Reality and existence - are you real?

[botmaster]

I don't know, but it seems to me that too many people are going after the model "I think, therefore I am". How do you know that you are actually YOU and not something else? What reality do you beleive to be true? And why? Please post your ideas here.

Objective reality:
The most common thought in the world. Everything you perceive around you is there. It is static and you can't influence it with your mind. You are, so to speak, a body with a mind in it. That's all you are in this sort of "reality".
Basically, it implies cause and effect, the entire IF-THEN. If is true, you could simulate reality in a computer (if you had one powerful enough). Science builds on objective reality; science attempts to define it (so far we haven't been able to, we just zoomed in on quantum particles).

Subjective reality
Only a small minority of people seem to think this. Everything you perceive is imagined. Reality can be altered by pure thought and change of your beleif system. The laws of physics can be bent and completely defied simply by changing what you beleive (COMPLETELY, I.E CONVINCE YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS). Basically, you are everything. You ARE reality. You are the container of reality. You're not just a body, but you are everything in the universe your mind created arround you.

My belief:
Even though I am a very scientific person, a person that reasons using cause-and-effect type stuff, I am in doubt wether either of these systems are right. I recently witnessed a friend of mine do some scary shit... Please don't call me crazy, I wouldn't have believed it before even if I had seen a video of it! A few days ago, I would've said that a person was crazy or delusional if he had done this, but I saw my friend bend metal without touching it. He didn't just do it ONCE, he did it three times :eek: ! Once at my house and once at his, and then in a restaurant. It can't be a trick, he would've told me and I would've seen.

I personally beleive we live in a reality that is a cross-breed out of objective and subjective reality. I just don't know how to explain this - it seems that there is more in this world than a dull mechanical system - you live, you die, and you stop feeling anything. It seems so purposeless, so hopeless and cynical. Also, there are things that even science can't explain - I don't know, but its just all so fucked up. But there still seems to be cause and effect. It's all very strange.

Please post wat you think.

[Boreas]

Hehe, I'm a semi-professional magician and I know how he bent the mental. It was a trick, don't let it alter your view of the universe.

[bullzeye95]

Teach us your tricks, master!

[Boreas]

No can do, I took an oath :p

[botmaster]

Well, is i possible to bend a 5 inch crossbar used for consruction sites that you simply pick up randomly out of a pack of several others when you're just casually taking a walk along a random path? It seems very unlikely to me, unless you can predict where I'm going and then PREDICT which bar I will choose and even then wihout prior preparation. Cause thats wat happened yesterday when i was going for a casual run. He just smiled and did it. Later i touched the metal and i was real, not some kind of plasic or wood or waever.

Can u explain dat boreas?

[Boreas]

There is an explanation, but I'm not allowed to give it to you. Here's what I did the other day: I gave my friend an imaginary invisible deck of cards, told him to take out his favorite card, and put it back in so that it was facedown from the rest, then shuffle, and put in the invisible card box. He mimed this and I took back the deck, and joked that I made it disappear. Then I pulled out a real visible deck of cards from my pocket, and asked him which cards he flipped. I spread through the visible deck of cards, and one card was face down. Yup, it was the same one. He freaked out. But I don't have supernatural powers, it's just that I know something (well lots of things) that he doesn't. Search for magic on youtube. They are all tricks, some better than others.

[botmaster]

Its not like I'm unfamiliar with magic tricks. I even read some material about how to do these kinds of things, and also - my friend told me he was NOT tricking me in any ways. He would've told me after the scare he gave me.

No, I'm not the gullible sort of person that can be found in everyday life. A simple trick doesn't astound me, and neither do more complex things.

Like I said - if I hadn't seen it, or felt the metal and asked my buddy (he's pretty honest), I wouldn't beleive it. I already said, I've seen some crazy things since about 3 months ago, and I've had some insane dreams.

I dunno, maybe i should see a psychatrist about all this. :confused:

Anyways, this thread is kinda going offtopic. Its not even about the entire "strange things" stuff. Its about how you view reality.

[Boreas]

What you see and feel can be fooled. And if your buddy had told you its just a trick, or how its done, then you would not be in the same state. Which I am sure he is enjoying, because its fun to amaze to people. So of course he won't tell you.

I believe in the scientific objective reality, although I don't view it as hopeless and cynical.

[bullzeye95]

If you won't tell us what happened, how did you learn magic? ...and who did you "swear an oath" to?

[Boreas]

From other magicians. To other magicians.

[seanwid]

I don't know, but it seems to me that too many people are going after the model "I think, therefore I am". How do you know that you are actually YOU and not something else? What reality do you beleive to be true? And why? Please post your ideas here.

Objective reality:
The most common thought in the world. Everything you perceive around you is there. It is static and you can't influence it with your mind. You are, so to speak, a body with a mind in it. That's all you are in this sort of "reality".
Basically, it implies cause and effect, the entire IF-THEN. If is true, you could simulate reality in a computer (if you had one powerful enough). Science builds on objective reality; science attempts to define it (so far we haven't been able to, we just zoomed in on quantum particles).

Subjective reality
Only a small minority of people seem to think this. Everything you perceive is imagined. Reality can be altered by pure thought and change of your beleif system. The laws of physics can be bent and completely defied simply by changing what you beleive (COMPLETELY, I.E CONVINCE YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS). Basically, you are everything. You ARE reality. You are the container of reality. You're not just a body, but you are everything in the universe your mind created arround you.

My belief:
Even though I am a very scientific person, a person that reasons using cause-and-effect type stuff, I am in doubt wether either of these systems are right. I recently witnessed a friend of mine do some scary shit... Please don't call me crazy, I wouldn't have believed it before even if I had seen a video of it! A few days ago, I would've said that a person was crazy or delusional if he had done this, but I saw my friend bend metal without touching it. He didn't just do it ONCE, he did it three times :eek: ! Once at my house and once at his, and then in a restaurant. It can't be a trick, he would've told me and I would've seen.

I personally beleive we live in a reality that is a cross-breed out of objective and subjective reality. I just don't know how to explain this - it seems that there is more in this world than a dull mechanical system - you live, you die, and you stop feeling anything. It seems so purposeless, so hopeless and cynical. Also, there are things that even science can't explain - I don't know, but its just all so fucked up. But there still seems to be cause and effect. It's all very strange.

Please post wat you think.


does anyone know the famous quote of sum philosopher, "I think, so i exist" (cogito ergo sum). This is a pro of objective reality. A few other pro's are way back in the greek history like democrates. He thought that everything is build up by materie (atomoi). All kinds of participles, that give the form of reality. But the Subjective reality is defended by plato. (Search his popular story about the cave with the fire in the middle.)


Well i hope i got u sum extra sources for information that u can google...

I'm sorry, normally i can explain everything 'bout reality and philosophers but not in English:D.. I'm dutch y'know


PS: We are not more than a big coincidence. Why is there religion? Because of the fact that we could not except that kind of knowledge. (back than)

[Dunceiam]

I remember emailing this to a friend, after they asked me the burning question of life.


Can you really define someone as a living being? We may all live in a little 5-year-old alien's play set. The fact is we don't know, you might be in a dream. We might not even be in existence, for which we don't know. A fading image of a lost friend? You'll wake up in 5 minutes after a 13 year long dream? You may be in a coma, and will wake up. Really, someone can't be someone. We are never sure of anything, there is always a minute chance of anything happening, such as the Universe suddenly exploding. This is life, we can not fight it, we might as well go along with it. Head towards the light, be a "moth". For one day, you'll think about your life, all the happy moment, all the sad moments. And you'll think to yourself, did you have a good or a bad life? The answer will be in your head, when you pass through the human realm and onto the unknown. This is Life

-Dunceiam

[Santa_Clause]

I Think This All Points Back To Religion (Doesn't Everything?). Christianity For Example Says That The Earth Is The Only Place That Living Things Can Dwell On. It Also Says That The Only Living Beings Are Humans...So The Idea Of Aliens Is A Bit Ironic

[warbeak1245]

are you real?

nah fool, im a bot, i just macro through life, nobody has noticed yet, so keep it secret, wot?

[Pluth]

I believe I personally exist, its the other things around me that i believe may not exist.

Think about this just for a second: You are standing up against a wall, but you are not touching it. Is it really there? If you can not sense the wall in anyway, how do you know it's real until you actually start to study it? (some of thats a little quantum physics)

Another fun fact, about 95-99% of your body is empty because there is so much empty space inside an atom. Think about that one.

[warbeak1245]

I believe I personally exist, its the other things around me that i believe may not exist.

Think about this just for a second: You are standing up against a wall, but you are not touching it. Is it really there? If you can not sense the wall in anyway, how do you know it's real until you actually start to study it? (some of thats a little quantum physics)

Another fun fact, about 95-99% of your body is empty because there is so much empty space inside an atom. Think about that one.

sight is a sense... you sense the wall if you see it...
but ur second point is nice, did you know that 1 square inch of that "empty" space contains enough energy to boil away all the oceans in the world?

[ditto]

I personally beleive we live in a reality that is a cross-breed out of objective and subjective reality. I just don't know how to explain this - it seems that there is more in this world than a dull mechanical system - you live, you die, and you stop feeling anything. It seems so purposeless, so hopeless and cynical. Also, there are things that even science can't explain - I don't know, but its just all so fucked up. But there still seems to be cause and effect. It's all very strange.

Please post wat you think.

eh...maybe yo should go to church. Or start smokin weed. O_o It will put all your fears to rest.

I know exactly what you're talking about though. I used to think on the same thing all the time. Is this all real? :o I don't think so. I think when we die we will see what's real.

[botmaster]

Smokin weed :)... I think I'm gonna go with that one.

No, really, reality is just another area of philosophy. I'm goin too deep into all this stuff, not that it's bad but I think I'll have more time to think about this when I get to my midlife crisis (its a lil early for me in my teens :P).

So, I guess rite now I should focus more on my gf and other stuff thats fun instead of this sorta crap. But it does puzzle me. I try explaining lots of things, but there are so many things in life that can't be due to chance, they're inexplicable even by calculating in standard deviation. Take for example, you walk down the street and think of someone and BAM! - there the person pops up coming from a corner not far away, just when you wanted to go to that person to ask a question. Not that I'm saying that life is all "governed" by a higher force (i.e. religion), but there seem to be laws of physics that work different than we think. I dunno, but quantum physics will probably clarify a lot with probability/chance once the LHC at CERN is finished with construction.

[xxchronic2007xx]

Ok ill say something ontopic.... have you ever wondered whats beyond space, time and everything past that, it cant be nothing, space cant be endless (just very very very far away so mankind can never travel thru) and i have something else in mind but im not going to say for my own reasons..

As some people say life is a dream...... you are like something with an expiration date born into this "maybe imaginary world"

[botmaster]

Well, think about it this way - we're real but not really, kinda like in the matrix. Except that WE are forcing ourselves to live in this "matrix". We're not willing to let go of this dream, because our mind won't let us. Our whole mindset, our worldview is such that we will never accept the idea of a "matrix", and if we did, we wouldn't escape because its more comfortable than the real reality out of whatever reason.
You know that theres some people that get temporary amnesia when they are in conflict with something they don't like or in a high stress situation? Its because they don't want to think about it, their subconscious mind "cuts the connection" to the memorys. Maybe we live in a world like that, where as soon as we wake up we fall back. We force ourselves to live in an objective world because we fear the subjective, i.e. our imagination/creativity so much and use only a small percentage of our full potential. This ties in with recent neurobiological research indicating we use only about 10% of our brain.

My ideas are probably fucked up and lack a lot of evidence, but it's the best I could come up with in 10 minutes of writing this.

[xxchronic2007xx]

matrix ftw lol :p and wow thats a long reply.....