Life: -=Reality -OR- Illusion=-
What do you think? Is Life reality..or just an illusion?
I stumbled across this board that discussed the philosophy on earth and life and saw a board on Life and views on it. Check this out and discuss your views on life.
http://www.captaincynic.com/thread.php3/thrdid=32783-u-frmid=12
Originally posted by Loving_Daniel11
Never seen The Matrix and Never Heard Of The Truman Show.
i wasnt talking about you.
Originally posted by 42Bardock
The Matrix sucks, teh truman show does a little less but still both say there is a reality just not obvious to some of the people in the movie.
the truman show sucked. i thought it was rather stupid.
and the matrix.
the first one was okay. but the others just. no. sucked.
It doesn't matter. People can get away with claiming that life is an illusion because there's no actual way to test such a claim, short of dying. But for all that it might seem profound to some, it's really supremely unimportant, in that if life is an illusion, it doesn't actually change anything. You still have to live life as if it was real, unless you want to get horribly maimed by an "illusionary" truck or something.
"All I can say about this is somebody has watched the Matrix or the Truman Show way too many times for their own good."
Maybe you just haven't watched them enough.
If everyone saw and perceived completely different realities to one another, we would never know.
For example: If I'm standing in a field with Kharma, my reality and my brain could be telling me "You're in a field with Kharma." Kharma might be standing in the middle of a City with me at that same time. The only reason we wouldn't be able to tell each other the differences is because our brains can only perceive things in the way that we see them or the way that we are supposed to see them. If you tell me that a street sign is red, how do I know that it's really not some other colour and the only reason I can hear you saying that it's red is because that's the only way I can perceive it?
-AC
i'd be drawn to say life's an illusion, as most of the time nothing seems real... as if we're in someone's imagination. it's kinda hard to explain 🙁 , but i often get the feeling that when life's going good, then someone changes it so everything f*cks up... probably sounds a bit far-fetched to some people...
All aspects of life are constantly changing processes, pleasant as well as unpleasant. Change is a constant part of everyday life.
"Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better."
- King Whitney, Jr. -
Is change scary? Yes and no. Depends on your perspective.
One reality can be an illusion for someone else, and one illusion can be a reality for another person. The problem is that when you say, for instance, life is an illusion, then you are in contradiction, because to say that everything is an illusion requires that you know what reality is in order to contrast the two. Thus, life must be a reality. You can only know illusion if you also know reality - it's a logical condition.
*nods*
We all have different senses, different brains and different conscious minds. Reality is everything we experience and what we experience is different for everybody. We all create our own perception of a collective created energy that forms our environment or surroundings.
There can be no illusion without reality.
Originally posted by Storm
*nods*
We all have different senses, different brains and different conscious minds. Reality is everything we experience and what we experience is different for everybody. We all create our own perception of a collective created energy that forms our environment or surroundings.
There can be no illusion without reality.
If you say reality is everything we experience, then for an insane person his insanity affected perception is his reality, right? But, now how do we distinguish between a real and an unreal experience, or is all experience real? All experience must be real as all experiences have to come from somewhere - they cannot come from un-reality. Thus it follows that reality and illusion is the same thing - all illusion is real, because illusion comes from experience and experience is something real. Am I thinking straight here? 😕
A person' s perception cannot be shared with anybody else except through communication. Communication is fallible, subject to exaggeration, falsification and misinterpretation. The reality that we are capable of perceiving is provided by our senses and our logic. We should strive to consider conventional physical explanations before jumping to hypotheses for which we have no basis.
The application of logic may be necessary to determine which perceptions you can trust. How do you distinguish hallucinations from real perceptions? How do you know if your senses fool you or if your observations are real? The difference between real perceptions and hallucinations is that you can repeat and reproduce results from real perceptions but not from hallucinations.
Originally posted by Storm
The difference between real perceptions and hallucinations is that you can repeat and reproduce results from real perceptions but not from hallucinations.
Ok, but what if you hallucinate and imagine that you are in fact reproducing an experience. For instance, schezophrenics are able to reproduce their hallucinations. Isn't there something more reliable than mere reproduction of experiences/perceptions? I accept the fact that in order to know an illusion requires knowledge of reality, BUT if a previously normal individual suddenly falls utterly insane, would he/she be able to recognoize the illusion? Isn't the definition of madness: "a person who is unable to distinguish between reality and fiction."? If so, how can anyone be absolutely sure he/she is still in a sane state of mind?