Thread: What if?

It might be a good exercise if you want to brainstorm, but brainstorming is not always the trick of philosophy.

You can ask "what if" in literally any situation, even when the truth is staring you right in the face. So when you ask "what if", you fantasize about what is not already real; about the future, about the past and about anything that entertains you, but entertainment is as good as dreaming. It is just an invitation for the imagination to take over and tunnel into itself, which is both an excuse for anything different and a self-perpetuating distraction.

Invader said "Well, would it make any difference?", which is a good point. Because if it could make a difference, or if it could be different, it would be. While all at once the thought "if" itself teaches you nothing about reality as it is now.

Try to think of one good reason to live as though this isn't true. After you've thought about it for awhile and come up empty handed, proceed with the only rational course of action.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Try to think of one good reason to live as though this isn't true. After you've thought about it for awhile and come up empty handed, proceed with the only rational course of action.

"This is a dream. I CAN FUCKING FLY!!" *jumps out window*

Originally Posted by Mario92

"This is a dream. I CAN FUCKING FLY!!" *jumps out window*

Even in dreams, I start from the ground. If you honestly believe you can fly, you must be irrational to believe that somehow you still need to jump out a window to become airborne.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Even in dreams, I start from the ground. If you honestly believe you can fly, you must be irrational to believe that somehow you still need to jump out a window to become airborne.

It would only be irrational if you thought pain/injury was a possible outcome. Otherwise, it's just fun.

To be honest Mario pretty much nailed it.

Go flying. Go looting. Go raping. Treat everybody on Earth as automatons for your personal pleasure.

Am I missing the point or is Xaq's point just... completely wrong?

Originally Posted by Xei

To be honest Mario pretty much nailed it.

Go flying. Go looting. Go raping. Treat everybody on Earth as automatons for your personal pleasure.

Am I missing the point or is Xaq's point just... completely wrong?

The effect on you will be the same regardless of whether 'life is a dream' or not. Go looting, and raping in your dreams. It will still disturb you psychically. Your life will still spiral downward, if perhaps not quite as far if you aren't immediately confronted with consequences like in real life (burying the body or whathaveyou). Go flying if you can. Why not? Mario implied that someone would jump from a window to their death perhaps, but what is the purpose of the window if you can fly? Take off from the ground and soar through the air. "Life is a dream" does not mean that the other characters in it are your automatons. Their lives are their dreams. They can do what they wish as well. If they don't wish the life that you wish for them, they will wish themselves off to a different life that you aren't a part of and someone else will take their place.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

The effect on you will be the same regardless of whether 'life is a dream' or not. Go looting, and raping in your dreams. It will still disturb you psychically. Your life will still spiral downward, if perhaps not quite as far if you aren't immediately confronted with consequences like in real life (burying the body or whathaveyou). Go flying if you can. Why not? Mario implied that someone would jump from a window to their death perhaps, but what is the purpose of the window if you can fly? Take off from the ground and soar through the air. "Life is a dream" does not mean that the other characters in it are your automatons. Their lives are their dreams. They can do what they wish as well. If they don't wish the life that you wish for them, they will wish themselves off to a different life that you aren't a part of and someone else will take their place.

Posts like this scare the shit out of me.

Here's a case where I really want to agree with Xaq but I can't abide with the assertion of shared dreaming or disembodies spirits which is what would essentially be required (as far as I can tell) for the argument given to be valid.

Indulging desires reinforces them. At least in my experience. Hence if there's something that you know you shouldn't do in real life, you should refrain from doing in dreams. The bottom line is that violence against others is violence against your own "spirit", regardless of if it's in a lucid dream or otherwise.

Also, it's always a good idea to start from the ground. Bill Hicks has a joke about that. "When's the last time you've seen ducks taking the elevator up the empire state building to fly south for the winter?"

See, nothing you know essentially changes. Living by life is just a dream is just another idea substitute, and it doesn't justify anything. What does it really mean - because what does a "dream" really mean? We justify dreams by juxtaposing them against "waking reality"; so we might forget that we have no proper way to learn from the above statement.

So if somebody told you life was a dream, it makes little sense unless you've woken up before. You can't sort it out because it has no place there. At the ground level it addresses no significance in your life because you cannot decide to wake up as if it were a dream, since the meaning of that dream is different than anything you know of. As we all know you cannot wake up from pinching yourself when you are awake. To suddenly think that everything in the real world is "just pretend" is a naive, irrational decision.

The bottom line is that you cannot derive any genuine meaning or answer from typical "what if" questions because they are literally plucked out of the mind without regard to current circumstances, conditions or awareness, and so they are not useful unless they are actually true.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

The effect on you will be the same regardless of whether 'life is a dream' or not. Go looting, and raping in your dreams. It will still disturb you psychically. Your life will still spiral downward, if perhaps not quite as far if you aren't immediately confronted with consequences like in real life (burying the body or whathaveyou). Go flying if you can. Why not? Mario implied that someone would jump from a window to their death perhaps, but what is the purpose of the window if you can fly? Take off from the ground and soar through the air. "Life is a dream" does not mean that the other characters in it are your automatons. Their lives are their dreams. They can do what they wish as well. If they don't wish the life that you wish for them, they will wish themselves off to a different life that you aren't a part of and someone else will take their place.

So, in this hypothetical situation, life is a dream, yet everybody in the dream is real, sharing a collective experience?

Um... in what sense are we calling it a dream, again?

Perhaps rape would disturb me on some basic level, but less primal things like looting? No, why would it? Looting only makes one feel bad because you are forcibly causing somebody hurt for your own pleasure. If they don't exist and it's a dream then there is no problem, it's basically your property anyway, why not get some pleasure out of it? I don't really think the position that believing people aren't real wouldn't change the way you'd act is defensible at all, it amounts to saying people don't act according to morals. Altruism is a vital tenet to almost everybody's moral code. Without other people it is simply absurd. Even the universal principle, do unto others as you would have them do to you, falls down.

If everybody lived life as a dream (a proper dream, not one with real people in it somehow), nobody would be charitable. All human progress would stop; there would be almost no building, or science. There would be no desire for anybody to leave any kind of positive legacy at all; no desire to make any kind of lasting improvement to the human condition.

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Here's a case where I really want to agree with Xaq but I can't abide with the assertion of shared dreaming or disembodies spirits which is what would essentially be required (as far as I can tell) for the argument given to be valid.

My point entirely; or at least, it totally fails to be a meaningful metaphor. If everybody you perceive is also real, what on Earth could be meant by 'dream'? I have no clue what the contrast with reality is then supposed to be. The original assertion becomes totally vacuous.

When I think "life is like a dream" I'm not really focusing on the "no one else is real" aspect, which may be where the disconnect is. I was thinking more along the lines of "I can control my own destiny" or "My beliefs define what is possible/real", or "my expectations create my perceptions".

Okay... in that case I'd take issue with the whole 'my beliefs define what is real' angle. Thinking positively and wanting strong control over one's own destiny is all good, but this other aspect makes no sense to me... I try to believe what is real. I'm honestly not sure what the converse even means... if you believe that Big Ben is larger than the Eiffel tower, what exactly is the phenomenon of, you know... finding out that it isn't? You believed wholeheartedly it was, so... why wasn't it? Where did the contradictory information even come from? Indeed, where did any information ever come from?

But I suppose we were talking about life principles and not ontology; this is still as bad as the automata thing in my opinion. If you believe in an unexclusive heaven, and you think this belief makes it real, then you should top as many people as you can before topping yourself; and the worst thing you could possibly do is stop, listen, and give any credence to people who try to reason with you. Obviously this is an analogy.

It seems like you might be assuming that you are in full control of your beliefs. Are you? Let me know when you are able to believe that big ben is taller than the eiffel tower. Then we can go on an adventure to measure them and see what happens!

I also want to go back and address something you said in an earlier post; you interpreted my position as "everyone is...sharing a collective experience". This is not the case. Who else shares your experiences? You live in your world and it happens to be inhabited by other people whose experiences include a representation of you that is constructed from their perceptions of you. "You" don't live in their world because they have no way of really knowing who "you" are. All they see is the portion of you that you choose to show them and they choose to see. Your experiences are entirely your own and are not shared by anyone because there is no one who shares your entirely unique and individual perspective.

I thought it was implicit that you came to that belief by a misconception. Perhaps one just looked bigger to you. Perhaps somebody had told you it erroneously. It's not really relevant to the analogy and the point...

A very sad Xei is my official guess for the outcome of that particular experiment...

But hey man, it's all relative

Just knock the Eiffel tower over on its side, accelerate it to faster 286,529 k/s (95% the speed of light) and fly it past Big Ben. An observer in Big Ben's rest frame will measure it to be shorter.

Or we could just define "Taller" = shorter and "Shorter" = taller.

EDIT:

To be serious though, knowledge of what is real is what allows us to control our destiny. But now we're back to the objective "out there" world. Which I do take seriously.

Originally Posted by Xei

I thought it was implicit that you came to that belief by a misconception. Perhaps one just looked bigger to you. Perhaps somebody had told you it erroneously. It's not really relevant to the analogy and the point...

Can you think of any example in which it is possible to be in possession of evidence that contradicts your beliefs? Keep in mind that "I used to believe" is not the same as "I believe" if someone once believed that big ben is taller than the eiffel tower and then became aware of compelling evidence to the contrary, then all that has happened is their belief in the evidence has superceded their belief that ben was taller. They don't believe it, and therefore there is no contradiction. Just like in dreams, each moment is a new set of expectations and beliefs. Only sometimes do they correlate to expectations and beliefs of the past.

And Philosopher, yes; there are many tricks that we can do in order to gain a little more control over our beliefs. For further information, please see the "Dream Control" section of this website.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Can you think of any example in which it is possible to be in possession of evidence that contradicts your beliefs?

http://www.dreamviews.com/f37/evolut...chools-117292/
http://www.dreamviews.com/f37/how-do...epancy-113871/

Even the title of the second thread implies that there is possibly a way to resolve the discrepency (through the power of belief!). Again, it seems like you are assuming that you live in the same world as these people that believe in creationism and the fact that evidence to the contrary existing in your world is enough to contradict their beliefs in their own world. In their world, there is no evidence and only lies, or the evidence that you would refer them to doesn't actually contradict their beliefs as you would expect it to (based on your own beliefs and how they manifest in your world).

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Can you think of any example in which it is possible to be in possession of evidence that contradicts your beliefs? Keep in mind that "I used to believe" is not the same as "I believe" if someone once believed that big ben is taller than the eiffel tower and then became aware of compelling evidence to the contrary, then all that has happened is their belief in the evidence has superceded their belief that ben was taller. They don't believe it, and therefore there is no contradiction. Just like in dreams, each moment is a new set of expectations and beliefs. Only sometimes do they correlate to expectations and beliefs of the past.

As far as I can tell then you've basically weakened the original statement into nothingness again... I don't think you can be bearing in mind what exactly it was under discussion. We were talking about the idea, 'my beliefs define what is real'. So, if you believe for whatever reason that the Big Ben is taller than the Eiffel tower, it will be so, and all evidence will then confirm it. How could the fact ever change if the beliefs create the fact and the fact in turn perpetuates the beliefs? This is just a logical consequence of your idea as it is stated. If your beliefs change somehow, it means that there is some objective reality creating evidence and hence having the ability to contradict your beliefs, which seems to me to be effectively the exact opposite of the sentiment of your idea (your beliefs having to bend to fit reality, opposed to reality bending to fit your beliefs). The concept of a belief that you just stated (something fluid, reacting to objective reality) is based on the latter, not the former.

Anyway, I thought the chief point of what you've been saying was as a kind of pragmatic life code, not necessarily something objectively true; you didn't really respond to my argument against that, so I'm guessing you concede it..?

From my perspective it seems like you are trying to reduce the whole situation down to such a basic level that it must either be magic or wrong. Neither one is true. People hold all sorts of irrational beliefs that have a complex effect on the world they see before them. Often times the only thing that is keeping several of a person's different beliefs from being contradictory is the fact that they don't know that they cannot coexist with each other. Sometimes their desires for one "truth" will amplify a certain belief which will overwhelm other beliefs that are no longer attached to their desires.

If it appears that a person's beliefs are bending to reality, it is only because their belief in "reality" is the strongest of all their beliefs.

The whole thing may seem very mundane when I explain (or rationalize, take your pick) it but that is because the untrained mind is a very fickle thing that doesn't have much control over its desires let alone its convoluted belief structure. Of course such a situation would result in a mundane world. Believe me when I say though that if you can bring your mind (desires, beliefs, etc.) under control and focus, you can do as close to anything you want as in any lucid dream.

Is it just me or am I not really getting this discussion? I've posted but nobody has given feedback...

What exactly is so important in comparing our beliefs in life vs. beliefs in (lucid) dreaming? To what extent does the point made apply to the dreamworld (if much else apart from post #38)?

I get that our beliefs can be powerful and yet have a narrow scope. But I don't see the importance of comparing our beliefs with dreams.

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Indulging desires reinforces them. At least in my experience. Hence if there's something that you know you shouldn't do in real life, you should refrain from doing in dreams. The bottom line is that violence against others is violence against your own "spirit", regardless of if it's in a lucid dream or otherwise.

Pandora's Box comes to mind from reading this.

Belief in a substance that is not able to be controlled by the mind, which exists outside the mind: matter. Belief in a reality that exists outside of the mind, creates a mind that is subject to this reality. An alienated mind who then needs to try to figure things out and explain them because direct understanding is alienated.