Thread: infinite realities

So i was thinking what if my reality is completely different than yours? In my world you are still you and i am still me but eachperson has there own reality. Maybe in my reality i am super rich and famous but in yours i am a bum?
Almost like a lucid dream..it is my own reality, if you are in my dream you are still you but its my reality and different things happen in my dream than in your dreams

So very True. There is defenitely one Objective Truth out there( A.K.A. Cosmos, God, Jah). Not one we humans will ever be able to percieve. Maybe catch some glimpses of it. All we experience can only be Subjective, because on a subconscious level we filter information through our Psychological Interpretation system of Thought-associations. Meaning: besides this One Objective Truth are millions and millions slighty and totally different "Versions" of this realities. Different Interpretations by Different individuals make these Subjective Truths so diverse that they can defenitely be considered Seperate Realities.

Every individual has had different experiences to which every individual reacts differently and builds up a link of thoughts. If you were 3 years old and some nasty kids from the block terrorise you with firecrackers, it is most likely that your experience will label your overall judgement of Firecrackers will be negative. You are likely to develop a trauma or just a disliking of fireworks.

While the nasty kids on the block were having a mighty good time terrorising you with firecrackers and watching fireworks they most likely develop a fondness of fireworks since their experiences have been positive.

Also different individuals have totally different norms and values(morals are part of what we see as "Reality" too), different preferances and different ways of reasoning their reactions to similairly negative or positive experiences will still be different.


To make it all a little more complicated:
A chinese man was asleep one night and Dreams he was a Butterfly flying from flower to flower. Then he awoke and truely wondered wether he was a Man that had just Dreamt he was a Butterfly or wether he was a Butterfly who was now Dreaming he was a man.

Read that somewhere. Interresting huh? Not only different Realities for each individual, but 2 different realities per individual. Dreaming and Waking.

If I understood you right, your point is that what if we all live in a different reality?

Your idea contains an inherent contradiction. You say that I have equal claims to existing as you, but we might exist in different realities. What if we meet up and describe our worlds to each other? We would be able to agree on whether you are super rich or a bum. It would turn out that we agree quite precisely on objective things, such as whether you are rich or whether, more basic, is there an apple on the table. (We may disagree on how the apple tastes like, since this is subjective. Or we may disagree on the feelings associated with firecrackers, but we would agree that there is a firecracker on the table.) There is coherency in our experience, hence there can be two explanations for this:

a) the outside world is real, and we all live in the same one (although experiencing it differently on a subjective level)
b) you do not exist, and it is only me who exists, and you are also only my imagination

b) is an interesting point, and one, which cannot be disproven.

We can ever only know our own mind, anything outside is unreachable for us. We sense the outside world, but all we ever have is the experience of sensing something. Lets say I see an apple, so I experience its colour and shape. But I never have the apple itself in my brain. This is called the veil of perception.

Now, if we can never know the outside world directly, then there can be no proof that there is one altogether. What if all that exists is just our mind? Or what if we exist in a delusioned state, like people in the Matrix movie? There's no way to tell. Or the way Descarted looked at it, what if I am dreaming in this moment? What if this is a long, consistent dream? What if this is a dream within a dream? Again there is no way to know, because any proof we might have for the opposite must necessarily come from inside the dream. Or what if there is an evil demon feeding me all this sensory information (quite like the Matrix)?

Or the solipsist view (the point b)), that what if all which exists is only my own mind? What if all the other people are imagined by me, like all the rest of the world. Again, there is no way to prove the opposite. I only ever know my own mind.

I do not hold this view, but it is irresputable. Although just because something cannot be proved not to exist, doesn't mean it exists. I do believe that we are part of some form of an external world, and this belief is founded on three things (adapted from John Locke):

1) consistency in my experience - for example, each autumn, the trees shed their leaves. If my car is gray, it still is gray tomorrow. (this might not be the case was it a dream)
2) coherency - we would both agree, that my car is gray. (edit: wouldn't really matter though, if you were imagined by me. This point is assuming outside world)
3) I cannot choose what I experience - if it was all in my head, shouldn't i be able to control it, like in LDs.

This for me is sufficiently convincing, that there is an outside world. What it is like is another question entirely (one on which I wrote under the topic "what is the substance of consciousness", in the same forum).

Also, I do believe that we all experience the world differently. Experience is subjective. I may see the wavelength of light which is near the lowest visible frequency (red) as you experience blue. The experience of red/blue is subjective, each time I have a "red" experience, I associate it with the specific wavelength, but it wouldn't make a difference if the red and blue experience swapped places. We would both still agree on the fact that an apple looks like what we are used to calling red (imagine a perfect apple ). The word red was associated with the experience to us in our childhood. I hope you see what I'm getting at here. The same thing, which I said about red could be said about any experience. Maybe chocolate tastes to you in the way, which I would associate with salt. And due to some freaky reason, you like the taste of salt as much as I like the taste of chocolate. When we compared our experiences we would agree, that it is chocolate that we eat*. There is no way to compare these subjective experiences directly between us, so we would have to use the associations given to us by other people to compare our experience, so we would agree.

So the quality of our experience might (and quite likely is, IMO) be variable. Also, the feelings and attachments each of us feels in respect to any experience are ofcourse also very different, and memories and feelings and attachments are what make up most of our experience. In short, we experience the objective outside world in a personal, subjective way.

hmm.. I always get carried away on this philosophy forum

*I wonder if there is some biological counter argument for this. Maybe some biological mechanism which would distinguish objectively between salt and chocolate. Anyway, for the subjective act of experiencing, the point still holds. It might just be a bad example.

People say that there may be parallel universes right? What if every choice you make changes which universe you are in at that very moment? Like you can swirve from one to another( which imo is true because every choice you make changes everything) No matter what universe i am in you are still there being you and i am still being me...maybe i am starting to stray way off topic and this is completely wrong but it is just my thoughts at the moment

Well, if you believe in string theory and if quantum mechanics is right on a grand scale, then there is infinite realities.

Originally Posted by The Wig

Well, if you believe in string theory and if quantum mechanics is right on a grand scale, then there is infinite realities.

I am still learning about string threory, tried reading the elegant universe but found the video much easier

Originally Posted by Bosco

People say that there may be parallel universes right? What if every choice you make changes which universe you are in at that very moment? Like you can swirve from one to another( which imo is true because every choice you make changes everything) No matter what universe i am in you are still there being you and i am still being me...maybe i am starting to stray way off topic and this is completely wrong but it is just my thoughts at the moment

As far as I've understood the idea of parallel universes, you are right on the broad terms.

Although, there is no way to "swirl" back between one universe and another - they are not connected and there is no way to communicate with a parallel universe. Imagine our universe in two dimensions, that is like a sheet of paper. Parallel universes could be like pages in a book - close to each other, but completely separated from each other in the direction of the 3rd dimension. We cannot picture it, but the same principle would hold for our 3 dimensional universe - we would be separated in the direction of a fourth dimension - a fourth independent direction of movement. So we could be separated from a parallel universe by 1 centimeter and not know it.

Since there can be an infinite number of parallel universes, there are infinite possibilities of things that will happen. Infinity is a funny thing. Every single possibility will exist somewhere. Let's say that a parallel universe with the same laws of physics popped into existence at the same time as our bing bang occurred, one of infinite other universes that did at the same. So it followed the cosmic evolution, due to chance, in exactly the same way as ours, up to the point that in both of these two universes, there is a me sitting and writing this. In this universe, I continue writing, but maybe, at this time in the parallel universe, I decide to get up and go to the toilet. If there are infinite parallel universes, then, by mere chance and luck, every possibility will come true. In this universe you have made the choices that you make, but in a parallel universe you might make a different choice now. In a parallel universe Earth may not have formed. It is possible, that the laws of physics would be very different in other universes. Every possibility would exist. But in this universe, you would still be you, making the decisions you make, and continuing to exist in this universe. Edit: and since we can communicate, I exist in the same one as you.

Since there can be an infinite number of parallel universes, there are infinite possibilities of things that will happen. Infinity is a funny thing. Every single possibility will exist somewhere. Let's say that a parallel universe with the same laws of physics popped into existence at the same time as our bing bang occurred, one of infinite other universes that did at the same.

Makes me wonder... will I experience everything there is to possibly experience an infinite amount of times, or will I just be a part of a cycling universe experiencing the same thing over and over?

Originally Posted by Bosco

So i was thinking what if my reality is completely different than yours? In my world you are still you and i am still me but eachperson has there own reality. Maybe in my reality i am super rich and famous but in yours i am a bum?
Almost like a lucid dream..it is my own reality, if you are in my dream you are still you but its my reality and different things happen in my dream than in your dreams

So what i see with my own eyes is you a bum, and what you see with your own eyes is being rich. I am not rich, according to this maybe i just told you i am filthy stinking rich but in my reality i just said "i ain't rich". Of course you won't know that if realitys are different for each person.

I think there are infinite subjective realities, but only one total objective absolute one.

There are 6 parallel universes.





End of thread.

Originally Posted by Korittke

There are 6 parallel universes.





End of thread.

Why six?

Originally Posted by really

Why six?

I said end of thread.

Originally Posted by really

I think there are infinite subjective realities, but only one total objective absolute one.

There are an infinite amount of absolute realities, all separate.

Originally Posted by MontyFlatts

There are an infinite amount of absolute realities, all separate.

How is this understood?

Originally Posted by really

How is this understood?

The thread's over, stop talking.

George--- i dont think that infinity means that every possible thing has happened or has to happen . certainly any thing can happen or might happen,or is happening. infinity destroys philosophy.