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OfflineMeph
Synesthesiac

Registered: 09/01/02
Posts: 1,568
Loc: Qu?bec
Last seen: 19 years, 6 months
How can you tell that...
    #858941 - 09/02/02 12:21 PM (21 years, 6 months ago)

...everything around you is real?

How can you tell that you are not living in a dream, and that, for real, you are not a schyzophrenic strapped on a hospital bed, and that your whole "life" is not just a delusion?

Technically, there is no way to prove this. I am not asking it out of curiosity - I want to know, because that question has been troubling me for a few days now. I wonder what people will come up with...


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I'm a bipedal carbon-based pseudo-random number generator.

Demonstration: 152.


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Offlinepsilo25
The one stuck inthe middle ofthis hopelessmess.

Registered: 03/03/02
Posts: 244
Loc: over here
Last seen: 15 years, 2 months
Re: How can you tell that... [Re: Meph]
    #858963 - 09/02/02 12:37 PM (21 years, 6 months ago)

Simple...you can't.  Reality is only what your perceptions tell you it is.  Your perceptions can be very heavily biased by your beliefs, social conditioning, etc. (just about anything, really).  As far as you actually being strapped into a bed in a mental intstitution and living a delusion, I wouldn't worry about it.  I've often pondered the same thing.  I've concluded that I am most likely not living a delusion, but even if I am, so what?  Either way, your senses are telling you that this is reality, so just enjoy whatever reality it is that you are living in, even if there are numerous other possibilities.  You'll either give yourself a headache or actually wind up in an institution if you ponder this too heavily.  (Wouldn't that be ironic, strapped to bed living a delusion, and in that delusion you find yourself strapped to a bed... :smile:


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Stand up for your freedoms, join the fight against the War on Drugs!

www.drcnet.org
www.drugpolicyalliance.org
www.drugsense.org

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OfflineMeph
Synesthesiac

Registered: 09/01/02
Posts: 1,568
Loc: Qu?bec
Last seen: 19 years, 6 months
Re: How can you tell that... [Re: psilo25]
    #858974 - 09/02/02 12:43 PM (21 years, 6 months ago)

Psilo25, thank you for that very intelligent answer.

Your opinion is somehow based on trust. You have decided to trust your senses and your perception, but that can be harder to do than to say for some people.

IMHO, while it would be very interesting to know the answer to that question, I have to agree with you that there is NO rationnal answer other than the one you gave me.

I guess we just have to sit back and enjoy the ride, without worrying too much about technical details.

Curiosity is an irreplacable quality. But it can lead to serious problems, too...


--------------------
I'm a bipedal carbon-based pseudo-random number generator.

Demonstration: 152.


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Offlinepsilo25
The one stuck inthe middle ofthis hopelessmess.

Registered: 03/03/02
Posts: 244
Loc: over here
Last seen: 15 years, 2 months
Re: How can you tell that... [Re: Meph]
    #858992 - 09/02/02 12:51 PM (21 years, 6 months ago)

Well, I wouldn't say that I have absolute trust in my perceptions. I know my perceptions are very flawed. I am always conscious of this, and I still question what they tell me. I'm still curious as to what my perceptions aren't telling me, since that can often be more important than what they are telling me. But the reality I percieve is still the reality that I must live in, so I choose to do so.


--------------------
Stand up for your freedoms, join the fight against the War on Drugs!

www.drcnet.org
www.drugpolicyalliance.org
www.drugsense.org

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OfflineMeph
Synesthesiac

Registered: 09/01/02
Posts: 1,568
Loc: Qu?bec
Last seen: 19 years, 6 months
Re: How can you tell that... [Re: psilo25]
    #859001 - 09/02/02 12:53 PM (21 years, 6 months ago)

Agreed. In one case or the other, I have no choice; there is nothing I can change to my situation.

I'm still curious, though.  :smile: 


--------------------
I'm a bipedal carbon-based pseudo-random number generator.

Demonstration: 152.


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Invisibletak_old
Endo Smoke

Registered: 05/31/02
Posts: 609
Loc: State of confusion
Re: How can you tell that... [Re: Meph]
    #862649 - 09/04/02 12:26 AM (21 years, 6 months ago)

This type of thought haunted me. I then thought "what if I am existance, no hospital bed, nothing more, i am alone"

I dunno about all that there, but what I do know is when dealing with day to day tasks, everyone i talk to seems real. Therefor they are real. If I am imagining them, then they are so clear, and so real that they are real. The only problem i have with 'real' is "if no one else can see them, then they are not real" ... well there is no one else to see them, as you are alone, therefor they are as real as you. Are you real? If everyone you imagine is so unique, and diffrent....But you are imagining them they must represent a part of the you in the hospital. Then comes the fact that You are not You. If they are being created by you, then so are you, and they have characteristics of you, wich you do also. So what you are thinking in first person isnt exactly what the hospitalized person is? Then this would kinda be like the theory of "we are all 1 consciousness experiancing itself subjectivley", that we are all part of god, peices of souls wich come from the big one.

Sorry for rambling there, but that really doesnt begin to describe what i mean. So many questions share common ground though. Its scary. Seems to make a universal truth seem a little closer than we thought.

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Offlinepattern
multiplayer

Registered: 07/19/02
Posts: 2,185
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 4 years, 16 days
Re: How can you tell that... [Re: Meph]
    #862816 - 09/04/02 03:26 AM (21 years, 6 months ago)

> I want to know

It is something you have to prove to yourself.

You ask another person to prove reality exists... why did you ask in the first place if that person doesn't exist? You will never believe anything anyone says until you first accept their existence. Therefore it is up to you and you alone to find the answer.

I know reality exists, I can't communicate this to you in language because it is an experience. However I attempted to explain my experience it here:

http://www.shroomery.org/tripreports.php?action=view&level=4&KeyID=724


--------------------
man = monkey + mushroom

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OfflineToxicManM
Bite me, it's fun!
 User Gallery

Registered: 06/28/02
Posts: 6,725
Loc: Aurora, Colorado
Last seen: 7 hours, 26 minutes
Re: How can you tell that... [Re: pattern]
    #862839 - 09/04/02 03:49 AM (21 years, 6 months ago)

You will never believe anything anyone says until you first accept their existence.

Are you suggesting that the source of an idea can be as significant as the idea itself? I would argue that a good idea is a good idea regardless of source and should be evaluated entirely on its own merits.


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Happy mushrooming!

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InvisibleWhiskeyClone
Not here
Male User Gallery

Registered: 06/25/01
Posts: 16,509
Loc: Longitudinal Center of Canada ...
Re: How can you tell that... [Re: Meph]
    #862908 - 09/04/02 04:54 AM (21 years, 6 months ago)

You?re right, you can?t tell. Even if you were able to tell, who?s to say that you?re REALLY a schizophrenic strapped to a bed. Our perceptions are just our brain?s best guess at what is happening. It can?t possibly be completely accurate.

What I see:



What?s really there:



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Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man.  For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire.  Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it.

~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"

:heartpump:

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Offlinegnrm23
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 08/29/99
Posts: 6,488
Loc: n. e. OH, USSA
Last seen: 5 months, 21 days
Re: How can you tell that... [Re: Meph]
    #862911 - 09/04/02 04:57 AM (21 years, 6 months ago)

see ehinlein's wonderful paranoid (?) short story "them" (originally published as "they") for one person's perception that the world he sees is something whomped up by some sorta conspiracy to keep him from remembering the truth...
~
solipsism?
(universi sum, et nihil alienum puto... the identific vision of the universal joke.........)(... or something like that, heh...)


--------------------
old enough to know better
not old enough to care

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Invisibletak_old
Endo Smoke

Registered: 05/31/02
Posts: 609
Loc: State of confusion
Re: How can you tell that... [Re: gnrm23]
    #863671 - 09/04/02 01:00 PM (21 years, 6 months ago)

Whether we are, or are not, we are both. Complexity is only an illusion.

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Anonymous

Re: How can you tell that... [Re: Meph]
    #863695 - 09/04/02 01:11 PM (21 years, 6 months ago)

Dude, that is a bit far-out thinking but good non the less.
We are all in one big nice slender dream.
This concious is our only one that we have had from creation, animals will be in a different concious that`s why they act like they do. Sea monkeys could be on our level but maybe not. Escape has prices to pay on the way back, original start concious, if slightly altered or heightend concious we are all part of the dream we percieve as life.

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Offlinemirrorsaww
newbie
Registered: 08/31/02
Posts: 43
Last seen: 21 years, 4 months
Re: How can you tell that... [Re: Meph]
    #864578 - 09/04/02 11:39 PM (21 years, 6 months ago)

How can you tell that you are not living in a dream, and that, for real, you are not a schyzophrenic strapped on a hospital bed, and that your whole "life" is not just a delusion? I want to know, because that question has been troubling me for a few days now.

When you realize your speculations as actually being your true predicament, this will be the first step to you recovering from your delusion.

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Invisibletak_old
Endo Smoke

Registered: 05/31/02
Posts: 609
Loc: State of confusion
Re: How can you tell that... [Re: mirrorsaww]
    #865997 - 09/04/02 05:21 PM (21 years, 6 months ago)

I don thtink it would be really a dream, or atleast not a 3d dream. do you think the 2nd dimension knows about us, but just cant get to us?

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