Does reality really exist?

[Philosophy Explorer]

For example, with an apple, I can see it, feel it, taste it and smell it. But if I'm dreaming or under hypnosis or drug induced, the apple then isn't real. And being awake may not matter if the apple is an illusion or if my senses are altered to create that apple.

So does reality really exist? When can we trust our senses with 100% reassurance?

PhilX

[Ginkgo]

For example, with an apple, I can see it, feel it, taste it and smell it. But if I'm dreaming or under hypnosis or drug induced, the apple then isn't real. And being awake may not matter if the apple is an illusion or if my senses are altered to create that apple.

So does reality really exist? When can we trust our senses with 100% reassurance?

PhilX

This is an age old argument first proposed by Rene Descartes in the 17th century. If you have watched "The Matrix" then you would seen the "dreaming" hypothesis played out yet again. Believe it or not, there is actually a solution to what many see as perceived uncertainty. O.K Bouwsma provides this solution. Well, in my view anyway.

[HexHammer]

What a retarded topic, if one is in doubt of reality exist, one is a complete mental case! ..oh wait we have a mental case on our hands!

[Seizing]

I think of reality as an artificial game-board being played by the Universal-demiurge that became a parasite upon its own creation when hacked by unworthy hands.
As such, much of life is a fruitless toil through the dust of recurrence, cycles of blind-chaos that we must ever be adapting ourselves to, but the escape is that human history has reached a massive turning-fork from 2 brands of steel, the first being the sword, and the last being progress.

At this rate, we just have to act honorably and with proper judgment about where the ladder-pieces click when the Golden-age Singularity is set in motion.

[David Handeye]

For example, with an apple, I can see it, feel it, taste it and smell it. But if I'm dreaming or under hypnosis or drug induced, the apple then isn't real. And being awake may not matter if the apple is an illusion or if my senses are altered to create that apple.

So does reality really exist? When can we trust our senses with 100% reassurance?

PhilX

Hi PhilX.
You could never create an apple falling suddenly on your head.
What is real, is the following pain, which isn't yet a creation of yours, unless you were a masochist.

[Nibbana]

Reality depends on how it is observed or measured.

[Philosophy Explorer]

What a retarded topic, if one is in doubt of reality exist, one is a complete mental case! ..oh wait we have a mental case on our hands!

Stop looking in the mirror.

PhilX

[henry quirk]

"Does reality really exist?"

Yes.

How do I know?

Simply: I'm too friggin' stupid to be making all 'this' up.

So: if I'm too friggin' stupid to make all this up, it follows 'this' (reality) exists.


But: let's say reality is just an illusion of a kind...so what?

Nuthin' I can do about it 'cept continue living in it.

That is: the possibility that reality is an illusion doesn't empower me to do diddly squat.

[David Handeye]

When can we trust our senses with 100% reassurance?

We can trust when reality is rationality. If something exists, that's for its inner rationality, otherwise it couldn't exist. What is rational, is necessarily also real. «The children of a sterile person» is in itself a current thought in everyone's mind, but that's clearly an irrational thought, so it cannot be real. If you have a thought of a wall, that's the same as mine and everyone else, so if I tell you "build a wall", you will build a wall of which you have the concept; if I tell you "build a wall that I may cross through", you won't be able to, because you don't have a concept of a wall to be crossed through. So reality comes through rationality. Reality is rationality because this is the world, this is the only world, and as this is the only one, that's the best one, too. As this is the best one, it really exists. It must exists, necessarily, otherwise, if there was a better one, that would be the real one, for if it's perfectly rational there would be no reasonable grounds for not existing, too. If a concept is perfectly rational, it's perfectly real too. So there is no paradise, there is no hell, this world of ours, in which we are and live, can be a paradise, or more often a hell. There is no being with a pair of wings and no sex, and no being with horns and tail and piercing you with a pitchfork. Men are devils. And sometimes also angels. This universe is possible and subsistent only for the law of universal gravitation, but you can't touch it, you can't smell it, you can't see it, it's a concept, perfectly rational, so existing. That's why reality proceede from rationality, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing real that our reason cannot understand.

[HexHammer]

What a retarded topic, if one is in doubt of reality exist, one is a complete mental case! ..oh wait we have a mental case on our hands!

Stop looking in the mirror.

PhilX

I'm not the retard that constantly brings up retarded questions, it's you and ONLY you!

[Philosophy Explorer]

What a retarded topic, if one is in doubt of reality exist, one is a complete mental case! ..oh wait we have a mental case on our hands!

Stop looking in the mirror.

PhilX

I'm not the retard that constantly brings up retarded questions, it's you and ONLY you!

Still looking in that mirror (btw I don't make retarded comments like you do).

PhilX

[HexHammer]

Still looking in that mirror (btw I don't make retarded comments like you do).

Children says such thing, you can't say anthing intelligent, even if your life depends on it!

[Philosophy Explorer]

Still looking in that mirror (btw I don't make retarded comments like you do).

Children says such thing, you can't say anthing intelligent, even if your life depends on it!

In the opinion of one.

PhilX

[duszek]

An illusion would not stay for hours or days or months, I suppose.

So if an apple is on my table for a day or two and I can touch it then I assume that it is real and not an illusion.

Have you heard of the "augmented reality" ?
It was in a radio play: a boy used his i-phone to add naked people to his kitchen. Or spiders.
It´s a sort of visual trick, I suppose.

[HexHammer]

An illusion would not stay for hours or days or months, I suppose.

So if an apple is on my table for a day or two and I can touch it then I assume that it is real and not an illusion.

Have you heard of the "augmented reality" ?
It was in a radio play: a boy used his i-phone to add naked people to his kitchen. Or spiders.
It´s a sort of visual trick, I suppose.

War propaganda does, the gullible Americans even voted for an blatantly illegal Iraq war.