Reality isn't real

  On 8/15/2010 at 1:26 PM, chax said:

“My gut feeling, and it’s nothing more than that,” he says, “is that there’s a 20 percent chance we’re living in a computer simulation.”

lol. How do you get to calculate 20% percent chance ? With a gut feeling ?

No scientific value, therefore, in the rationalist world, no importance at all. Actually, I don't get

the importance of this article. What, the idea of living in a matrix is new ? Let's be serious for a while.

  On 8/15/2010 at 4:28 PM, sirch said:

not really. 'God', whatever that might be or not be, could be controlling the mega computer.

there could millions of 'God's' controlling millions of mega computers, inside which there are 'Universe's', planets, civilisations, cultures, etc. lol, a bit like 'Sims' !

anything is possible. if you can think it then it can be done in 'real (3-Dimensional) life', eventually........ somehow

I chose my words carefully

  On 8/15/2010 at 2:40 PM, Rambo said:

bottom line. the only people this should matter to are those with very specific religious views that they hold dear. To anyone else this should just be somethig interesting to think about.

I'd be more interested in this if the article weren't written so stupidly.

"Scientists"= A single philosopher at Oxford

  On 8/15/2010 at 4:42 PM, the anonymous forumite said:

  On 8/15/2010 at 1:26 PM, chax said:

“My gut feeling, and it’s nothing more than that,” he says, “is that there’s a 20 percent chance we’re living in a computer simulation.”

 

lol. How do you get to calculate 20% percent chance ? With a gut feeling ?

 

No scientific value, therefore, in the rationalist world, no importance at all. Actually, I don't get

the importance of this article. What, the idea of living in a matrix is new ? Let's be serious for a while.

The hypothesis is the interesting part. The 20% chance thing is just an off the cuff remark - wasn't dressed up as anything else. Bostroms simulation hypothesis isn't a new thing either by the way.

  On 8/15/2010 at 4:46 PM, Rambo said:

  On 8/15/2010 at 4:42 PM, the anonymous forumite said:

  On 8/15/2010 at 1:26 PM, chax said:

“My gut feeling, and it’s nothing more than that,” he says, “is that there’s a 20 percent chance we’re living in a computer simulation.”

 

lol. How do you get to calculate 20% percent chance ? With a gut feeling ?

 

No scientific value, therefore, in the rationalist world, no importance at all. Actually, I don't get

the importance of this article. What, the idea of living in a matrix is new ? Let's be serious for a while.

 

Bostroms simulation hypothesis isn't a new thing either by the way.

That's my point. The idea is 400 hundreds years old.

exactly. No-one else should talk or write about this.

or indeed write a thought provoking hypothesis which was clearly laid out in detail 400 years ago....

shut up

here's a very interesting doc, it's taken me a few views to understand it . . . it's called the illusion of reality!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1406370011028154810#

  On 8/15/2010 at 5:13 PM, synchronoise said:

here's a very interesting doc, it's taken me a few views to understand it . . . it's called the illusion of reality!

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1406370011028154810#

That's part 3 of a three part series, which is well worth the watch if you are interested in the history of how we discovered the atom. Watched it while high as fuck and it was great.

It's possible there's only on person in the universe. It could be that we're all sections of a single being's consciousness or it could just be that I'm the only person in existence and I made you all up subconsciously.

Also, it might be that in dreams we poke into other universes and that the big paradigm shift we're about to see in the next 10-20 years might very well be a shift between those universes. Dream world becomes reality, reality becomes the dream world.

i haven't read this whole thread and i am not fully aware of the discussion, so this might come as lightly off topic, but i think it is thinking in itself, thinking way too much about this that brings conclusions about reality being unreal, being an illusion. as we don't understand every aspect, as there are still unknown facts about our reality, we reach a point of even considering it's existence. it's all a question of mind. i think also technology is responsible for that in the sense that makes us less human (especially today more than ever) and makes us even more insecure when it comes to appreciate what is real. but that is a complex discussion where i am not interested to go.

the deeper we think of this, the more we start doubting and then we start forgeting of the things we can touch, smell, hear, see, taste... this is the main thing - senses -

how can you think such thing and at the same time be touching a keyboard, watching a monitor while listening to that favorite song? are you really doubting your senses? than you must be lost.

i don't completely despise this type of studies/perspectives as they present a will to consider things, to explore and i can understand their essence and purposes but if there is something about this world, is that it is... real.

  On 8/15/2010 at 5:35 PM, ruiagnelo said:

i definitely should have read more of this thread before posting

- to complement my early post -

this reminds me of a time where i discovered how 3d animation was created, and i would sometimes find myself thinking if the world wasn't just a huge 3d wireframe model, then rendered with surfaces and our skins where we would live. i didn't spend much time thinking about it because i never believed in such thing.

but why did i started thinking this? because of technology. because i became aware of how the virtual worked. and my mind, always ready to consider things started working on different perspectives which i could or could not accept.

now if you ask me, i don't really know what to think about the huge 3d model.. maybe it's true, maybe it isn't.

but i prefer to trust my eyes when i see a stone wall lighted by the sun or my ears when i listen to a song. that is reality for me.

  On 8/15/2010 at 5:41 PM, Al5x said:

  On 8/15/2010 at 5:35 PM, ruiagnelo said:

i definitely should have read more of this thread before posting

don't say i didn't warn you.

it's my perspective on reality reduced to its simplest form.

  On 8/15/2010 at 5:10 PM, Pennywise said:

shut up

why not feel my finger inside you?

But how can you truly be sure of what your senses sense is real? Another human might see the same thing differently than you do and not to even mention how animals see their reality. I bet if we could sense how a shark sees its reality it would be totally alien to us.

  On 8/15/2010 at 5:51 PM, azatoth said:

But how can you truly be sure of what your senses sense is real?

you can't. i am also as in the same doubt as you are.

but is there anything closer to your senses sense? isn't it the most reliable example of reality you have..so far?

it is for me.

I watched some new age sales pitch documentary on youtubes, could have been posted here, and there was one interesting thought that stood out. The idea was that we are all fragmented pieces of one consciousness and the sooner we figure this out all will be well, the standard new age shizzle. Well, one dude asked what if you were a omnipotent being, all knowing, eternal etc, what could you do for fun? Well that is to convince yourself that you are the complete opposite of yourself and thus we are created. Or something in that manner.

  On 8/15/2010 at 5:54 PM, ruiagnelo said:

  On 8/15/2010 at 5:51 PM, azatoth said:

But how can you truly be sure of what your senses sense is real?

 

you can't. i am also as in the same doubt as you are.

but is there anything closer to your senses sense? isn't it the most reliable example of reality you have..so far?

 

it is for me.

I agree, that in the end you can only be sure that you exist and experience everything. Then again you could go one step further and say that you are an illusion as well. Fun things to think about either way.

  On 8/15/2010 at 5:58 PM, azatoth said:

I watched some new age sales pitch documentary on youtubes, could have been posted here, and there was one interesting thought that stood out. The idea was that we are all fragmented pieces of one consciousness and the sooner we figure this out all will be well, the standard new age shizzle. Well, one dude asked what if you were a omnipotent being, all knowing, eternal etc, what could you do for fun? Well that is to convince yourself that you are the complete opposite of yourself and thus we are created. Or something in that manner.

i get the point. but when would we figure this out and how?

  On 8/15/2010 at 6:01 PM, azatoth said:

  On 8/15/2010 at 5:54 PM, ruiagnelo said:

  On 8/15/2010 at 5:51 PM, azatoth said:

But how can you truly be sure of what your senses sense is real?

 

you can't. i am also as in the same doubt as you are.

but is there anything closer to your senses sense? isn't it the most reliable example of reality you have..so far?

 

it is for me.

 

I agree, that in the end you can only be sure that you exist and experience everything. Then again you could go one step further and say that you are an illusion as well. Fun things to think about either way.

yes! i agree with you know.

we should think everything, consider and reconsider everything. but we shouldn't lose consciousness of the thing that gives the most real sense of reality - the senses -

  On 8/15/2010 at 6:03 PM, ruiagnelo said:

  On 8/15/2010 at 5:58 PM, azatoth said:

I watched some new age sales pitch documentary on youtubes, could have been posted here, and there was one interesting thought that stood out. The idea was that we are all fragmented pieces of one consciousness and the sooner we figure this out all will be well, the standard new age shizzle. Well, one dude asked what if you were a omnipotent being, all knowing, eternal etc, what could you do for fun? Well that is to convince yourself that you are the complete opposite of yourself and thus we are created. Or something in that manner.

 

i get the point. but when would we figure this out and how?

That's a neat idea but I think that we are "connected" in seemingly ethereal ways only because we all have incredibly similar DNA. I mean we're all from one species, in one way or another we're going to feel like "one big thing" due to evolutions tendency for community etc. I also think that God convincing himself that he is the complete opposite is silly, I think humans imagined themselves opposite and that created the idea of God. Why would God want to be human? But even I want to be God.

The original paper is so much better than that article.

http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

  On 8/15/2010 at 6:03 PM, ruiagnelo said:

  On 8/15/2010 at 5:58 PM, azatoth said:

I watched some new age sales pitch documentary on youtubes, could have been posted here, and there was one interesting thought that stood out. The idea was that we are all fragmented pieces of one consciousness and the sooner we figure this out all will be well, the standard new age shizzle. Well, one dude asked what if you were a omnipotent being, all knowing, eternal etc, what could you do for fun? Well that is to convince yourself that you are the complete opposite of yourself and thus we are created. Or something in that manner.

 

i get the point. but when would we figure this out and how?

I would say a lot of cultures in the past did have this figured out. This whole empowerment of humanity thing where we think we're divinely chosen or have more of a right to live than anything else bullshit has really been getting out of hand in the last thousand years. We're just good at surviving to the point where we basically have free reign of the temperate surface of the Earth.

  On 8/15/2010 at 5:30 PM, wahrk said:

It's possible there's only on person in the universe. It could be that we're all sections of a single being's consciousness or it could just be that I'm the only person in existence and I made you all up subconsciously.

 

Also, it might be that in dreams we poke into other universes and that the big paradigm shift we're about to see in the next 10-20 years might very well be a shift between those universes. Dream world becomes reality, reality becomes the dream world.

is that before or after we get sucked into that Black Hole ?

probably after. :)

Interesting TED talk about how much of what we see are in fact what our brain thinks, rather than the actual light information that hits our retinas.