Reality.

[wub]

Perhaps i'm missing the point (yet again)... alternative to what?

If you need to ask, you're not ready to know the answer

[wub]

Perhaps i'm missing the point (yet again)... alternative to what?

If you need to ask, you're not ready to know the answer

And yes, I do consider myself a tnuc for giving that as a 'response'

[Motorway to Roswell]

[Killamike49]

Look Wub. I think science is right. Molecules and shit makes way more sense than this being a dream, obviously. But, if it's not, a dream steps in as my explanation. I don't know why you have to be such dick about semantics haha.

[cityzen]

And yes, I do consider myself a tnuc for giving that as a 'response'

Not just me then. I'm joking.

I think i'll take a passive role in this thread from here on out.

[wub]

Look Wub. I think science is right. Molecules and shit makes way more sense than this being a dream, obviously. But, if it's not, a dream steps in as my explanation. I don't know why you have to be such dick about semantics haha.

You got me - I'm really a giant lizard in disguise.

[Dead Rats]

If I had to believe in anything, it'd be in reincarnation.

[JTMMusicuk]

all the worlds leaders are lizards

[magma]

Look Wub. I think science is right. Molecules and shit makes way more sense than this being a dream, obviously. But, if it's not, a dream steps in as my explanation. I don't know why you have to be such dick about semantics haha.

Tbf, it's not that stupid at all. We can already envisage a time when we'll be able to simulate the function of a brain with computers (we should be able to match it's power in our laptops/whatever in the 2020s... then it's just down to working the fucking thing out - give it another century or so!) and once you can do that, you can simulate a human's reality.

Of course if we are in a simulation, we'd never be able to work it out. It wouldn't be a simulation if we could. It may well be a valid idea, but it's an absolute dead end as far as investigation goes. I don't like/believe it, but that's mainly because I've got an exorbitant amount of pride in being part of the human race... I want to be a human, I don't want to find out I'm really just a character in a fourteen year old's copy of Sim Universe 2120. Fucking futurekids.

[polho]

smoke on it, man

on a more serious note,(i'm not versed in this stuff, and not sure it holds water. what i'm sure of is is that it comes from a clearly identifiable biological reaction)a chakra opening may shake that feeling.

[Dead Rats]

Look Wub. I think science is right. Molecules and shit makes way more sense than this being a dream, obviously. But, if it's not, a dream steps in as my explanation. I don't know why you have to be such dick about semantics haha.

Tbf, it's not that stupid at all. We can already envisage a time when we'll be able to simulate the function of a brain with computers (we should be able to match it's power in our laptops/whatever in the 2020s... then it's just down to working the fucking thing out - give it another century or so!) and once you can do that, you can simulate a human's reality.

Of course if we are in a simulation, we'd never be able to work it out. It wouldn't be a simulation if we could. It may well be a valid idea, but it's an absolute dead end as far as investigation goes. I don't like/believe it, but that's mainly because I've got an exorbitant amount of pride in being part of the human race... I want to be a human, I don't want to find out I'm really just a character in a fourteen year old's copy of Sim Universe 2120. Fucking futurekids.

Holy shit, I'd love to find out I was a fourteen year-olds sim character, it'd give me the perfect excuse to set fire to my curtains and murder civil servents.

[jaydot]

Reality is now. Put your hand in front of your face. Can you see it? THAT is reality. Bite your hand. Does it hurt? THAT is reality. There's no second chances or afterlife it just is.

[noam]

Reality is now. Put your hand in front of your face. Can you see it? THAT is reality. Bite your hand. Does it hurt? THAT is reality. There's no second chances or afterlife it just is.

'i refute it thus'

[SoundNuisance]

I think about the dream thing as well. For something to be real you must be able to feel, smell, touch, taste(well maybe not all thing) see and possibly hear it. I have read many articles pointing out the fact that the "sense" sensors are active in our state of dreaming. So maybe when we go to sleep we are actually going to the obscure real world. Who knows? I am enjoying life, so I will try to think that everything around me is what defines reality, for now.

[AllNightDayDream]

TL;DR incoming

The eastern philosophers were onto something when they kept emphasizing that "reality" is illusory, that there lies something underneath. In my view, which comes from Hegel really, is that this comes from a sense of alienation we all have with the world we are born into. It seems terribly out of our control, obsessed with superficiality and appearances, and so many people in our society rely on validity from others, even strangers, in order to make themselves feel a false sense of security and identity. So for many people, this "Fake" component of reality seems a bit obvious and apparent, and we assume it's just the mode of life for most everyone else.

So, in reaction, we become sort of obsessed with the "real" or "substantive" part of reality, the things which prove their truth in their very existence (putting your hand in front of your face and realizing it is there because you see, feel, smell it etc., gravity, the existence of your own mind, etc.). All these things are fairly static in their nature, they appear anchored. This is the negation of reality as we see it, in it's illusory form.

But, I would posit that freedom and ascertaining "The Real" is when you realize these two components, the outside, illusory, seemingly superficial forces are not just a veil over what is the static, self-identifying reality we put weight in, it originates directly from it. The "illusion" is both a slave and a master to the "Real", and in that way they are one and the same. I think the superficial forces represent the static "reality" as they are in actual motion, an extension of their self-identifying existence and effect on our world. Nothing exists outside of reality, which by it's very nature is always in motion. The dream is just as real as the non-dream. The matrix is just as real as the non-matrix.

I know it's super cliche, but the matrix series really illustrates this point masterfully, especially as Slavoj Zizek interprets it. At first, it seems obvious after Neo "wakes up" that he's been living in a dream world that feeds off of the real world and oppresses it, masks it, and seems to want to destroy it. In the next step towards freedom and "one-ness", he can see the data stream of the matrix, of the illusion, and thus has power over it, manipulates it.



But the matrix is very real. You die in the matrix, you die in real life. You can't emancipate the people without the matrix. The matrix is a symbol of what our "reality" strives for in an ideal sense. The real world can't really exist without this "illusion", as this "illusion" is just a reflection of "reality" and where it is going. Otherwise reality would stay still, history becomes static, and the world and time truly ends. If you keep denying the substance behind these things you claim are "illusions" then you don't go anywhere.

So in Neo's final step, he is blinded and can't look directly at the real world as he knows it, but instead sees the underlying energy that constitutes it, an always flowing never static motion. By looking at reality in this way, he bypasses the crude notions about concrete reality that in a sense chain him to it. Thus he can manipulate it beyond what he thought possible (shown in the third movie when he destroys the machines on his way to the "source"). So through this "negation of the negation" as hegel would call it, realizing the symbiosis between crude reality and supposed "illusion", a cliche "one-ness" of everything, he achieves real freedom and power in his own destiny.



In the context of history, society goes through this process with the systems in which it lives. Once an emancipation is achieved when we negate both the ideal and material aspects of our existence, we make a sacrifice (like neo does in the matrix) to come up with a new mode of living that better suits, but the whole process begins again.

In the context of our individual minds this process occurs in all kinds of interactions and phenomena. Things that seem superficial or fake are many times in fact a real and crucial part of our reality.

[noam]

^^^
nice.

fits into his triadic reasoning i spose too

good thinking

[parson]

[noam]

why does that video reduce the passive activity of sensory perception to egoism straight away??

fuck that

[Killamike49]

Reading that wall of text up there makes me want to re-watch the matrix as a young-adult. I obviously missed some crazy shit, haha.

[SCope13]

Reality is what you make of it, trust me. The mind is a powerful tool, and you can 'hack' it into believing a lot of things. It's possible to bend the fabric of matter if you want to enough, I have done personally.

Fuck whatever lies ahead, be happy.

This. I don't really care what reality is, I just know it's my reality. Same with the meaning of life. I don't believe there to be any sort of inherent meaning, but it is what I make it to be.