It is impossible to step out of the real world

[F1fan]

Or stepping out of them.

Do you know for certain the "real world" isn't an illusion?

There is the problem of our brains being instruments of perception and the limitations of it. But humans have done exceptionally well figuring things out over time and using a narrow and reliable method to discern real from imaginary. We still love our myths and traditions of meaning so there is a built in conflict of interest. A creationist can reject evolution but still go get a flu vaccine (because the virus evolved). They get the advantage of modern science and medicine while holding onto obsolete religious belief.

To my mind discerning real from illusion is not very difficult with proper understanding of the human mind.

 

[SalixIncendium]

There is the problem of our brains being instruments of perception and the limitations of it. But humans have done exceptionally well figuring things out over time and using a narrow and reliable method to discern real from imaginary. We still love our myths and traditions of meaning so there is a built in conflict of interest. A creationist can reject evolution but still go get a flu vaccine (because the virus evolved). They get the advantage of modern science and medicine while holding onto obsolete religious belief.

To my mind discerning real from illusion is not very difficult with proper understanding of the human mind.

Assuming your mind is real and not part of the "real world" illusion.

 

[F1fan]

Assuming your mind is real and not part of the "real world" illusion.

Yeah, Matrix.

Do you drive your car in busy traffic having doubts about everything you see around you is an illusion? Or do you trust seeing a red light and reacting to is by stopping your vehicle?

It's easy to sit on the couch and be stoned (am I really stoned?) and ponder if's and doubts. But when your life is on the line, like driving in traffic, that kind of thinking is abandonded fast.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Do you drive your car in busy traffic having doubts about everything you see around you is an illusion? Or do you trust seeing a red light and reacting to is by stopping your vehicle?

Why "or?" How are the two mutually exclusive?

It's easy to sit on the couch and be stoned (am I really stoned?) and ponder if's and doubts. But when your life is on the line, like driving in traffic, that kind of thinking is abandonded fast.

When you are driving a car in a dream, do you know that everything you see around you is an illusion? Of course not, because you're not aware it's an illusion until you have awakened into waking consciousness. Therefore, when you're driving in a dream, I'm confident you would follow traffic laws just as you would while driving in waking consciousness, because you have the same sense of self-preservation (and hopefully preservation of others) in either reality.

 

[Ostronomos]

It’s not as if I haven’t put my time in looking for “the truth” only to find no final answer is what’s discoverable. I don’t dismiss humans searching for themselves. I have a problem with improbable destinations and dubious methods.

Improbable destinations are just that! Improbable!

 

[Ostronomos]

In actuality death has no grip on us, it is part of the self-simulation of reality. As God and demons exist in a higher dimension outside of myah, the only way to gain knowledge of the actual world of consciousness (which science is only beginning to uncover as fundamental) is to first acknowledge logic. Awareness brings change. We are in desperate need of uniting humanity as only the great genius can do.

 

[F1fan]

Improbable destinations are just that! Improbable!

Atheists know.

 

[Ostronomos]

Atheists know.

False.

I suppose now you're going to tell me that people who eat their **** know too.

 

[F1fan]

False. I know.

I’ve read your posts. They are highly speculative and improbable.

I suppose now you're going to tell me that people who eat their s.hit know too.

Kind of snarky for someone who claims to know. Almost as if you fear critical thinking.

 

[Ostronomos]

I’ve read your posts. They are highly speculative and improbable.

Kind of snarky for someone who claims to know. Almost as if you fear critical thinking.

I only fear God. But yes, I welcome critical thinking. ***STAFF EDIT***

 

[F1fan]

I only fear God.

Who taught you to believe this? And why did you go along with it?

***STAFF EDIT***

 

[Aupmanyav]

I don’t think I understand what you mean.
If this were true, where would that leave those who are born physically blind?

I mean understanding (visualize mentally). Blind, deaf or mute can also do that.

Not really. The point is energy is not "stuff". It's just a property of a system. Nothing is "made of" energy.

Stuff is made of energy. It can be converted back into energy in some cases.

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

I mean understanding (visualize mentally). Blind, deaf or mute can also do that.

Ah, I understand how you mean now! To imagine things, but not as in “making things up”, yes?

Humbly,
Hermit

 

[Aupmanyav]

Not really. The point is energy is not "stuff". It's just a property of a system. Nothing is "made of" energy.

Stuff is made of energy. It can be converted back into energy in some cases.

Ah, I understand how you mean now! To imagine things, but not as in “making things up”, yes?

Humbly, not to imagine things, but to understand them based on currently available scientific evidence.

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

Humbly, not to imagine things, but to understand them based on currently available scientific evidence.

As in, to ”conceive”, perhaps?

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

Dear @F1fan,

The production of science is a creative process requiring imagination, open-mindedness and passion as well as methodology and critical thinking. To belittle the creativity of the process but admire its result, does not make sense.

No good science limits itself by only thinking within the box. There would have been little progress and no paradigm shifts, if it did.

Humbly,
Hermit

 

[exchemist]

Stuff is made of energy. It can be converted back into energy in some cases.

Humbly, not to imagine things, but to understand them based on currently available scientific evidence.

This is wrong. Stuff is not made of energy nor can it be converted to energy. That is Star Trek, not science. But it seems to be a widespread misunderstanding.

Matter can be converted to radiation. Both have energy as one of their properties. But only matter has rest mass. That seems to be what confuses people. E=mc² does not mean mass and energy are interconvertible, or alternatives. It means they go hand in hand. When you add energy to a system its mass increases.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Everything in dream reality is real to the dreamer. Once the dreamer awakens, is everything in the dream reality still real?

Chuang Tzu’s dream of the butterfly, echoed centuries later in European philosophy by Descartes dream argument.
Nearly summarise thus, by Havelock Ellis;
“Dreams are real for as long as they last. Can we say more of life?”

 

[SalixIncendium]

Chuang Tzu’s dream of the butterfly, echoed centuries later in European philosophy by Descartes dream argument.
Nearly summarise thus, by Havelock Ellis;
“Dreams are real for as long as they last. Can we say more of life?”

Gaudapada also made this comparison between dream consciousness and waking consciousness and the falsity of both in his Mandukya Karika.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yeah, Matrix.

Do you drive your car in busy traffic having doubts about everything you see around you is an illusion? Or do you trust seeing a red light and reacting to is by stopping your vehicle?

It's easy to sit on the couch and be stoned (am I really stoned?) and ponder if's and doubts. But when your life is on the line, like driving in traffic, that kind of thinking is abandonded fast.

Well, your example of traffic could also apply for a certain subvariant of a Boltzmann Brain existence.
So no, just because you die, doesn't mean that you are in a real world.

So here it goes and since I know how assumptions work I will try to state them all.

There is no way to know if you are a Boltzmann Brain or not, because if you are, your experiences are caused by you being a Boltzmann Brain.
All scientific claims on whether these Brains are speculative or not all rest on different assumptions about how the universe work.
So here is what I assume that you need to test. You have to test if your experience of e.g. a car means that the car in itself is a car and not a simulation of a car.
You have to test that, because since you use critical thinking you are not allowed to claim something without testing it.

So here are the actual assumptions.
You could be a Boltzmann Brain.
You could be a simulation on a computer, which came into being like a Boltzmann brain.
You could be turned off as a simulation by by the main operating system of the computer, if you "break the rules". I.e. traffic as per your example.

So please give evidence that you are real and not a simulation on a Boltzmann Brain computer. Remember evidence. Not that it doesn't make sense to you, because that is the same for both cases. Evidence, factual evidence.

BTW if you can that, give evidence, then you are the first human in recorded history to do that.