Thread: Reality As You Know It Does Not Exist

I wonder what the real looks like. We go by what the brain tells us, not by what it really is. It's probably so crazy we wont be able to grasp it.

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

I wonder what the real looks like. We go by what the brain tells us, not by what it really is. It's probably so crazy we wont be able to grasp it.

With the number of extra alleged dimensions to our universe, you're probably right.

Hmmm. Interesting.

Do you always look the same, from every angle (front, side), for every occasion and interaction? Your appearance depends, in part, on the observer. I'm reminded of the parable of the blind men and the elephant.

Quantum weirdness comes into it, too, with the observer actually CAUSING the existence and appearance of sub-atomic particles (collapse of the wave fn) through the act of observing.

So normally, "what something really looks like" will be something like "what something normally looks like to its habitual observers".

What it ultimately really looks like is "what it looks like, in common to all observers, when under observation by all possible observers."

Fun.

PQ

Good stuff, wish I wasn't so late on it - but this thread should provide some interesting videos to watch in the future. It's funny, I saw a few clips in the original video from OTHER videos I've seen, and some familiar faces as well.

Anyway, I tried to catch up on the entire thread, but the debate between O and Kromo got a bit exhausting, so if I happen to repeat a topic that has been raised, i apologize.

There are two things that bother me every day, every time I read or learn something that deals with 'reality', 'consciousness', 'purpose' and the likes. You could call them paradoxes, I guess. They are the following:

1) As far as conscious beings go, I can only know (and EVER know) of one - myself. No one person (or thing) outside of myself can ever prove they are 'alive' or 'real'.

Think about it, even if I met any of you, physically touched you, spoke with you, etc, that would still not be enough to prove that you are a living thinking being such as myself. You are a manifestation of energy (assuming that what I believe that is The Truth) which 'I' have collected into an experience. I can never know or experience YOU, just your actions and interactions. So, essentially, it's as if I'm the only thing that really exists.

Everything I learn from reading or videos cannot be trusted because it's possible that I am creating all that information - right down to the ink on the page or the photons from the screen! I'll ask you all this(again, if you even exist) - can you PROVE what these scientists are saying they discover in their 'labs'? Or anything you read or hear at all (including religion). All you know is what you read or watch in a video. You TRUST the information is correct, that the experiment took place. But why? Where you there, in the lab, or at Christ's resurrection? Even if you were, how do you prove any of it was really 'out there'? Is there really an 'out there'? I (you) can't prove it, because all my(your) experiences take place 'internally' through a device (organ) which I can only trust there is only one. Which brings me to #2...

2) The brain is a 'real' or physical object. If nothing 'exists' until an observer collapses the wave, then who/what is collapsing the thing that's (apparently) allowing me to experience the very same energy that makes up this physical organ?

You can show me pictures, videos, even a ghost - ALL of it is experienced (apparently) through a real or physical object (brain) which I can not prove is really 'there'. Sure, science says we all have this thing called a 'brain' - but how can I ever experience/see it? In a CAT scan? Again, those are an image, a representation of something. Even if my cranium where to be opened up and I was looking in a mirror at my brain functioning - how do I know my thought/consciousness comes from there. Couldn't I merely be manifesting an image of my expectations of what this brain should look like through the knowledge of what I SHOULD see, knowing what a mirror's function is?

Reading over what I wrote it doesn't look like I'm really presenting any solution or concrete evidence of anything here - I don't know. Just something to think about. For the record, I really do love the topic and content that the whole quantum physics, string theory, and other theories science provides. Having said that though, should some huge discovery come from the LHC in Geneva soon (Higgs particle?), I'm not so sure I can be all that excited about it ... unless, perhaps I was there to see it

(oh wait, that probably wouldn't work either... )

Man, LHC is downright creepy.

Anyway, to hear the scientists excitedly talking about creating mini-black holes. Hello? Those are ... infinite? And this place is not. Oh well. I suppose it zeroes out, somehow.

Worse, it seems that those high energies, harmless in 3D, look to be poking holes in the universe next door, if they model space-time as 9 or 10dimensions... which may be more accurate. Doh! Bunch of PhD Homers.

Lessee. As to your questions....

1) Perception. Proof. Solipsism. You're right on. Einstein actually said this, "I like to think that the moon is there when I'm not looking." But he couldn't prove it, and faulted quantum physics as incomplete for not being able to.

2) Consciousness is so mysteriously entangled with the quantum. So, with reality itself. It appears that, altogether, out observations are co-creating the world. Everette's many-worlds interp. of quantum physics doesn't have the micro wave fn. collapse - rather, it has the observation actually split the universal wave field itself. (http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm) But you're right. Consciousness itself, the phenomenal experience, remains a deep mystery. Issues of "level spanning", nesting, and chaos seem to loom large

Some resources on consciousness.

David Chalmers 'wrote the book' on the hard problem of consciousness. I read "The Conscious Mind" years ago. It's still authoritative.
http://consc.net/chalmers/

Have you seen this? An accessible effort to model the "hard problem" of consciousness as quantum biodynamics.
http://www.dhushara.com/book/paps/co...tm#anchor95825

This is a good supplement. Simple but elegant fractal logical model of perception.
http://philpapers.org/rec/BIESIH

Interesting days...

PQ