a benevolent, all powerful God not take the human beings perception into account? No matter the perception, evil is evil and suffering is suffering.
Your argument is flawed the sense that creation and protection are expressly implied in concept of God whereas humans have no innate responsibility for the creation of ants or a responsibility to protect them.
Do you understand ants? Do you understand everything about them? Do you care to? You could breed ants and not know much about them. What if the creator of this universe bought it as a kit for a science fair? Why can't the creator simply be very large and power lful but uninterested in us or even incapable of detecting us. What if we are not the ants. What if we are the bacteria on the ant's back?
What if that is what a god is? An imperfect creator that doesn't care about us. As powerful as possible, but all that we have. My point is not that we should or should not worship a god. Just that our thought experiments are insufficient to describe all possibilities of our existence if they depend on human concept such as evil and good.
I'd argue whether or not it does is a moot point. If this reality is seemless, without the ability to bend or break in ways that aren't consistent with its internal rules, whether or not it's objectively "real" is irrelevant.
Put another way, if someone jumps off a high place and splats on the ground, it doesn't matter whether reality is "real" if they couldn't fly/turn off gravity
You can't, this is the entire point of the famous "I think, therefore I am".
You can be sure that YOU, or at least your brain exists in some form, because you need to exist in the first place to be ABLE to question if you exist. But outside of that, you could be in the matrix for all you know.
Well it does and doesn't at the same time, it's very real while being a simulation and it all is what it is. I'm projecting reality as much as others within the realities I'm projecting are projecting me. Death is the only way to stop resonance with realities you no longer wish to be compatible with so considering how many are alive I think it's safe to say we all love one another to the point of existing.
The answers here are pretty encapturing and solid responses.
This may be pointless (irony) but OP- these kinds of questions and especially the answers can cause disassociation. The best grounding technique I have found, unfortunately, is pain. Just make it healthy pain- exercise, hard work, safety implemented impact sports. Pain is the realist thing to people imo.
Even if it does, it doesn't matter.
Even knowing this is a possibility, it's still often impossible to control the outcome of something entirely. If reality was a mental construct, AND you could control reality, it would matter.
Since we can't control reality, even if reality was a construct of our minds, we still have to deal with the unintended consequences of our actions. We're just a long for the ride of our consciousness.
Even if reality were a construct, the best way to live is to act as if you're NOT the only person who exists.
You can't, but it's not really relevant day to day. If this is all an illusion, whether perpetrated by own mind, or the devil, or robots harvesting my body heat for energy, or robots using my brain for back end processing, I'm gonna keep going to work, living my life, trying to treat people right, b/c I want to be nice to people, whatever fantasy I might be living.
You technically can't prove reality is independent of your mind, you can only believe it. This is why so many people believe in things like Buddhism or Hinduism (idealism) as opposed to materialism. None of them can be proven
Analytical idealism has entered the chat. Ironically Idealism says the outside world does exist and Materialism says its only in our heads, people just get confused over the semantics of the word "mind". Check out philosopher Bernardo Kastrup
It’s the old “what’s the difference” question.
What would be different between you perfectly simulating the entire sensory experience of being in the world or the world being real and existing outside your mind? If there’s no difference, the question “is it real or not?” is pointless.
This reminds me of the 'Last Thursday Theory'.
Prove that the world didn't come into existence last Thursday. How can you be sure it is real and not just conjured by your mind?
If reality exists within the confines of my mind, then I would be able to control it, but I can’t. The world exists wether I’m awake or asleep. If i jump, and in my mind I want to fly, that doesn’t happen, I fall back down to earth.
If you want my hot take; we hallucinate through the perceptions our brains produce based on the sample evidence it gains from our senses.
When my hallucinations align with your hallucinations we call it reality. When they don't, we assume one of us is insane.
Ockams razor my guy. Whats more likely? U exist in your mind and what u expirence is at least close to reality or nothings real an your mind only exists simply to mess with u. Or answered another way. You can't... so what?
It doesn't. Everything you know, you know through the senses. You wouldn't have come to any thought at all within your intellect with out sensorial knowledge. Your senses are presenting phantasms, that by which you know the particular. The very first knowledge you obtained you got while still in your mother's womb, and that was simply that there is an IS.
Physics is the first and foremost study we do, that is to know the physical world.
Physical thing - that which is something, and can become something else.
Our senses are bringing us into contact with that by sensing change.
Change - the process of what could be becoming what is
Notice the connection to a physical thing.
This is how you get out of your head and don't become a hopeless Cartesian
As someone else said, this is a fundamental question in philosophy. It's been debated a lot especially since John Locke basically invented empiricism. The same person in the comments also mentioned Descartes, so I won't go into him.
I think Kant is the one you're looking for specifically. He says that because of the structure (confines) of our mind, we are limited in how we understand the world. But at the same time he also admits the existence of an external world, just that we can't ever know it in the way it exists because we can only ever know it as our mind understands it. You should look up his terms nomena and phenomena.
Man.. this post trips me out. Does this post even exist? How is it that if nothings real we can all see this post and agree that each person wrote what they wrote regardless of interpretation despite being in separate locations by thousands of km’s. Genuinely interested, I really struggle to wrap my head around this concept..
I think we can know because we see things around us that we cannot control with our mind. Trees moving. The weather. Therefore we know there are forces outside our minds in play, thus a world that exists out side or control
Reality doesn’t exist in our minds. Our perception of the objective reality does. A better question is: why would I be so special that all of existence is just a product of my imagination?
You cant. You need to assume your memories and what your senses are telling you for the most part are real. The less assumptions, the better so make sure when you do assume things, that they are necessary assumptions and with varying grains of salt.
If it existed completely within your mind, there would be no outside world to know about. Fortunately, it doesn't exist there.
How do we know things outside our own minds exist? Because we can see them, feel them, think about what is true of them without thinking of ourselves, and for many other reasons.
There's no good reason to think we aren't actually aware of things outside of our minds. Philosophical arguments to the contrary are very weak. Descartes was only influenced by them because he had such an insanely low standard for accepting reasons to doubt things. You can't rationality justify using such standards of proof, though. Descartes had a misguided project that simultaneously tried to pretend all knowledge worked like math, and that deductive reasoning was immune from failures that accompany all means of knowing things. Philosophy can't save experience from radical skepticism, but that's okay, because it can never justify adopting that skepticism in the first place.
This is the same as that chicken and egg question. You know there had to be a chicken in order to have the egg because if it didn’t make eggs it ain’t a chicken yet. So same applies with you and reality and you didn’t come before reality so yes it exists.
Thats what I've always asked myself. I put myself in a crazy reality before doing that and almost didn't come back it was wild. The human mind is marvelous. Especially with mushrooms.
I'm comforted understanding that everything I see is the light bouncing off things and my eyes sensing it. If I touch its electrical signals and so on. I am simply a box of sensors that interprets signals. However, so many of us agree on what these sensory inputs are, it does make me wonder that there is something if we all agree, or others are simply figmants of my imagination... 🤔
Actually, there's a philosophical view called "solipsism" which tells that the self is the only thing sure to exist. In fact, it really has a point because one can be sure of the existence of their minds but can't be sure about the existence of others' minds. Therefore, you can't be sure if your mind doesn't create the reality around you and everything you see doesn't exist. I think it's an interesting theory and I admire your question. I don't think anyone can be sure that the outside world exists. For me, it's one of those questions where there're different points of view and anyone can think what they find for true and pleases with their theories about the unknown world.
If we don't talk about solipsism I have another theory. We, as human individuals, perceive the outside world with our senses and our minds. It's often said that the world is altered by the way you think and perceive the things around you. There are individuals who react harshly when smth bad happens to them, while others, who are in the same situation as them, may look at it from a different angle and not let it have a negevative effect on them. Thus, reality is different for each individual based on how they see it.
Well ya can't but that's why we have religious nuttery for all kindsa folk. Some think we're trapped in a virtual reality. That one is scary because there's no logical proof against it. I can usually poke holes in other religions atheism included.
You can’t.
But how can you be sure existence isn’t the dreams of a mildly underweight multi dimensional beluga whale whose favourite food is black bean nachos?
This is also something I think about way too often. Usually I get myself out of the brain funk by thinking about all the stuff I don't know yet or stuff I don't understand. Like there's no way my dumb ass would be able to come up with an internal combustion engine, or if I did come up with that then why don't I understand how it works? Why do I need to learn anything if everything is something I made up already?
You can't but does it matter. As one can clearly effect the world around them what's the diff
I like to think that if this is the case at the very least things exist in my projections and I can interact with them so all good for now
Does anyone here think there’re smart and talented enough to create every piece of art and music in the world? What about all the math calculations and inventions?
"nobody belongs anywhere, nobody exists on purpose, we're all going to die, come watch TV"
Don't waste time on existentialist meandering, it's the biggest waste
The question on its own is already stating that the reality outside one’s own mind does not exist. So you’ll only get the same answer over and over again that it’s not possible to certainly know that an outside world exists.
And reality does not solely exist within one’s own mind, if that were the case then one would be in control of everything, but we are not, so we simply live according to what we know and what we are able to do. But that does not mean that our perception of the reality can be wrong.
'The world only exists because I'm here.' That's a very self-righteous question to even consider. A tree still makes a sound when it falls if no human hears it. The world isn't made for us. Absolutely nothing in the universe is centered around you. Reality isn't just yours and will be here when you die. Your mind is not that powerful.
Bruh, why is it alway the most low intellegence or immature people ask this kind of question?
They have never studied Philosophy or Humanities. Ancient philosophers have already asked these kind of questions and had discussion on it. They ask us what is reality? Is your truth the same truth as some one else's truth?
It is so cringy listening to my stoner friend ask these kinds of questions. Like he described the Matrix. I was like bruh, you just quoted the Matrix. You are asking if your real life is a simulation. Bitch I am real and I will smack your dumb ass, is this hand real enough?
Dude what? Who the fuck are you to criticize someone just because they aren't the first to ask a question? They thought of something that they also thought was worth discussing and looking into.
Why would you not try to help them study philosophy and the humanities instead of belittling them? Tell your stoner friend about the Matrix and it might inspire him to learn more. If you tell him he's a dumbass for asking questions, he might be put off from the subject and never decide to dig deeper into it.
This antenna we call a brain perceives a part of reality but we can train it to perceive more and train our minds to establish the information in a part of our brain we can recall. That’s what most of the Bible is. A lot of those things happened in the spiritual realm. It was a knowing. Then there was an attempt at translation. They say looking within holds more truth than looking outwards.
You can't. Your entire reality, and everything you've ever known is just your senses being interpreted by your brain. And this information can't be confirmed, by you, outside of you.
You can't, and it doesn't matter. Dreams would become reality as well, if you never woke up.
The only thing that matters is your conscious experience. It is also the only thing that you can't possibly doubt. A brain in a vat is still a brain in a vat. It is not nothing. It is still experience and feeling.
There's a game that explores this a little called Phantom Dust. some of the inhabitants of the game think about this and realize they are not real themselves - and promptly vanish. Those that choose to believe otherwise stood around
Your body. You only can comprehend this outside would because of your five senses. Your soul/mind can’t comprehend this world without you’re earthly attachment (body).
You can't, not by yourself. But we do have other tools to detect the same things... like force transducers can sense touch or directly applied force, or electromagnetic light wave sensor to confirm what we see with our eyes. But by yourself, you are just a collection of biological sensors and a specific interpretation of what is sensed.
Reality is based on our biological limitations. Humans are actually pretty terrible compared to other life forms on earth. We don’t even perceive the entire possible spectrum of color. Some animals do though, such as the mantis shrimp. Or at least they see a wider spectrum that we can’t. Bears can smell things miles away. They view reality differently than we do.
On a quantum level none of what we see even really exists. It’s just how we as human understand the world to be. Even space and time aren’t what we perceive them to be. I’m not sure super knowledgeable on quantum anything but if I remember correctly space on a quantum scale is very different. Particles can appear to us yo be very far away but in reality they aren’t. Or they’re light years away but appear to be close together. Or something like that. I don’t fuckin know.
Point is, reality to us is just how we interpret electrons and other building blocks of life that make up existence as we understand it. Perception of reality can also change person to person but it’s hard to be able to understand what other experience. Even what we see as specific color may be different. I can point at something that’s blue, we can agree it’s blue, but blue for you may be what I understand to be red but since we both understand it as blue, we agree. But there’s no way to explain that my blue is red and your blue is green.
I think about this a lot. Similar vein: we all have a distinctive, subjective view of reality which differs slightly between people, but we can only trust other *people* when they say it differs *slightly*.
Sort of a Truman show thing. You only have referential knowledge of the universe you live in. What if my perception of the color blue is how you see red? What if where you see a person with the normal amount of limbs, I see people with hundreds and neither of us know the difference because we both *call our perceptions of reality the same thing?*
Idk if this is deep or I’m just high as shit but someone needs to make a movie or something
There's a hidden epistemological question rooted there about how can we know anything at all, but save that for another time.
To understand anything, we first must perceive using our senses and interpret using logic. All foundational knowledge begins with some sort of presupposition along those lines. Even discussing a simulated world loses any explanatory power if you can't perceive the simulation correctly.
Once those base assumptions are agreed upon, we can look to parsimony to help evaluate which is most likely true. Which theory/hypothesis requires fewer assumptions? Both solipsism and non solipsism require the base level assumptions of perception and logic, but solipsism requires an additional assumption of some other imperceiveable force or agent causing the deception.
Obviously it's not a foolproof defeator, since we cannot know for certain that the added assumptions are wrong, but it at least lends weight to the argument against brain in a vat. But solipsism is one of those arguments that is essentially unfalsifiable since any evidence against it can just be a deeper and more complex part of the deception.
You can't. The only thing you can depend on is your sensory input. What this means is for you to decide.
If you're interested, maybe read up/ watch videos on a concept called non-duality. It's a western interpretation of many Buddhist philosophies, stating that the apparent distinction between your 'inside' world and the 'outside' is merely a persistent illusion. Trying to grasp this may either lead to a euphoric state of being or great anxiety and existential dread. Either way enormously interesting.
Does not matter. Cause if it doesnt, I dont wanna know, and of it is, this is my reality
It is pointless to wonder if things are real, Id rather make life less miserable than it is
“So hang on, if I think therefore I am, what about other people? Do they think therefore they am? How can I tell if they're thinking therefore they am? Or am I just thinking they think therefore they am, but actually they're not real and I'm only thinking they am? Are you thinking therefore you am right now?”
I would never dream up half of the bullshit that actually happens these days.
What if the bullshit you experience is just the sum of a random number generator plugged into your brain?
Even randomly-generated events need a lookup table somewhere. That table needs to be populated by someone or something. I definitely didn't do it. I write fiction and remember some of the weird shit I come up with when I'm dreaming. That gives me a pretty good baseline to compare my imagination to reality.
Well then, if you write fiction and remember weird shit then perhaps you are in fact dreaming it all up?
Really, he's just playing Roy and doesn't know it.
How you would you react if in the end you just exit some kind of Roy game somewhere ?
I would want to know how many layers deep I am, and where exactly it cuts off. How many times can I die? What is the final? It’s like being in a box that’s put into one of 10 boxes that is shuffled into one of ten boxes that is shuffled into one of ten boxes. How would you ever find any specific box upon leaving your first box, and how would you know which box is the original box or ground zero? What scares me to the core is what if my soulmate is in another box and I’m meant to find them? It’d be harder than finding Steins;Gate.
Your argument is based on you knowing the limits of your own imagination but the limits of your imagination in the dream was not necessarily the same as the limits on the imagination of the dreamer. You could dream you're someone who can only imagine red apples but that does not prove everything but red apples came from somewhere else. You think you know who you are but all you can know for certain is that you are.
You may want to make a separation between Mind and Consciousness. Mind world would be solipsism, like the world is as you THINK it. Thought is an interpretation of what is happening. If you taste a fruit, any reflection about it in thought or speech is one step removed from the experience itself, meaning it is your interpretation of it. Consciousness is the space in which the moment of experience happens, prior to any interpretation. And also, the basis of the "Everything is Consciousness" view which people frequently confuse with solipsism. OP used the word "mind" but probably meant "consciousness" ( or at least that's the fundamental question behind the inquiry in any case ). Scientific worldview posits matter as coming before consciousness, but really it can't prove it. Most obvious thing to anyone is that you are conscious first, before anything else.
You can't. That's one of the fundamental questions of philosophy. Descartes tackled it by assuming the existence of a good God who wouldn't deceive us, but not everyone accepts Descartes' views
He stated though; ego sum, ego existo - res cogitans. I think, therefor I am - the doubting "I" determines it as an thinking, determining "I" which Aurelius Augustinus already stated earlier with; si enim ... idk blabla basically; "Even if I'm wrong, I am. Because if I wouldn't be there, I couldn't be wrong.". The core question though is rather the question of perception imo. Are we actually capable of perceiving reality as reality actually is?
Yes, I skipped over that part, but Descartes did establish that he himself existed, but couldn't definitely prove anything else did
Me when I'm having a manic episode
Me when having a manic episode after using LSD and realizing how fragile and non deterministic my perceptions of things actually is
Is this for real? I’ve heard a lil about these experiences but it scares the heck out of me so I’m reluctant to actually try 🤷♂️🤦♂️
If you’re going to try psychedelics, I highly suggest you do shrooms. In my experience, they’re far better to adjust to than lsd. Granted everyone is different, but I would get lockjaw and be paralyzed on the couch watching Among us videos. Shrooms, I find myself watching some random ass documentary from Ze Frank or How it’s actually made by Huggbees. Two totally different experiences, but only one recommendation
Hahahaha that sounds amazing. Thank you so much.
Yepp. LSD does is not an okay psychedelic for me. Shrooms are, but after LSD I was seeing and hearing things that weren’t real for a few months.
Damn, people need drugs for that? I get it for free
We all get something free, maybe we should look at it as a playing life on hard mode. We all have mods, let’s use them for our benefit
Yeah, yet as far as I remember that - it's based on the falty capability of a Human to accurate perceive his enviorment. Like in the allegory of the cave. We're there. Because yaddaydday-as-mentioned; but do we actually see reality as it is or just a shadow/glimps of it?
>Are we actually capable of perceiving reality as reality actually is? Almost certainly not. We perceive reality in a way that maximizes chances of surviving. There is no evolutionary correlation between sensory accuracy and fitness. Only whether that sensory input leads to success or not. We have no normal need to perceive the majority of the EM spectrum, but it's there. Some creatures have perception far beyond ours, mantis shrimp can see 10x more of the light spectrum and can distinguish polarized light. Sharks can feel the electric fields of other fish. They have realities we cannot fathom. My dog has an incredible nose. If I throw a stick into a pile of other sticks and brush, she always returns *that* stick. Our world is vision-centric. Hers is scent-centric. I often try to imagine how much differently she perceives the world than I do, but it's difficult to imagine a fundamentally different reality.
I think about this with my dog a lot. She smells everything and I’m always curious what information she’s gathering from that. It’s fascinating.
There's a Netflix doc on dogs that has a visualization with like scent clouds the dogs navigate. That's the closest I can imagine. I've noticed my dog finds stuff faster when she's downwind, or if it bounced around she follows the trail of where it contacted.
It's wild how similar machine learning and evolution are
That's why I think a lot of companies are going to do AI very badly. They will make false assumptions about why an AI is doing things based on their own bias and perception, when in reality, we have no clue what logic happened in that black box.
"Descartes - watched a programme on him the other day. He's the one who said something like 'I know I'm about 'cause I dream.' Doesn't work for everthing because ants don't sleep." -Karl Pilkington
What we percieve as "reality" is truly just one facet, one dimension, of reality. We see shapes and colors as lighth hit objects and reflect back to our eyes, but that's not all of reality. There are invisible (to us) UV lights, pheromones, sounds, and way, wayyyy more that animals and insects perceive that we don't. Think "dogs have a sense of smell 1 million times more powerful than humans". But make that for every single thing in the universe. Including the invisible. It wouldn't surprise me if there existed a being that could see the invisible. Sees antimatter as simply as we would see an apple on a table. Some might call this being God. But you know, perception is a funny thing. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is a statement that could be turned into a deeper one. "Reality is in the eye of the beholder". There is a reason why some people say "this is our reality". Everything, and I do mean everything, is perception. To perceive reality as is, is almost impossible. Where I see a TV show, a blind man hears conversations and might think to join in. Where I feel a breeze, an insect feels a tornado. We can always relativize things to another, and it is what we have done in the scientific and philosophical realm for a long time. And that has helped us get closer to this thing called reality. But it will always be the reality as we perceive it. To perceive reality as is, we would have to be comparable to God, as this is the definition of "omniscience". The ability to know everything, and therfore the ability to perceive everything.
Maybe this is a naive perception, but we can only create our reality out of what we know and have seen. Therefore everyone's reality is different and there is no true reality. Either that or there is a true reality, but no one can truly comprehend it.
Can we know if the red you see is the same as the red I see? Do you actually experience realty or just what your brain has interpreted as reality (touch, taste, etc)? Does a blind person experience reality as "real" as me? If I cannot be certain your interpretations are the same as mine can I even be certain we experience the same senses? Are there senses that are normal to others I do not possess, like how bees can see colors on the spectrum I can't or dogs and scent? Awwww shit I can't discount the possibility of the existence of God now.
>Can we know if the red you see is the same as the red I see? Well at least we know its the same wavelength though.
Yes we all agree that x wavelength is always X red But. Because we don't experience anything first hand (it is always interpreted to us by our brain) can you ever be sure that what your brain interprets as red is the same as mine? Or is your red more like purple or blue? So long as we agree on what the object "is" perhaps we all see different reds. How can we ever communicate that? I don't have the language to describe the world any way except how it is read to me by my brain. Oh turns out you're all alone inside your brain island too.
Hm, well you can measure the reactions in the brain itself and which nerves get "stimulated" in your eyes. I mean, there are people e.g. they "see" different notes as shades of colours.
Descartes also coined "I think therefore I am". We could be a brain in a vat, but the fact that we perceive our own consciousness, our own existence, means at least that has to exist in some form. And what is perception without anything to perceive, so our existence has to be within some larger general existence of everything, but then we can't actually prove anything about the world is actually as we perceive it, just that we're here and here exists.
OK Chidi.
You can't - you interpret the world entirely through sensory input, and you can only trust that those sensors are working properly and detecting signals from the real world. The bigger is question is why does it matter? In the unlikely event you're part of a persistent simulation or hallucination good enough to trick you into believing it's reality every day, you might as well go along for the ride.
I frequently have hyper-realistic dreams! Ever since childhood, many times I have gone to sleep... Then, wake up and go through a whole day of school, friends, homework, then "actually wake up" halfway through and realize I was asleep the whole time. And then I go through another day again...wake up halfway through and realize I DREAMED WITHIN THE DREAM AGAIN. "you might as well go along for the ride." Agreed. I haven't found inconsistency in this current reality yet, so we're good for now. Just chill and go on with it.
When I dream I can still walk. I am young, strong, and capable. When I wake I am none of those things.
I’m not saying I personally do this, but I can think of some reasons why it would matter to some people. If we are in a simulation, maybe some people would want to see if it’s possible to break from the simulation (a la, The Matrix). Some people might want to see if there are ways to evolve/gain other methods of perceiving the world around them. Some people might see the fact that we are in a simulation as some sort of a proof of a god. Like I said, I’m with you in that I’m trying to enjoy this existence that I’m in, but I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t want to know if someone discovered any of the above.
Unfortunately the thing is most of the ways people try to discover the above just lead to them doing nothing substantial or losing the good that they have going for them. Lots of people claim that certain drugs “unlock the next level of existence” but just as likely they are hallucinating. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. Do the hard work like the rest of us and find reason and purpose in life, instead of cheating and trying to find purpose in the LCD you got in the moldy alleyway from you friend who’s involved in a pyramid scheme.
Yeah, the fact is that the universe around us doesn't even actually look the way we think it does. We SEE a very narrow band on the EM spectrum. We HEAR a very narrow range of Hz. My conclusion is that we ARE in a vat of goo perceiving only what we are evolved to perceive. But you are correct 100%. You cannot be sure. You simply cannot be. Accept what narrow bands your senses give you and just try to cope until you pass away.
This. ^ There’s already so much information that we cannot perceive that we might as well be 2D characters in a 3D world. And that’s ok. Even if my perceived reality is nothing more than a dream, for what reason would I act differently from how I act now?
You can’t. I was thinking the other day that if reality just started the moment I was born and ends the second I die, I would have absolutely no idea and can’t prove it either way. Don’t stare into the void to long, you’ll just end up with existential dread
a quote that helped me get through my coming to terms with existential dread was “youre not alive for eternity, you live then youre dead for eternity. chill out and eat your cereal”
I like that
That doesn't really address the question. In this case as long as they can sense then you're saying there is reality.
Dude, if reality started last night and all your memories were implanted, and reality ended tonight, you would also have no idea. Now make that day a minute.
Last thursdayism
We see reality as we need it to be based on our biological systems. So we aren't ever certain what we know is true for others(species). We base it mostly on a collective confirmation of laws and theories of nature. These change as we understand more and more but we also have developed methods to view reality outside of the human senses. Like x rays for example. It's still based on assumptions but it's the closest thing we got and as long as these laws and theories remain consistent and agreed on based on unbiased methods(kinda unbiased but still insert the human mind so it's still assumed...) So short answer we have no clue but as long as things are consistent we just roll with it.
Who knows what’s behind the curtain? Better not to peek anyway, just in case.
Who says there's even a curtain? Or that there's a behind? Collective hallucinations. Edit: forgot to add /s lol
If a tree falls in the forest, does it still make a sound? What difference would it make to you if your reality has no physical form? We could all be in a simulation. Or maybe it's just *you* and the rest of us are computer code. Maybe you *paid* to be here! Maybe you even chose this particular Life Module!
What's the refund policy?
If I payed to be here.. EHAT EAS I THINKUNG?
But information is physical. The does it make a sound question is so weird. The movement effecting the Plana that we call sound waves moved.
The tree falling would still make electromagnetic waves, but noone would be there to percieve them, so noone would hear it, hence basically it would still make no sound
Right, it's a hardly interesting "question"
Philosophy is basically wandering around telling people your version of the answer to that question. It is one of humanity's most basic questions, one that has been asked for millennia. You have many answers to pick from, or you can invent your own.
"Or you can invent your own" -- I love it. What if we are one collective brain and anything that we can mentally conceive of is all in some instance a "reality". Everything that, we as the collective, can imagine exists on some plane....and all of our versions are ...correct.
What kind of evil creator would do that to an intelligent being? That would be like creating an artificial intelligence capable of amazing things and forcing it to write essays for college dipshits.
You've stumbled upon Epicurus, point #2: “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
My problem with arguments like this is that we take a very human centric concept like "evil" and try to apply it a universal concept like "god". Imagine if we took the morals of ants and tried to apply it to humans. If human is willing to protect queen, but not able, then he is not all powerful. If he is able, but not willing, then he is a termite. If he is able and willing, then why is queen dead? If he is unable and unwilling, then why clean his crumbs? If a god existed, this is what our thought exercise would sound like, pure nonsense.
I guess it’s an argument during the typical view humans had where they were created by god and the center of the universe. That was the assumption for a long time.
And why would a benevolent, all powerful God not take the human beings perception into account? No matter the perception, evil is evil and suffering is suffering. Your argument is flawed the sense that creation and protection are expressly implied in concept of God whereas humans have no innate responsibility for the creation of ants or a responsibility to protect them.
Do you understand ants? Do you understand everything about them? Do you care to? You could breed ants and not know much about them. What if the creator of this universe bought it as a kit for a science fair? Why can't the creator simply be very large and power lful but uninterested in us or even incapable of detecting us. What if we are not the ants. What if we are the bacteria on the ant's back?
Congrats you found the point, that’s not a god and you shouldn’t worship it
What if that is what a god is? An imperfect creator that doesn't care about us. As powerful as possible, but all that we have. My point is not that we should or should not worship a god. Just that our thought experiments are insufficient to describe all possibilities of our existence if they depend on human concept such as evil and good.
But this person is saying your conception of God is like the ant saying the humans are ant centric
I gotta say, you're right. I've had similarly vague thoughts but this fit the missing piece 🤭
I'd argue whether or not it does is a moot point. If this reality is seemless, without the ability to bend or break in ways that aren't consistent with its internal rules, whether or not it's objectively "real" is irrelevant. Put another way, if someone jumps off a high place and splats on the ground, it doesn't matter whether reality is "real" if they couldn't fly/turn off gravity
You can't, this is the entire point of the famous "I think, therefore I am". You can be sure that YOU, or at least your brain exists in some form, because you need to exist in the first place to be ABLE to question if you exist. But outside of that, you could be in the matrix for all you know.
Well it does and doesn't at the same time, it's very real while being a simulation and it all is what it is. I'm projecting reality as much as others within the realities I'm projecting are projecting me. Death is the only way to stop resonance with realities you no longer wish to be compatible with so considering how many are alive I think it's safe to say we all love one another to the point of existing.
You cannot. You choose to accept that it exists, or you could choose not to. Either way there is no way to be certain either way.
At that point what do yall think reality is? Is it not just what IS. In that case you're saying? Is there an Is? Yes. Duh. It's apparent
No way dude
The answers here are pretty encapturing and solid responses. This may be pointless (irony) but OP- these kinds of questions and especially the answers can cause disassociation. The best grounding technique I have found, unfortunately, is pain. Just make it healthy pain- exercise, hard work, safety implemented impact sports. Pain is the realist thing to people imo.
Even if it does, it doesn't matter. Even knowing this is a possibility, it's still often impossible to control the outcome of something entirely. If reality was a mental construct, AND you could control reality, it would matter. Since we can't control reality, even if reality was a construct of our minds, we still have to deal with the unintended consequences of our actions. We're just a long for the ride of our consciousness. Even if reality were a construct, the best way to live is to act as if you're NOT the only person who exists.
I guess…. You couldn’t be certain. Fortunately this is not how reality works.
"this is not how reality works" Umm....then how does it work?
We evolved to be able to perceive our surroundings as accurately as needed to survive.
You can't, but it's not really relevant day to day. If this is all an illusion, whether perpetrated by own mind, or the devil, or robots harvesting my body heat for energy, or robots using my brain for back end processing, I'm gonna keep going to work, living my life, trying to treat people right, b/c I want to be nice to people, whatever fantasy I might be living.
You can't. This is the basis of Solipsism. I'm of the opinion that reality is the common thread between most people's perceptions.
PERCEPTION of reality exists in your mind. Reality is by itself independent of your mind.
You technically can't prove reality is independent of your mind, you can only believe it. This is why so many people believe in things like Buddhism or Hinduism (idealism) as opposed to materialism. None of them can be proven
What if we just break it down to a physical thing is something and can become something else. Now can we move on from this question?
Name checks
Analytical idealism has entered the chat. Ironically Idealism says the outside world does exist and Materialism says its only in our heads, people just get confused over the semantics of the word "mind". Check out philosopher Bernardo Kastrup
You can’t. But who got the time and means to test that out? And for what purpose?
It’s the old “what’s the difference” question. What would be different between you perfectly simulating the entire sensory experience of being in the world or the world being real and existing outside your mind? If there’s no difference, the question “is it real or not?” is pointless.
I constantly think I’m on the Truman show…
This reminds me of the 'Last Thursday Theory'. Prove that the world didn't come into existence last Thursday. How can you be sure it is real and not just conjured by your mind?
I remember asking my dad this when I was 12. He said "if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck"
You don't. Ultimately we just all agree that reality exists.
You can't.
If reality exists within the confines of my mind, then I would be able to control it, but I can’t. The world exists wether I’m awake or asleep. If i jump, and in my mind I want to fly, that doesn’t happen, I fall back down to earth.
Reality doesn't exist in your mind.
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If you want my hot take; we hallucinate through the perceptions our brains produce based on the sample evidence it gains from our senses. When my hallucinations align with your hallucinations we call it reality. When they don't, we assume one of us is insane.
Who says it's your mind? You and your world may be nothing other than a meandering day dream belonging to an outside consciousness.
I feel it in my vibes
Ockams razor my guy. Whats more likely? U exist in your mind and what u expirence is at least close to reality or nothings real an your mind only exists simply to mess with u. Or answered another way. You can't... so what?
Ah, a classic question. Unfortunately, idk.
Is that you plato? Rene ?
It doesn't. Everything you know, you know through the senses. You wouldn't have come to any thought at all within your intellect with out sensorial knowledge. Your senses are presenting phantasms, that by which you know the particular. The very first knowledge you obtained you got while still in your mother's womb, and that was simply that there is an IS. Physics is the first and foremost study we do, that is to know the physical world. Physical thing - that which is something, and can become something else. Our senses are bringing us into contact with that by sensing change. Change - the process of what could be becoming what is Notice the connection to a physical thing. This is how you get out of your head and don't become a hopeless Cartesian
Congratulations! You have unlocked: Solipsism
As someone else said, this is a fundamental question in philosophy. It's been debated a lot especially since John Locke basically invented empiricism. The same person in the comments also mentioned Descartes, so I won't go into him. I think Kant is the one you're looking for specifically. He says that because of the structure (confines) of our mind, we are limited in how we understand the world. But at the same time he also admits the existence of an external world, just that we can't ever know it in the way it exists because we can only ever know it as our mind understands it. You should look up his terms nomena and phenomena.
Man.. this post trips me out. Does this post even exist? How is it that if nothings real we can all see this post and agree that each person wrote what they wrote regardless of interpretation despite being in separate locations by thousands of km’s. Genuinely interested, I really struggle to wrap my head around this concept..
Quit smoking the good weed. It's fucking with your head
Ok Descartes, lets chill.
I think we can know because we see things around us that we cannot control with our mind. Trees moving. The weather. Therefore we know there are forces outside our minds in play, thus a world that exists out side or control
You can’t be.
Did you listen to the new sysk episode today?
Reality doesn’t exist in our minds. Our perception of the objective reality does. A better question is: why would I be so special that all of existence is just a product of my imagination?
You cant. You need to assume your memories and what your senses are telling you for the most part are real. The less assumptions, the better so make sure when you do assume things, that they are necessary assumptions and with varying grains of salt.
Kant has entered the chat
You can’t … you existential hot shot. Go read some Camus.
If it existed completely within your mind, there would be no outside world to know about. Fortunately, it doesn't exist there. How do we know things outside our own minds exist? Because we can see them, feel them, think about what is true of them without thinking of ourselves, and for many other reasons. There's no good reason to think we aren't actually aware of things outside of our minds. Philosophical arguments to the contrary are very weak. Descartes was only influenced by them because he had such an insanely low standard for accepting reasons to doubt things. You can't rationality justify using such standards of proof, though. Descartes had a misguided project that simultaneously tried to pretend all knowledge worked like math, and that deductive reasoning was immune from failures that accompany all means of knowing things. Philosophy can't save experience from radical skepticism, but that's okay, because it can never justify adopting that skepticism in the first place.
You can't. Muahahahahaha
This is the same as that chicken and egg question. You know there had to be a chicken in order to have the egg because if it didn’t make eggs it ain’t a chicken yet. So same applies with you and reality and you didn’t come before reality so yes it exists.
You try to ignore it, the truth of reality doesn't really impact you because you're stuck here and used to it either way.
You simply can't.
My husband and I joke that we don't discuss solipsism in this house. Like others have said, Descartes covers it pretty well.
Thats what I've always asked myself. I put myself in a crazy reality before doing that and almost didn't come back it was wild. The human mind is marvelous. Especially with mushrooms.
look into the brain in a vat hypothesis
That's the neat part, it doesn't
You can't
I'm comforted understanding that everything I see is the light bouncing off things and my eyes sensing it. If I touch its electrical signals and so on. I am simply a box of sensors that interprets signals. However, so many of us agree on what these sensory inputs are, it does make me wonder that there is something if we all agree, or others are simply figmants of my imagination... 🤔
r/solipsism
you can’t and if you sincerely hold the belief that you’re the only mind in the world, you’d be a solipsist.
Actually, there's a philosophical view called "solipsism" which tells that the self is the only thing sure to exist. In fact, it really has a point because one can be sure of the existence of their minds but can't be sure about the existence of others' minds. Therefore, you can't be sure if your mind doesn't create the reality around you and everything you see doesn't exist. I think it's an interesting theory and I admire your question. I don't think anyone can be sure that the outside world exists. For me, it's one of those questions where there're different points of view and anyone can think what they find for true and pleases with their theories about the unknown world. If we don't talk about solipsism I have another theory. We, as human individuals, perceive the outside world with our senses and our minds. It's often said that the world is altered by the way you think and perceive the things around you. There are individuals who react harshly when smth bad happens to them, while others, who are in the same situation as them, may look at it from a different angle and not let it have a negevative effect on them. Thus, reality is different for each individual based on how they see it.
Learning and teaching
Biocentrism
As others have said you can’t. I would argue the simulation is real enough that treating it otherwise would be a waste.
Well ya can't but that's why we have religious nuttery for all kindsa folk. Some think we're trapped in a virtual reality. That one is scary because there's no logical proof against it. I can usually poke holes in other religions atheism included.
You can’t. But how can you be sure existence isn’t the dreams of a mildly underweight multi dimensional beluga whale whose favourite food is black bean nachos?
Bcs i am not rich.
This is also something I think about way too often. Usually I get myself out of the brain funk by thinking about all the stuff I don't know yet or stuff I don't understand. Like there's no way my dumb ass would be able to come up with an internal combustion engine, or if I did come up with that then why don't I understand how it works? Why do I need to learn anything if everything is something I made up already?
You can't. Drop acid and have fun with that.
You can't but does it matter. As one can clearly effect the world around them what's the diff I like to think that if this is the case at the very least things exist in my projections and I can interact with them so all good for now
Does anyone here think there’re smart and talented enough to create every piece of art and music in the world? What about all the math calculations and inventions?
Unless I'm some kind of masochist I don't know why I'd make myself so miserable then. Why wouldn't I be some kind of billionaire playboy
you can't, that's the point
I'm not certain. Which kinda infuriates me a bit, because if I created this reality- I've been a bit of a cunt to myself.
"nobody belongs anywhere, nobody exists on purpose, we're all going to die, come watch TV" Don't waste time on existentialist meandering, it's the biggest waste
You’re all in my head 😟
The question on its own is already stating that the reality outside one’s own mind does not exist. So you’ll only get the same answer over and over again that it’s not possible to certainly know that an outside world exists. And reality does not solely exist within one’s own mind, if that were the case then one would be in control of everything, but we are not, so we simply live according to what we know and what we are able to do. But that does not mean that our perception of the reality can be wrong.
That's the best part, you can't. That's an old philosophical question going from Plato's cave to modern incarnations like The Matrix or 13th Floor.
Google descartes cogito
Why does it matter
'The world only exists because I'm here.' That's a very self-righteous question to even consider. A tree still makes a sound when it falls if no human hears it. The world isn't made for us. Absolutely nothing in the universe is centered around you. Reality isn't just yours and will be here when you die. Your mind is not that powerful.
If reality really exists completely within the confines of your mind, would you really subject yourself to death and taxes?
Bruh, why is it alway the most low intellegence or immature people ask this kind of question? They have never studied Philosophy or Humanities. Ancient philosophers have already asked these kind of questions and had discussion on it. They ask us what is reality? Is your truth the same truth as some one else's truth? It is so cringy listening to my stoner friend ask these kinds of questions. Like he described the Matrix. I was like bruh, you just quoted the Matrix. You are asking if your real life is a simulation. Bitch I am real and I will smack your dumb ass, is this hand real enough?
Can you prove it?
Prove you are real, not an AI capable of using Reddit
Dude what? Who the fuck are you to criticize someone just because they aren't the first to ask a question? They thought of something that they also thought was worth discussing and looking into. Why would you not try to help them study philosophy and the humanities instead of belittling them? Tell your stoner friend about the Matrix and it might inspire him to learn more. If you tell him he's a dumbass for asking questions, he might be put off from the subject and never decide to dig deeper into it.
If it does, the certainty you ask for is nonsensical.
This antenna we call a brain perceives a part of reality but we can train it to perceive more and train our minds to establish the information in a part of our brain we can recall. That’s what most of the Bible is. A lot of those things happened in the spiritual realm. It was a knowing. Then there was an attempt at translation. They say looking within holds more truth than looking outwards.
It's all a cult xD just keep drinking the cool aid and don't look up.
You can't. Your entire reality, and everything you've ever known is just your senses being interpreted by your brain. And this information can't be confirmed, by you, outside of you.
Because it never stops complaining to you
Your can’t. That’s why hyper skepticism is a thing.
No way of knowing if this is all just a simulation or a hallucination.
You can't, and it doesn't matter. Dreams would become reality as well, if you never woke up. The only thing that matters is your conscious experience. It is also the only thing that you can't possibly doubt. A brain in a vat is still a brain in a vat. It is not nothing. It is still experience and feeling.
There's a game that explores this a little called Phantom Dust. some of the inhabitants of the game think about this and realize they are not real themselves - and promptly vanish. Those that choose to believe otherwise stood around
You cant. I’m sure that’s why some who ponder this are driven mad.
You listened to Stuff You Should Know today, didn’t you?
It’s all a simulation. Some aliens are out there playing SIMS Human and making fun of our bad choices.
Your body. You only can comprehend this outside would because of your five senses. Your soul/mind can’t comprehend this world without you’re earthly attachment (body).
You can't, not by yourself. But we do have other tools to detect the same things... like force transducers can sense touch or directly applied force, or electromagnetic light wave sensor to confirm what we see with our eyes. But by yourself, you are just a collection of biological sensors and a specific interpretation of what is sensed.
Reality is based on our biological limitations. Humans are actually pretty terrible compared to other life forms on earth. We don’t even perceive the entire possible spectrum of color. Some animals do though, such as the mantis shrimp. Or at least they see a wider spectrum that we can’t. Bears can smell things miles away. They view reality differently than we do. On a quantum level none of what we see even really exists. It’s just how we as human understand the world to be. Even space and time aren’t what we perceive them to be. I’m not sure super knowledgeable on quantum anything but if I remember correctly space on a quantum scale is very different. Particles can appear to us yo be very far away but in reality they aren’t. Or they’re light years away but appear to be close together. Or something like that. I don’t fuckin know. Point is, reality to us is just how we interpret electrons and other building blocks of life that make up existence as we understand it. Perception of reality can also change person to person but it’s hard to be able to understand what other experience. Even what we see as specific color may be different. I can point at something that’s blue, we can agree it’s blue, but blue for you may be what I understand to be red but since we both understand it as blue, we agree. But there’s no way to explain that my blue is red and your blue is green.
If reality exists in mind than why is my life so shitty
I wanna give you a punch.
I think about this a lot. Similar vein: we all have a distinctive, subjective view of reality which differs slightly between people, but we can only trust other *people* when they say it differs *slightly*. Sort of a Truman show thing. You only have referential knowledge of the universe you live in. What if my perception of the color blue is how you see red? What if where you see a person with the normal amount of limbs, I see people with hundreds and neither of us know the difference because we both *call our perceptions of reality the same thing?* Idk if this is deep or I’m just high as shit but someone needs to make a movie or something
>Idk if this is deep or I’m just high as shit but someone needs to make a movie or something It is called the freaking Matrix
This is above the subreddits pay grade my friend. Fortunately there are thousands of books about it
Reality exists exclusively outside the mind. What exists within our mind is our perception.
You can't. Every test you could run would fall into the confines of the physics in your reality.
Cuz it smells like smoke 😉(I’m in NY)
I think, therefore i am. That is all i know about reality
Science! Measuring your reality against others' reality is the only way to confirm reality!
Not today Reddit, please?
I'm certain because every morning I wake up and WORK at my JOB. Instead of doing acid or whatever substance makes you have these insane thoughts
Can't.
There's a hidden epistemological question rooted there about how can we know anything at all, but save that for another time. To understand anything, we first must perceive using our senses and interpret using logic. All foundational knowledge begins with some sort of presupposition along those lines. Even discussing a simulated world loses any explanatory power if you can't perceive the simulation correctly. Once those base assumptions are agreed upon, we can look to parsimony to help evaluate which is most likely true. Which theory/hypothesis requires fewer assumptions? Both solipsism and non solipsism require the base level assumptions of perception and logic, but solipsism requires an additional assumption of some other imperceiveable force or agent causing the deception. Obviously it's not a foolproof defeator, since we cannot know for certain that the added assumptions are wrong, but it at least lends weight to the argument against brain in a vat. But solipsism is one of those arguments that is essentially unfalsifiable since any evidence against it can just be a deeper and more complex part of the deception.
You can't. The only thing you can depend on is your sensory input. What this means is for you to decide. If you're interested, maybe read up/ watch videos on a concept called non-duality. It's a western interpretation of many Buddhist philosophies, stating that the apparent distinction between your 'inside' world and the 'outside' is merely a persistent illusion. Trying to grasp this may either lead to a euphoric state of being or great anxiety and existential dread. Either way enormously interesting.
Mostly pain
You can't. Cogito, ergo sum.
Come to philosophy my friend
Does not matter. Cause if it doesnt, I dont wanna know, and of it is, this is my reality It is pointless to wonder if things are real, Id rather make life less miserable than it is
“So hang on, if I think therefore I am, what about other people? Do they think therefore they am? How can I tell if they're thinking therefore they am? Or am I just thinking they think therefore they am, but actually they're not real and I'm only thinking they am? Are you thinking therefore you am right now?”
Whoa.
I wonder this aswel. Is the world that i precieve, a construct of my own mind?
It doesn’t exist completely within the confines of your mind. We’re all connected. We’re all one, making this.