Thread: What is reality?

Good question

my interpretation: Reality is whatever you make of it, everyones sense of real is different from anothers, my sense of reality may be A TON different from yours or someone elses.

to me reality is just, a test, to see if your soul is pure and your a good person, and your gift for being kind and compassionate would be a re-incarnation or an after-life

these are my beliefs though, i use these beliefs to fill in the gaps ever since i cut ties to christianity...but religion is a different subject

anyways i hope that helped, whats your take on reality?

wikipedia can't tell you who you are

... what's the difference between the substance of a dream and the substance of "reality", vibrations,... velocity?

Lucid dreaming is a great "experience",... but what does it teach us about the nature of reality? What is it trying to tell us?

In my opinion:

Reality is a memory, wheather asleep or awake. If we didn't exist, we wouldn't know. We wouldn't be conscious, we wouldn't remember anything, we wouldn't think. So, in a dream, that is real, you remember it happening, so it happened. I'm not saying the dream is physical, but it is something you remember and something you know, which is ultimately the same as everything else. If you don't remember something, say a dream, as far as you are convinced it never happened (unless you remembered it then forgot).

my answer is more just reality to one person, otherwise my answer would just be anything physical, but i think thaughts and the mind are important, that is what makes us, so a memory, even a dream exists, because it effects us.

I hope I made that understandable hehe.

Heck if I know. To quote my favorite movie:

"What is real? How do you define real? If you mean what you can smell, what you can touch, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain."

Originally Posted by Pastulio_

Heck if I know. To quote my favorite movie:

"What is real? How do you define real? If you mean what you can smell, what you can touch, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain."

"i know what you're trying to do" neo

"im trying to free your mind" morph.


"fear, doubt, disbelief, free..your...mind"

love that movie!

morpheus said it for us

Row Row Row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily Merrily Merrily...

Life is but a Dream!

Like it's been said earlier, reality is what you make of it. Life is only your perception of what you feel, see, hear, taste around you, it isn't absolute. It's only your interpretation of it.

"They say that dreams are only real as long as they last. Couldn't you say the same thing about life?"
~ Waking Life

I would like to pose a question. Lets say I go into the city, and in one of the smaller streets, a man drops his hat. You see it, perhaps one or two other people see it. You go home. He goes home. Soon enough you die, he dies, in fact everyone there who has any memory dies.

No one at this time knows anything about this "insignificant event."


Did it really happen?

So, .. it's like a ball bearing,.. the only thing that changes is the reflection of light off the surface from any given angle. It, itself never changes.

What angle do you look at "reality" from?

This could be important.

Originally Posted by Jonathan

I would like to pose a question. Lets say I go into the city, and in one of the smaller streets, a man drops his hat. You see it, perhaps one or two other people see it. You go home. He goes home. Soon enough you die, he dies, in fact everyone there who has any memory dies.

No one at this time knows anything about this "insignificant event."


Did it really happen?

Jonathan: have you ever heard of the butterfly effect? your post has a good example of it.

Originally Posted by Who I Am

Hi, I am new here... asking that lucid question.

What is reality?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality
http://www.ipod.org.uk/reality/
http://www.kabbalah.info/engkab/what...is_reality.htm
http://www.thekeyboard.org.uk/What%20is%20reality.htm
http://www.trans4mind.com/personal_d...exReality.html

Who I Am

Reality is.....1) U will die when U jump off Ur window 2) U will go hungry when U have no money 3) People are seldom nice 4) There are too many wars 5) There is terrorism almost everywhere 6) There is famine in some countries 7) There are natural disasters that can wipe U out 8) There is communism 9) There is a thing called money....

IMJ

Originally Posted by imj

Reality is.....1) U will die when U jump off Ur window 2) U will go hungry when U have no money 3) People are seldom nice 4) There are too many wars 5) There is terrorism almost everywhere 6) There is famine in some countries 7) There are natural disasters that can wipe U out 8) There is communism 9) There is a thing called money....

IMJ

1 - Not always. This man fell over a mile from an airplane jump and survived.
2 - Not always. You might find someone kind enough to feed you. I have personally met homeless people that have no money but manage to go by and ration their food. There are Indian tribes in Brazil that have no money and yet they manage to feed themselves.
3 - True, but that doesn't mean that you may meet a lot of nice people on a given day.
4 - Definitely true, but that doesn't mean that is what reality is. It doesn't mean it will always be like that.
5 - This relates a bit to number #4. Terrorism is a bit of a result of the current reality and from policies of the past. I see terrorism as a backlash of war and bad policies, but like #4, that doesn't mean there will always be terrorism in most places.
6 - True, and I can't really argue with you on that one. Once again, it doesn't mean it will always be like that.
7 - Well, yeah. But that's like saying that there is rain that can make you wet.
8 - Yeah, but once again, that's like saying that there's capitalism, socialism, Buddhism, or Christianity. You're just categorizing something.
9 - Yeah, sure... but we may go back to the barter system someday.

Now, keep in mind, when I'm saying "it doesn't mean it will always be like that" or "it might happen someday," I don't believe it will happen anytime soon, or even during my lifetime. That is my reality - it is a judgment that I'm making based on what my mind knows. Obviously that doesn't mean it's right. It's just my reality.

The reason I say "it doesn't mean it will always be like that" is because of this:
Who is to say how the world and our collective view of "reality" will take shape once me and you are dead? Will it even matter? Probably not. But we can't take our current reality for granted and think that it is set in stone and will always be like this.

Ever heard of quantum mechanics? Ever heard of the mathematical discovery by Oxford scientists which proved that parallel universes exist?

I think it goes to say that the only reality we can be sure of is what is within our heads. The only thing that is real, is what is real to you. What you can see, what you can touch, what you can hear, what you can smell, and what you can taste. You might be able to draw conclusions on reality based on past experience (if you drop your cell phone, it will probably hit the ground), but that doesn't mean that this conclusion is 100% accurate. That doesn't mean that it is the absolute truth or the absolute reality.

Reality is eternal, our experience of it temporary.

Originally Posted by Captain Sleepalot

Reality is eternal, our experience of it temporary.

Well said! I am baffled by the meaning of that single sentence.

There are really two takes on this. The "1 person" view, based on the senses and what we know etc. and then theres the scientific "physics" point of view... where if something is there it exists because it is there.

Like in the hat example. It is arguable the hat exists because it is still going to be there. But say nobody went to that location and saw it ever again after that, it will have no effect on anything else whatsoever, so it might aswell not exist. maybe it vanishes after that point, who would ever know?

Then there is the mention of the butterfly effect, but i am presumming nothing like that occurs. (like the hat blocks a bit of wind blowing on an object, so the object rolls ever such a slight amount less, which could lead to a chain of events.)

For all i know the whole world could be generated. I could be in some big machine that generates a world and then activates electronic signals to relate to our senses accordingly. Just think about the possibility, and we wouldn't know because everything we are feeling, we really are feeling, but that doesnt meen the item we are touching is real...

Sorry but i like to think of weird scenarios O.o

How do we know "reality" goes on with out us?

We don't... And we never will...

Reality is just a state of mind.

"Reality" is a total myth! LOL

Who needs it?

Reality can not be explained period.

Originally Posted by tyrantt23

1 - Not always. This man fell over a mile from an airplane jump and survived

God, i wish i never watched that. I felt REALLY sad when i heard him say "i'm dead, i'm dead BYE!" seconds from hitting the ground. i can't imagine going through that.....nor knowing what he musta felt like knowing he was going to die.


To answer what reality is....first we have to know if we are real, then we can worry about if this is reality. We see what the eyes show us, and the eye shows us what the brain??? shows us. I guess we have a feel for things we go by on a normal basis, so things will look the same as they should, and everything else is random.

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

God, i wish i never watched that. I felt REALLY sad when i heard him say "i'm dead, i'm dead BYE!" seconds from hitting the ground. i can't imagine going through that.....nor knowing what he musta felt like knowing he was going to die.

I'm sorry, that wasn't my intention. I will add a disclaimer besides the video that it may be graphic (audio-wise) so that someone else doesn't have to feel that way.

EDIT: never mind, I'm not allowed to edit that post anymore. So, I'm sorry that it made you feel sad like that. And sorry to anyone else who feels this way after watching the video.

In the bright side, I try to think of how amazed and thankful he must have been when he realized he was still alive.

It's ok, just unsettling watching something like that.