Is The World An Illusion?

[Philosophy Now]

Each answer below receives a book. Apologies to the many entrants not included.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/129/Is_The_World_An_Illusion

[henry quirk]

What do exist independently of our minds are objects consisting of molecules, particles, waves, forces. These are devoid of colour, sound or any of the other secondary qualities: the external world is dark, silent and colourless. Our sensory apparatus – our sense organs, sensory nervous system and sensory cortices – creates the illusion that the world is bright and colourful by transforming the raw data provided by our senses into colours, sounds, tastes, smells, sensations of hot and cold (and pain). These secondary qualities didn’t exist until they were invented by evolution. They evolved over time because those organisms that had the most informative senses had an evolutionary advantage.

Some idealists may disagree with these ideas and maintain, as George Berkeley (1685-1753) did, that just as colours, sounds and so on, are in the mind so physical objects are in the mind, as these objects just are their perceived properties. However, the existence even of our senses refutes Berkeley’s argument. Our senses (and those of other living creatures) evolved because they enabled us to compete, survive and procreate in a challenging environment that already existed. This process could not work in Berkeley’s world. A belief in evolution entails necessarily a belief in the existence of a mind-independent physical world. So the physical world exists, but we don’t see it as it really is, but according to an illusion created by our senses.

Michael Brake, Epsom, Surrey

[-1-]

Some idealists may disagree with these ideas and maintain, as George Berkeley (1685-1753) did, that just as colours, sounds and so on, are in the mind so physical objects are in the mind, as these objects just are their perceived properties. However, the existence even of our senses refutes Berkeley’s argument. Our senses (and those of other living creatures) evolved because they enabled us to compete, survive and procreate in a challenging environment that already existed. This process could not work in Berkeley’s world. A belief in evolution entails necessarily a belief in the existence of a mind-independent physical world. So the physical world exists, but we don’t see it as it really is, but according to an illusion created by our senses.

Michael Brake, Epsom, Surrey

Well, the world inside the mind may be will-independent, if not mind-independent. That's the problem with false interpretations of Berkeley. People who read him assume that because a world only exists in the mind, it is subjugated to the will of the mind. But it not necessarily is.

Thus, evolution, repeatable experiments, new discoveries, third-party inventions and theories can also exists only in the world in the mind.

[Dubious]

The ability to feel makes the illusion real.

[Veritas Aequitas]

This is one of my favorite topic.
I agree with most of the arguments in the OP article but they are not very refine.
Note this thread I raised which cover all of conscious reality;

Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=25316

So yes, the World [conscious] is an Illusion.
But note Conscious reality has an inverse relation with hallucination [illusion].
Being an illusion does not mean it is not real in the pragmatic sense.
Note,

• 99% real = 1% illusion
  1% real = 99% illusion

The 99% hallucination [illusion] of a full blown schizophrenic is 1% real.
The 99% reality of Science is 1% illusion.

There are two types of illusions, i.e.

1. Empirical illusions - empirical elements
2. Transcendental illusions based on thoughts only

Empirical illusions are those are related to empirical elements, e.g. bent stick in water, which can be easily exposed by unravelling the empirical evidences.

Transcendental illusions are based on thoughts only which are deceived by one's brain.
Such transcendental illusions are very difficult to unravelled since it involve sophisticated pseudo syllogism.
One example of such transcendental illusion [99%] is the illusory God where theists ignorantly insist is real even 100% empirically real.

[Walker]

So the physical world exists, but we don’t see it as it really is, but according to an illusion created by our senses.

Michael Brake, Epsom, Surrey

The world is really impermanent.

The illusion is permanence.

[Atla]

Not an illusion. The world of the mind and the world of the physical are one and the same. So these sensations I'm having right now, these colors, sounds, feelings etc. are 100% real and part of the world.

I'm seeing the inside of my head. It isn't a completely accurate picture of my surroundings though, so in that sense it's illusory. Still, it's fairly accurate for most people.

[henry quirk]

The word is real, and exists independent of me.

I know this simply and directly (I'm too friggin' dumb to be makin' all this shit up therefore it must exist apart from me).

I apprehend the world by way of my senses and build models and maps (not illusions) of it in my head. My models and maps are incomplete (cuz I only apprehend part of the available information) but are accurate enough for me navigate in and interact with the world (all the 'things' around me).

[seeds]

_______

Is the world an illusion?

Yes!

Some idealists may disagree with these ideas and maintain, as George Berkeley (1685-1753) did, that just as colours, sounds and so on, are in the mind so physical objects are in the mind, as these objects just are their perceived properties. However, the existence even of our senses refutes Berkeley’s argument. Our senses (and those of other living creatures) evolved because they enabled us to compete, survive and procreate in a challenging environment that already existed. This process could not work in Berkeley’s world. A belief in evolution entails necessarily a belief in the existence of a mind-independent physical world. So the physical world exists, but we don’t see it as it really is, but according to an illusion created by our senses.

The underlined (by me) sentences above are wrong, because even though the physical world may exist independently of our minds, it is not (according to Berkeley) independent of God’s mind.

Therefore, Berkeley’s argument and idealism are not refuted.
_______

[Veritas Aequitas]

The word is real, and exists independent of me.

I know this simply and directly (I'm too friggin' dumb to be makin' all this shit up therefore it must exist apart from me).

I apprehend the world by way of my senses and build models and maps (not illusions) of it in my head. My models and maps are incomplete (cuz I only apprehend part of the available information) but are accurate enough for me navigate in and interact with the world (all the 'things' around me).

Take a 'real' table for example.
Common sense and conventionally, yes there is a real table that is independent of me, BUT;

Show me a real table that is independent of me in the absolute sense.

Here is where Russell went into depth on this question and raise the doubt, "Perhaps there is no [real] table at all". [mine]

Before we go farther it will be well to consider for a moment what it is that we have discovered so far. It has appeared that, if we take any common object of the sort that is supposed to be known by the senses, what the senses immediately tell us is not the truth about the object as it is apart from us, but only the truth about certain sense-data which, so far as we can see, depend upon the relations between us and the object. Thus what we directly see and feel is merely 'appearance', which we believe to be a sign of some 'reality' behind. But if the reality is not what appears, have we any means of knowing whether there is any reality at all? And if so, have we any means of finding out what it is like?

Such questions are bewildering, and it is difficult to know that even the strangest hypotheses may not be true.
Thus our familiar table, which has roused but the slightest thoughts in us hitherto, has become a problem full of surprising possibilities.
The one thing we know about it [the table] is that it is not what it seems.
Beyond this modest result, so far, we have the most complete liberty of conjecture.

• Leibniz tells us it is a community of souls: Berkeley tells us it is an idea in the mind of God; sober science, scarcely less wonderful, tells us it is a vast collection of electric charges in violent motion.

Among these surprising possibilities, doubt suggests that perhaps there is no table at all.
Philosophy, if it cannot answer so many questions as we could wish, has at least the power of asking questions which increase the interest of the world, and show the strangeness and wonder lying just below the surface even in the commonest things of daily life.

Russell in Problems of Philosophy

Give some deep thoughts and reflection on the above.

[Veritas Aequitas]

_______

Is the world an illusion?

Yes!

Some idealists may disagree with these ideas and maintain, as George Berkeley (1685-1753) did, that just as colours, sounds and so on, are in the mind so physical objects are in the mind, as these objects just are their perceived properties. However, the existence even of our senses refutes Berkeley’s argument. Our senses (and those of other living creatures) evolved because they enabled us to compete, survive and procreate in a challenging environment that already existed. This process could not work in Berkeley’s world. A belief in evolution entails necessarily a belief in the existence of a mind-independent physical world. So the physical world exists, but we don’t see it as it really is, but according to an illusion created by our senses.

The underlined (by me) sentences above are wrong, because even though the physical world may exist independently of our minds, it is not (according to Berkeley) independent of God’s mind.

Therefore, Berkeley’s argument and idealism are not refuted.
_______

Berkeley’s argument is good in the first part but not his final conclusion.
Because it is impossible for a real God to exist.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=24704

[seeds]

_______

Is the world an illusion?

Yes!

Some idealists may disagree with these ideas and maintain, as George Berkeley (1685-1753) did, that just as colours, sounds and so on, are in the mind so physical objects are in the mind, as these objects just are their perceived properties. However, the existence even of our senses refutes Berkeley’s argument. Our senses (and those of other living creatures) evolved because they enabled us to compete, survive and procreate in a challenging environment that already existed. This process could not work in Berkeley’s world. A belief in evolution entails necessarily a belief in the existence of a mind-independent physical world. So the physical world exists, but we don’t see it as it really is, but according to an illusion created by our senses.

The underlined (by me) sentences above are wrong, because even though the physical world may exist independently of our minds, it is not (according to Berkeley) independent of God’s mind.

Therefore, Berkeley’s argument and idealism are not refuted.
_______

Berkeley’s argument is good in the first part but not his final conclusion.
Because it is impossible for a real God to exist.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=24704

Oh come on now V.A., don’t you think that it’s a little self-defeating to link me to a thread where I already debunked your main premise? - See this post here: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=24704&start=75#p369067
_______

[Veritas Aequitas]

_______

Is the world an illusion?

Yes!

Some idealists may disagree with these ideas and maintain, as George Berkeley (1685-1753) did, that just as colours, sounds and so on, are in the mind so physical objects are in the mind, as these objects just are their perceived properties. However, the existence even of our senses refutes Berkeley’s argument. Our senses (and those of other living creatures) evolved because they enabled us to compete, survive and procreate in a challenging environment that already existed. This process could not work in Berkeley’s world. A belief in evolution entails necessarily a belief in the existence of a mind-independent physical world. So the physical world exists, but we don’t see it as it really is, but according to an illusion created by our senses.

The underlined (by me) sentences above are wrong, because even though the physical world may exist independently of our minds, it is not (according to Berkeley) independent of God’s mind.

Therefore, Berkeley’s argument and idealism are not refuted.
_______

Berkeley’s argument is good in the first part but not his final conclusion.
Because it is impossible for a real God to exist.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=24704

Oh come on now V.A., don’t you think that it’s a little self-defeating to link me to a thread where I already debunked your main premise? - See this post here: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=24704&start=75#p369067
_______

Debunked?
You have merely presented unconvincing counter views.
I have not conceded to accept your arguments.

Note I have countered your counter.
viewtopic.php?p=369146#p369146

[bahman]

What do exist independently of our minds are objects consisting of molecules, particles, waves, forces. These are devoid of colour, sound or any of the other secondary qualities: the external world is dark, silent and colourless. Our sensory apparatus – our sense organs, sensory nervous system and sensory cortices – creates the illusion that the world is bright and colourful by transforming the raw data provided by our senses into colours, sounds, tastes, smells, sensations of hot and cold (and pain). These secondary qualities didn’t exist until they were invented by evolution. They evolved over time because those organisms that had the most informative senses had an evolutionary advantage.

Some idealists may disagree with these ideas and maintain, as George Berkeley (1685-1753) did, that just as colours, sounds and so on, are in the mind so physical objects are in the mind, as these objects just are their perceived properties. However, the existence even of our senses refutes Berkeley’s argument. Our senses (and those of other living creatures) evolved because they enabled us to compete, survive and procreate in a challenging environment that already existed. This process could not work in Berkeley’s world. A belief in evolution entails necessarily a belief in the existence of a mind-independent physical world. So the physical world exists, but we don’t see it as it really is, but according to an illusion created by our senses.

Michael Brake, Epsom, Surrey

Yes.

[Impenitent]

Descartes' demon is smiling at all these brains in vats...

-Imp