Reality of the Mind - Page 3

**HeartAttack** · 08-19-2008, 12:11 PM

Damn these simple, human eyes. I want to be a robot. I was thinking: you know how, say, a digital camera only "perceives" a certain amount of colors and etc? Well, what if that camera actually perceives much, much more, and our eyes are only limited to what we can normally see anyways?

That's why I want to be a robot. Perhaps my "digital camera eyes" could see much more than my human eyes.

**SARS-expl0ted** · 08-19-2008, 12:13 PM

Yea but have you seen how a digital camera perceives the moon?
It just looks like a dot in the sky.

**HeartAttack** · 08-19-2008, 12:17 PM

Well that depends on the quality of your digital camera, lol.

Use an optical zoom feature, though, and you've got a clear shot. Who says my "digital camera eyes" aren't super high resolution? Who says I can't process that information infinitely times better than a regular 'ol digital camera?

**SARS-expl0ted** · 08-19-2008, 12:25 PM

Who says that you're going to see the moon as well as humans do when you get those eyes?

**HeartAttack** · 08-19-2008, 12:26 PM

Because they'll be telescopic.

**Ristaron** · 08-19-2008, 12:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by [ Jew Blaster ]

I was going through some old threads today because of boredom and I came across an old thread of mine that I want to explore a little more then it was.

This was the topic:
"Two objects cannot exist in the same place at the same time."

I saw that Rist had said this in another thread. It made me think.
Have any of you ever thought about this statement?

As in, it might mean...more than just objects.
What about people? Maybe I am the only one who really exists.
Then again, what is existing exactly?

This is a reply I wanted to add on to:

Here is my new topic:
I am going to question about what it was that I highlighted in your statement.
How do we know that we cannot do that?
How do we know that we did not possess that sort of 'power' in the past and lost it due to brainwashing or lack of use?

You know how when you fall down and get hurt, if you trick yourself into thinking that it doesn't hurt then it will not bother you? Everything is a mind trick. We think things because that is what we are taught.
I have seen plenty of children fall and hurt themselves and many of those children do not cry until the parents freak out and tries to comfort them. The child was fine until the mother or father freaked out and started with the, "Are you okay?!" spill.

So what if we could alter more then just pain?

Well, I'll start off by saying that it is scientifically impossible for two objects to exist in the same space. This is a proven fact. My way of thinking, beyond that, is that every thought we have is the result of electric discharges in the neurons of our brains. I'm of the belief that the personal magnetic field we generate with our thoughts (our brain never turns off, by the way) generates what we call "consciousness", the celebrated Ghost in the Machine, or "soul".

I arrived at this conclusion based not only on scientific evidence, but also on the very ontological argument you're bringing up. You may not be aware, but over three hundred years ago a French gentleman named Rene Descartes devised the very argument you have brought up: "how do I know that everything else is real?"
This has come to be known as the "Brain In A Jar" theory, and starts with the famous "I think, therefore I am" to prove that he does exist.

Beyond there he and I take different roads. Descartes went on a roundabout argument to prove God's existence through half-logic and ontological crap by which he ascribed certain values to something that might not have even been God if it did exist. He briefly flirted with reason, however, in that he dealt with the nature of his own senses. I've come to believe that if I can see it, smell it, taste it, touch it, and hear it, there's a very good chance that it exists. I say a very good chance because I've left allowance for the less-reasonable aspects of our brains, such as hallucinations, and our predisposition to see patterns in unrelated events. In short, I believe in biology.

Further on that point, when one injures themselves, they don't always feel pain right away. Either they're caught up in something fun and the endorphins keep them from noticing it until it's brought to their attention and their panic receptors all go off and they start crying not just from pain but also from fear... or the injury might be so bad that they simply go into shock. There's also that they might be confused at first, and their minds don't focus on the pain until after their head's been given a moment to clear.

There's an explanation for everything in the universe. We might not have them all right now, but we've hardly reached the limits of our understanding.

--------------- Added 19 Aug 2008 at 12:35 pm ---------------

I've merged the two topics that were exactly the same, just posted at different times.
-Rist

**HeartAttack** · 08-19-2008, 12:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ristaron

I've come to believe that if I can see it, smell it, taste it, touch it, and hear it, there's a very good chance that it exists. I say a very good chance because I've left allowance for the less-reasonable aspects of our brains, such as hallucinations, and our predisposition to see patterns in unrelated events. In short, I believe in biology.

For the sake of "what if", seeing as to how everything we see, hear, touch and smell is only a perception, what if the tools of our perception were connected to a machine that fed us electrical impulses that our brain perceived as scents or feelings or a vision? Imagine we simply couldn't tell the difference between the "real" and the "unreal"? An impulse sent by something artificial is totally capable of making us "feel" or "taste" or "see" something that 'isn't really there'. But since it's the simple perception of the matter, what's the difference between the "real" and the "perceived"? In the end, it's just a signal sent to our brain to be interpreted.

Aphrodisiac · 08-19-2008, 12:40 PM

Here another random though that has gone through my mind as well. That last part of Rist post about understanding and explanations made me think of it. What if everything we think we know is a lie? Can we really prove anything outside of our own personal existence and perceptions? Even at that can we prove the perceptions we have as a individual are real or even say what reality is. Can we prove that what we each perceive from sight, sound, touch, and smell is not being sent to us somehow and the physical existence isn't just an illusion put over our eyes by some complex program or thing we don't even have a name for?

**Ristaron** · 08-19-2008, 12:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aphrodisiac

If time does not exist though as anything more than a human concept to keep track of our own lives and existence than how can the statement about existing in the same place and time be accurate? What about the idea of a subtle reality within our own reality? An unseen existence unseen by our existence within and overlapped by the very existence we live in? Perhaps several existences on different levels of existence overlapping each other?

What exactly defines time and existence?

One is used to keep track.

The other is to label something we thing we are aware of, but how aware are we?

Time is a constant, we just happen to define it subjectively. We could call it a year, a century, a decade, a millennium, or even a Chevy-Silverado, but the time it takes for the Earth, or Saturn, or Pluto to travel in an orbit around the sun remains the same.

In that same way, we can call it gravity, falling-law, or whatever, but it is still describing the laws that apply to how boned you are if I drop a penny on your head from on top of the CN tower... or how boned you are if you jump out of a plane flying at an altitude of 20,000 ft. without a parachute.

I'm not sure what you're going at with the "unseen existences". You're going to have to give examples for me to respond to that.

Aphrodisiac · 08-19-2008, 12:47 PM

Just a possibility I have thought about. Realities within realities overlapping but within another dimension I guess for lack of better words. Still occupying the same space but not bound by the same laws. Basically and alternate reality overlapping the reality we know which I believe would consist probably purely of some type of energy.