Darkest Hour

When our eyes see things, they are merely acting as a lens. Kind of like a CD player lens reads a CD. Your brain then processes the information provided by your visual cortex and finally tells you what you are seeing. If you had a grasshopper, cat and a human all looking at the same "red" flower, the grasshopper would see it as red, the cat would see it as black and white, and the human would see it as red.

Every experience we have in this world through our 5 senses is all determined on how our brain is set up to receive the information. Obviously all animals are set up differently, so that is why i used the example above.

Everything we see that exists, is just a thought. A figment of our imagination. How could it not be.

So my question is, do you think we really exist? Or is everything we know just a product of our imagination?

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crash_override

Oh no. Not again.

Did you just finish watching The Matrix trilogy?

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My MB music journal

Darkest Hour

Never even seen the matrix.

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Schizotypic

I think therefor I am. Weather my reality is real or not is impossible to answer without knowing what real means. You might want to look up the word consciousness.

sleepy jack

I think not!

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mr dave

i do

you don't

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i am the universe

Guybrush

That kind of speculation is rather fruitless because there's no evidence that supports the hypothesis that we don't really exist. Actually, the universe behaves relatively predictable and so you still have to play along with the rules. You're probably not gonna say "this is all a dream so I might as well kill myself". Either way, you have a life and you're living it.

All that hypothesis can give you aside from cheapening our general understanding of the universe is perhaps a feeling of solipsism and existential dread.

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The Monkey

There is no evidence that we exist, either. The entire world may be an illusion as far as I know. The only thing I can really know for sure is that "I" exist in some form, as otherwise I couldn't have wondered about my existence in the first place. Descartes was right on that point, although I don't agree with his conclusions (such as God being the only explanation for my existence). However, I do think we have to live under the assumption that the world exists, otherwise society will collapse into nihilism.

But we cannot approach philosophical matters with the methodology of the natural sciences.

VeggieLover

There we go.


As far as the placebo effect, i know that it is real. But i also think that maybe the variety of things that often get classified as working "simply" because of this are perhaps a bit broad. The power of suggestion is perhaps a much more powerful healing method than we give credit for. There are lots of books on natural energy/healing/positive thinking etc. but the one I've read is Woman's body, woman's wisdom....i doubt you'll take the time to look at it, but essentially it alludes to the powers beyond modern medicine for healing (and it was written by a doctor, not a "quack" if that helps)

Oh, and I just mentioned "ghost stories" because you did... ghosts, though connected to the topic, are kind of in a different little box, in my opinion, than what we are talking about.

Other than that, i don't really disagree with anything you said toretorden... Perhaps I am simply more willing to consciously amongst the parodoxical realities that I see than your average bear.

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"Not remotely! Because iocaine comes from Australia, as everyone knows. And Australia is entirely peopled with criminals. And criminals are used to having people not trust them as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you."

mr dave

i think we exist because we're the only species (as far as i know) that can recognize that it can go extinct.

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i am the universe