What is Reality?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2xzI...videos_science

Didn't see this on here yet! Soooooooo......
Watch & Discuss.

Quote:

---

I think your mind actually has an effect on how things go in the real world.

---

This was the undertone I got from the entire video, which he doesn't explicitly state until near the end.

The guy brings up many possibilities, things that could be true but we don't yet know. And it's true that there are many things we don't know, I have no problem agreeing with that. The problem is the implication that those things are much more likely than they are. The video in its entirety asserts that there's some spiritual, non-physical, perhaps solipsistic reality. Where's the "we don't fucking know, maybe this universe is physical and our thoughts don't affect reality the slightest bit!"?

Also, the swearing seemed a bit out of place and forced, like he was doing it on purpose to sound cool.

'What is reality' is effectively an absurd question to ask of the world. You can't ask what a word means; they're defined by people, not the universe. It's as pointless as asking, 'what is a thingimajic?'; I don't know, you tell me what you meant by it. How can I know?

Now, there are two ways in which people learn words, although fundamentally only really one way. This fundamental way is by pattern recognition. You learn what 'red' means by somebody showing you several objects or scenes with red in them. After a few you spot the pattern and understand that the vocalisation 'red' refers specifically to the red. The other way you learn words is by definitions, but really all a definition does is refers you back to the atomic words that you learn from pure experience. It is a common misconception that there is something strange about colours in that they are ineffable; in fact all words are ineffable. You can refer them to other words, but when asked to explain what these new words are shorthand for, the only thing you can do to convey them is by using experience.

With this in mind, what do you think you mean when you say 'reality'?

This video gave me a good laugh, thank you.

I think the word reality would be pointing to the whole of experience and it's realistic causes (however realistic they can be).

here are many dreamins from non-english factions. So just to ins.ert some dream logic here I could ask you what is the first waking recall you have of the word real. To me it was a brand of ryebread sold inf.inland. I can't easily imagine that they wouldn't have thought the name to me in school (I even had some claims in my mind back then that I under.stood the idea) but now I'm going that it's just a brand of bread to me which I was very fond of

EDIT: or was it back of my mind rather than in my mind back :cheeky: