Reality of the Mind - Page 4

**Ristaron** · 08-19-2008, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ExM@N

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.

In a practical sense, there is no reason to assume on such a possibility. It's like the possibility that we live on the back of a giant turtle floating through the Astral Sea. Ultimately this question is relegated to "irrelevant".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aphrodisiac

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?

No.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aphrodisiac

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.

Are you talking about "out of phase" realities? Or alternate realitites?

Aphrodisiac · 08-19-2008, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ristaron

Are you talking about "out of phase" realities? Or alternate realitites?

I never heard of out of phase realities until I googled it just now but that is a good description of what I am trying to say.

WARmeetWORLD · 08-21-2008, 03:02 PM

This stuff had me thinking of Parmenides (and philosophical paradoxes you may have heard attributed to "Zeno"). Parmenides said that you could logically argue that our understanding of space and time does not make sense. As going over the bits about space and time brought me to this, I guess I would not be contributing to realities, but I think this would contribute to perception, no?

Like his little bit about space and time, he spoke about how two objects could not exist in the same space (he started this off with his questioning of "the one being many, and the many being one" paradox). He also brought forth his view on motion, which is what spoke of space and time. Using paradoxes attributed to Zeno, there are arguments of whether you are actually moving. Since we believe that motion is going from point of space [A] to point of space [b] within a period of time, there cannot be instances in time for motion to work. If there are instances in time, than you are not actually in motion, unless motion is just "appearing" within different points of space periodically until you appear at point [b]. As a point in space means you were within this point in space during an instance of time, and if you are within a point of space, you are within it alone, not within that point and partially of another, so to be in this point of space, you are not moving, but within that specific point during a specific instance of time etc.

If there are ANY instances in time, that means there are only instances, for within the instance there is no motion. Appear here, appear there...an illusion of "motion" like the flip-books you made when bored in grade school.

To try and word this easier, because it is hard to without the dialogue for reference, the argument claims this: Either [1] There is no such thing as motion, for we only appear in different points of space several times (like how a flip-book may give an illusion of a stick figure moving). Or [2] There are no instances in time, and there are no points in space (at least in the sense of how a point in space was defined). No points in space = no instances in time; no instances in time = no points in space. So either time can be broken down, or it cannot, as in just become smaller (1/2 second, 1/3 second, 1/4 second, on and on infinit).

Though, my understanding of Parmenides probably isn't the greatest. You can find the dialogue online most likely by searching for "Parmenides" by Plato. The search will correct you if my spelling is wrong, because I am on a crappy public comp =P It is an interesting read, and finding alternative forms of it, as in modern/contemporary forms of the dialogue, may help because if you are not used to the form, it might eat your brain.

Germanboi · 08-21-2008, 08:20 PM

HAHA it almost sounds like we're talking Matrix... I would have to say I agree with everything Rist is saying.