I have been thinking lately on the concept of reality. Is reality even real? I mean each persons perception of “reality” is different yet they both see it as their reality. They can’t all be right so perhaps there is no reality. Also when you think about it your reality is so flimsy it’s only supported by itself so when you doubt it the flaws become obvious. I mean all sensations can be artificially stimulated (through nerve impulses) and since they are our only way of experiencing our reality reality it’s self is at question. Another disturbing fact is a mathematical theorom that shows that if you had a computer at “x” strength and inputed the parameters of the universe you could run a simulation of the universe or a universe etc and that everything within that simulation would believe they are real even if they are in fact the results of a simulation. now this theory runs into the fact that what made the simulation is a simulation and what made that simulation is a etc going on forever.But still how do you truly now that your real? Anyways Im just rambling on and probabably sound crazy lol!
Reality is based on perception. We see a red rose because it relects red light into our eyes. What we “see” is the red light and not the true colour of the rose.
No offence, but
Is X ‘even’ X? Yes. Obviously. This isn’t The Matrix…
go jump off a cliff and tell me if physics and biology are real.
Did you ever think that alot of philosophy centeres arround similar issues because publishers weed out the crackpots beforehand?
What we “see” is the red light and not the true colour of the rose.
Can you “see” colour without light? can there “be” color without light?
reality is a very simple concept…
it is the perspective of looking at things for what they are…
i think you just do not know what things really are…
I did. I’m back. They aren’t.
How far can the statement “we are not seeing the true colour of the rose” have any meaning? What would the true colour of the rose be?
For that matter, this all depends of your definition of the word “colour”. Surely “colour” has no more extenuated meaning than a variety of visual sensations confined to a particular space, such as the visual sensation you experience when you look at, say, a rose. We experience “the red light” 1) as a visual sensation and 2)entirely within the bounds of this object “the rose”. Thus we need a name for what experience and so we call it “colour”.
We have no way of defining this thing you call “true colour”, as we can never go beyong the bounds of the above definition or any scientific definitions of light.
NOTE: My science is pretty shakey, so if there is any relevant physics information pertaining to this, slap me in the face with it.
i’m going skydiving today, i’m going to prove that physics are real, i’m ready…starting experiment now…(p.s I left my self an out as they say in the poker word, aka a parachute) fuck goin all in if i don’t know where to buy more chips!
fuck, i can’t fly , physics must exist.(at least gravity/wind resistance)
As for biology , eveyone should try my science experiment; Stop breathing, eating, and drinking, and pissing and shitting ect. As, hard as i try i can’t (lasted about 10 seconds with that experiment) maybe if i die i’ll prove that biology doesn’t exist.
Yah, I feel like a real live scientist, does that make me crazy or profound?
your perception of reality is everything you believe to be existant. I can believe that London is in England without getting physical proof myself(maps, history, news) and this is where the credability of our information sources comes into play. If John Doe tells me that he’s an Alien and he wants to take over the world, i’m not going to be nervous because I don’t know what an Alien is(which i don’t)and i fear for the world, but i will be nervous because i would think he is mentally unstable and might be some schizo psycho that wants to kill me.
Also, without a memory/language skills, none of our learning through "word of mouth/type/T.V/Books ect. would be possible. when people ask “is reality really real?” what thier really asking is, are your information sources credible?
I think most of the skill in philosophy is obviously asking the right questions, the answers are usually easier access. I’m not saying I know anything about philosophy but anyone with 1/2 a brain can pick out a crackpot.
oldphil
When we see the red of the rose, we're still seeing something about the rose- it's not as though I can conjure the image of a red rose when looking at a blue sailboat. It just so happens that color is analogical. It bares no direct connection to the quality of the rose that is represented by the color. But not all reality is that way- there's plenty of things we can percieve about the rose that ARE directly connected to qualities of the rose, such as it's size and proportion.
thats the thing about light; it reflects off of things and our eyes percieve the surface of the object as illuminated.
This isn’t exactly a proper analogy. X, whether it’s an object or a property, is the same X before and after the “even”. However, the question “Is reality even real?” asks if a thing (reality) has a property (realness).
I think it’s a good question. It’s not the same thing as asking “Is a rock real?” or “Is a cloud real?” In these questions, we’re asking if certain objects that are found in reality have the property of realness. Obviously, they do since they are found in reality. But can we attribute the same property to reality itself? I mean, is reality like an object in reality? If it’s not, can we still treat it like we treat objects in reality - namely, as possessing the property of realness?
Oh my, gib. This is not a good question at all. We can only ask this question if reality is an object. The question makes no sense otherwise. But reality is not an object, except to a rationalist, who treats every noun as if it describes an object.
Is redness red? “Redness” is a noun, but does not describe an object, but a quality. We cannot sensibly ask if a quality has the quality x. Is redness shiny? Or`wet? Or stubborn? The question you ask is not a philosophical one, but a poetic one.
Reality is not a thing. It describes things that have a common property. It describes a class, and a class is not a thing, except to a rationalist. But rationalists are wrong. A class is a label, and not the thing it labels.
reality is what you experiance every second of every day. Your born, you live,you experiance different sensations/thoughts/perceptions, you die. our sensations/thoughts/perceptions are dependent on our bodies organs coming into range/contact with external(non-bodily) stimuli. we have a memory which is used to record specific beliefs/preferances and past events. The memory is limited and some things are more preaeminent and important. Where do you live? Why do you eat? Why do you drink? These are questions you only need to answer once(as you do them mostly every day aka thier fresh in your mind)
Why do i breath? these are things which does not require any thought as our capacity for remembering/thinking is not that limited. It takes me a milisecond to realize i’m hungry, (though there is a progress of bodily function that prequals the realization) Its a matter of stimuli and response. I think that breathing is much like that(maybe more subtle)After years of experiance we develop a variety of behaviour patterns. Stimuli and response leads to belief and association. A kid who gets soap in his/her mouth when they curse is less likely to curse. Belief and association are what happens at the end of the thinking process. We value certain things more than others out of sheer preferance. This is free will. your free to do and say(believe) what you like and are only limited by biology and physics and now in the civilized world economics(goods and services are traded for goods or services or currancy) and a governments laws (which are enforced by police and the military is used to protect our sovriegnty and “peacekeep” . Philosophy is almost the opposite of religion. the statement Philosophy is questions without answers and religion is answers
without question comes to mind.
Why can we justify a belief in something which can not be objectiely proven to exist? aka God
I’d say because we all love life and dread the thought of dying, and believe that that Jesus guy was Real and not just a charector in a pretty story. So yah, reality is anything that is. and thus anything that is, is a part of reality. our conciousness/body is what allows us to experiance the external world. when we experiance our body in conjunction with the external world we can easily decide if the experiance is a good or bad experiance. The progress through our string of experiances is what i’d call
life, you get your goals from a set of beliefs you develop through your life
in conjection with your definition of success and conception of time. Time is only needed because we are a civilized society with deadlines. If i decided i wanted to go on welfare and never work i could do this but i know that social assistance is not good $$$$ to make me happy. You need
a healthy balance of $$$ to be happy because were ruled by the laws of economics and a desire for success. Money is obviously only a part of the equation because its highly frowned upon to hate your job.
where does morality come into play if were supossedly free? peopel realized long ago that completely free people turn into barbarians (though not all will turn out like this, the less people like this the better) so they preach , don’t fuck with other peoples shit unless they ask you! Rape = bad , Murder= bad,
theft = bad , and the list goes on; if you act cause a non-mutual controlling effect on a persons life you take thier freedom and thats immoral. But whos to tell me what to do if i’m free?
Yes, this is exactly the point I was trying to make. Since reality is not an object in reality, we can’t use the same justification in labeling it “real” as we use with ordinary objects. Thus, its “realness” comes into question.
I actually have a lot of opinions on this and I’ll be putting up a website on my philosophies in the near future.
No, gib - the realness of reality does not come into question at all - it’s simply a nonsensical formulation. It is gibberish. This question does not speak to reality at all. It does not question reality, does not question the existence of the real world. It’s just nonsense.
Perhaps you agree, but your choice of words is unfortunate. The question of justification never comes into play.
the feeling you get when experiancing a part of reality is unmistakable(the root of scarey dreams are what appears to be logical fallacy) wow i thought i was going to die after falling off that building(must have been a dream)some dreams have a degree of vivid realness, but it rarely lasts because most dreams are illogical. most times when something extremely illogical happens in a dream(something that"should" have hurt/killed me) i wake up. did something ever happen to you in reality/actuality only to find yourself wake up?
It does for me.