Forums → WEPR → Is Reality real?

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SirNoobalot
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SirNoobalot
22,206 posts
Nomad

is reality real??? can it be confirmed that things can and do actually materially exist, and that everything isn't just like a giant video game like 'The Sims'? how could we ever tell if something was ever telling us to do something, like in a game??? building on that, could there also be no 'free will' if so?

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Freakenstein
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Freakenstein
9,519 posts
Jester

Sometimes reading this will be helpful. And painful.

Come on. Reality is real because it's real. We can interact with it and it can also interact with us. Many other people can vouch the same results. If we don't think it's real/we don't know? We get someone to find out. Reality is anything perceived outside of hallucination.

We get a sense of what is and isn't real through experience. Remember childhood/infancy? Freaky sheets happened and was thought back then. After a while, we get the hang of what real is and eventually pass everything else off as being unreal and abnormal. You can get a pretty good concept of what is and isn't real if it passes a majority of your senses. Now don't go around licking everything! Whatever you are hallucinating can be eliminated by touch.

A great majority of humans cannot perceive space beyond Earth, I realize that. That's where the "we get people to find out" scenario comes in. If we aren't capable of perceiving something, we get people to do that. Exploration. Discovery. Experimentation. Trial-and-Error. Stupidity. Fatality. Some of the vast reaches of reality hasn't been tapped, but that's all part of the human experience; it's what we are here to find out.

If any one of you are going to throw in "what if we are brains in vaats" or something like that; the brain doesn't do everything. The CNS cannot perceive without the PNS. You drift my catch?

ulimitedpower
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ulimitedpower
1,741 posts
Nomad

Descartes demonstrated that "cogito ergo sum" or "I think, therefore I am".


That was the name and original phrase, I forgot it... Easier to remember the main idea...
But as nervous systems evolved to enable orientation in the environment this informational input may be blurry but true in its essence.


Good point, and only really stubborn or superstitious people would keep believing after that.
However, theories of a matrix aside, if you assume that there is existence outside your own mind then chances are that your CNS's depiction of it is fairly accurate.


People shot others and claimed they were in the Matrix, therefore it doesn't count. The horrible truth is they managed to get away from quite a few charges this way, not even required to have physiology tests on their mental status.
A great majority of humans cannot perceive space beyond Earth, I realize that.


Really? I believe it now, when I think of it. Otherwise religion would be a lot different, as would universal beliefs. Funny...
Nurvana
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Nurvana
2,526 posts
Farmer

You guys are all a bunch of idiots trying to sound abstract.

Moegreche
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Moegreche
3,816 posts
Duke

You guys are all a bunch of idiots trying to sound abstract.


Just because you don't understand a topic doesn't make those discussing it "idiots." It's an abstract concept - mostly because we're trying to relate to existence in a way that is outside our normal scope.

But anyway, to the point:

Philosophers like Quine and Wittgenstein had a different way of looking at the question - the wondered if you could even ask such a question. If you know predicate logic, then you might already know what I'm going to mention.
So we can predicate certain qualities of things, e.g., There is a red apple. Logically this would be Ex(Rx & Ax). Read: There exists an x such that x is red and x is an apple.
Here we are predicating redness and appleness to the object. (Note, some philosophers who subscribe to adverbialism might not like this, they would simply say they are being appeared to redly and applely. But let's leave this aside).

But within any system like this, there are rules of semantics and syntax. You can just combine any ol' predicate with any ol' quantifier or variable.
The objection here is that asking whether or not something is "really real" makes this mistake. We are asking questions about the system itself - questions that can neither be asked nor answered within the system.
We could develop a new system that allows us to ask questions like this, but then we could just make a new question about the legitimacy of the new system - ad infinitum.

So does this response seem right? Is it okay to just say, "Look, these questions don't make logical sense because they can't be answered within a proper logical system?". They're simply incomplete axioms that maybe we just have to assume.
Zanto_zsnes
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Zanto_zsnes
1,150 posts
Nomad

For some odd reason, I'm experiencing a lot of 666's, which i would like to take out of my time line. And i can't, this topic contains a 666, as shown below...
http://imgur.com/ZvhkM.png

Is Reality real?

Everybody in the world has they're own reality, even if its an imaginary reality, or a normal reality. All we know is that we're in a planet with over 6 billion persons of different countries of different places(THATS our reality, at least for me).
halogunner
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halogunner
807 posts
Nomad

reality is real unless your talking about reality shows

MageGrayWolf
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MageGrayWolf
9,476 posts
Farmer

See that unicorn? It's real. I can see, smell, feel, and hear it. I'm not going to taste it, that would be weird.


And when everyone else around you didn't see the unicorn, then we can say you are likely hallucinating and the unicorn is not real.

On the point of what if we are just simulations, if we are simulations and everything around us is a simulation then that would make everything around us just as real as we are. For all intensive purposes us and everything around us would be real.
nonconformist
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nonconformist
1,111 posts
Nomad

No reality is unreal

nevetsthereaper
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nevetsthereaper
641 posts
Nomad

what the hell prometheus, i love cake, and if its false, i don't want to be true...but anyway, stalemate, prove its not real, prove it is real.

AnaLoGMunKy
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AnaLoGMunKy
1,584 posts
Blacksmith

You guys are all a bunch of idiots trying to sound abstract.


Lawl... you are an idiot trying to sound smart... whats the difference.
MRWalker82
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MRWalker82
4,012 posts
Shepherd

Actually I think what you are getting at is well covered by solipsism. While I would agree that we cannot objectively know whether our perceptions are accurate, they are accurate enough to be useful and as such we must operate on the basic premises that the universe is tangible and that our perception of it is relatively accurate.

HooFrooDat
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HooFrooDat
34 posts
Nomad

I don't even know what is happening right now, i think we're all just trippin balls.

AnaLoGMunKy
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AnaLoGMunKy
1,584 posts
Blacksmith

we must operate on the basic premises that the universe is tangible and that our perception of it is relatively accurate.


Also we risk insanity if we dont agree with our reality. Or this next statement is true.

we're all just trippin balls.
AndyDGS
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AndyDGS
91 posts
Nomad

Excuse my "newbieness" to this thread, but I wanna try
to answer the question of that topic. "Is reality real?"
As I see, this question assumes some logical difficulties.

I'm not sure that any human being could answer this question "right" because everyone of us consider it's own
vision of reality. So we can't be objective at all.
Neither logic, nor abstract theories could not describe "the
reality" in a way that ALL of us will agree.

It's a problem that makes people tell each other stuff like

You guys are all a bunch of idiots trying to sound abstract


The map is not an actual territory.
The taste of a menu is not a taste of food.
Any man has it's own "system" that he believes in.
And we can't find an actual "reality".
In a most better case we only could make a cool model
of the "reality" and believe in it.

So in that case, reality is not real.

8)
Lintire
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Lintire
114 posts
Nomad

I do believe that there is a reality - a world out there, a flat, solid, existing world, and that each person, in their desperation for a more exciting life, has developed their own take on it - one man's fun is another man's work, so which one is deluded?
It's all circles and basket-weaving to me, but if you manage to find your way through the delusions and illusions feel free to give me a call, I'm probably knee-deep in my own reality - albeit a very, very thin one.

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