do you believe life is an illusion?

Discussion in 'The Hip Polls' started by The Instinct, Jan 14, 2014.

  1. tommeem1

    tommeem1 Members

    Messages:
    723
    Likes Received:
    117
     
  2. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

    Messages:
    22,574
    Likes Received:
    1,203
    You are in this thread.
    You say you are only human and not the best example of human.
    What is the best example of human? It is such parameters that offer no representative constituents in reality, or you make them up from impressions. This thing we do in life is pertinent to the question is life an illusion.

    You say there is no animosity on your part because you don't project animosity you internalize it by considering yourself guilty.
    I don't think we have detoured at all and I see no fault in this conversation.`
    The topic is about same or different. Is it the same as real or different from real or is it the same as illusion or different from illusion. Are life and illusion the same or are they different. Life is not administered by society, the living come together in societal administration. What you speak of are called societal norms or cultural standards and they are acquired through education. Fortunately reality is not so educated that our societal norms should remain feudal.
     
  3. Moonglow181

    Moonglow181 Lifetime Supporter Lifetime Supporter

    Messages:
    16,175
    Likes Received:
    4,916
    ^illusion is a many splendored thing....:)

    reality is finding the illusions that work :D

    and throwing away the ones that don't:2thumbsup:
     
  4. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

    Messages:
    22,574
    Likes Received:
    1,203
    ^ that sounds like a good idea because we are bright and it is why we do it...it's called trial and error

    however all the ingenuity of man is ingenuous, that is artless, in the light of a sunrise

    obviously with the state of things maybe it's not such a good idea that we are spinning the dice in such a way

    maybe we could learn more about reality to be better able to compose a world more in harmony with our intent or reduce the need for error in our education

    we want better for everything not knowing what we have

    all the same life and your measure of the world are free for you to do as you will to the extent you are able
     
  5. Mountain Valley Wolf

    Mountain Valley Wolf Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,584
    Likes Received:
    933

    An interesting concept---which includes reification of consciousness (i.e. taking an abstract thing which is not an actual 'thing' and turning it into a 'thing.')---consciousness becoming bytes of data in a massive universal computer. However, if such was the case, one would wonder if it would require a quantum computer, which I would think would have an impact on the level of what is or is not an aberration.

    However if the validity of this argument is determined by any level of rationality to reality itself, and its causal relationships and constructs, then my experiences with Native Americans and indigenous people in the Philippines and so forth in the context of indigenous spirituality could
    certainly be examples of software bugs, or is their realities programmed to keep life interesting? But then why did we as civilized people lose such bugs? And if the system has evolved beyond a requirement for such irrational realities, then why do those outdated systems not crash and disappear from the memory banks? Or is the system doomed to eventually eat up the physical resources of the environment it inhabits and fated to fall back into such irrationalities of existence?
     
  6. Mountain Valley Wolf

    Mountain Valley Wolf Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,584
    Likes Received:
    933
    Yes it would have to be unfathomably complex.

    Then there are such issues as the existential experience of qualia. I do not believe they can be programmed---the experience comes from something deeper and more essential.

    On the other hand, our actions are more programmed than we realize through subconscious impulses and influences. Regardless, I believe there is still a free will at work. It may be harder to break free from the life trajectory I am on, but I still have the choice. Jungian psychologists, for example, have considered that the problems we face in dreams are often the result of going against subconscious understandings of 'what we should do.' This choice is our existential freedom.

    But it is an interesting problem, for even if the universe is not run by some giant computer (which explains why every day I am forced to go into a gaming arena, take that glowing disk off my back and fling it at opponents to their death...), the argument still exists as a metaphor for whether or not being emerges from physical existence.

    As you pointed out, the argument of a computer is still a theist argument, since someone would have to build the computer, AceK responded that such is not necessarily the case in which event the argument is more of a metaphor for a materialist view of reality.

    If life arose from a strictly physical environment, than wouldn’t it be confined to the laws, conditions, and choices defined by the material from which it was created? In other words, it would be programmed by the material reality of the universe. Certainly a one-celled animal could easily exist as a programmed life form. It simply exists to consume, and to reproduce. Once early or proto-vision cells are evolved, it has the added programming of seeking or fleeing light.

    But then higher life forms would require more complex programming geared towards evolutionary succession. Eventually you would have the human mind which would require a false sense of free will as a tool of evolutionary survival. Nonetheless it is still merely biologically programmed by evolution and its environment.

    But here is where such problems as the experiences of indigenous spirituality create such strong irrationalities that it would raise strong questions to the materialist argument. People who have experienced such things first hand, can probably tell you that they do in fact involve a shaping of physical reality. So the problem becomes, how can a mind programmed by the physical universe, alter the physicality of that universe through means other than physical causal action. In other words, if the universe is restricted to physical reality how can the mind programmed by that physical reality, perform actions of non-physicality upon that same physical reality?

    It is akin to the programmed computer altering the programmer and his reality. (Yes, that is in fact what the movie, The Matrix, is about, but it is a very improbable story line serving as a metaphor for other Modern-Day issues----such as the encroachment of technology upon daily life in a Post-Modern world.)

    Likewise, indigenous spirituality time and again validates free will and existential freedom---in fact much more so than religious institutions, especially those of Western Religion.
     
  7. Moonglow181

    Moonglow181 Lifetime Supporter Lifetime Supporter

    Messages:
    16,175
    Likes Received:
    4,916
    As usual, WHAT THE HELL DID YOU SAY?....lol

    [​IMG]
     
  8. Mountain Valley Wolf

    Mountain Valley Wolf Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,584
    Likes Received:
    933
    This intrigues me. Please explain more----why do you want to be the same as others, even down to your core self. What influences, if any, do you have that entices you to such a thing? What kind of community do you live in?

    Consciously people don’t, but it does tug at subconscious desires and needs—that is the purpose.

    But while commercials such as these are created to get people to buy a product, I think there is a more problematic result from them----they defuse the inner subconscious drives that coax us to discover our own true selves—they promote and sustain the alienation from our own selves. But then that is how consumerism works----you are induced to seek short term pleasures in place of meaningful understanding and contentment.

    Here are some of the variations of these Dr. Pepper commercials that are out there:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2Zw9A5-zqU"]TV Commercial - Dr. Pepper - Americans - Together We Are One Of A Kind - Always One Of a Kind - YouTube


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ix7T_XIA28"]Dr Pepper Always One of a Kind Commercial - YouTube
     
  9. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

    Messages:
    29,419
    Likes Received:
    6,296
    If the argument of reality being a computer is metaphor, maybe we should attempt to drop related terminology such as programmed, I think particularly in a thread like this, terminology like that has the potential to confuse and conflate what we're talking about.

    It makes sense to me that an organism has to be born within confined laws and conditions of the physical environment of it's universe. However emergent complexity arises under varying conditions (possibly varying laws?) and therefore varying organisms. So the conditions of Earth have gone through many changes which influence it's lifeforms, changes in the Earth which favored aquatic organisms, changes in the Earth which favored dinosaurs and large reptiles, and changes in Earth which favor humans. This is an extreme simplification and due to variable discrepancies such as life spans, viable reproductive ages, nourishment the organisms require, environment the organisms inhabit, so on and so forth there can be very simple organisms that are just as evolutionary successful as more complex organisms.


    I can only speak from my own culture in experience, so I automatically know that my response is coming from a place of bias... From my position of 1st world perspective it seems certain practices which indigenous people practice may have a high degree of confirmation bias. I know in our culture recently there have been some that have even attempted to implement some similar spiritual practices to effect the environment, similar to which I think you are referring to.

    Recently there have been some droughts in Texas, which have had some people who exhausted most other options turn to stuff like rain prayers and chants which have yielded no fruitful results. So an example like this suggest to me that indigenous people are using a great degree of confirmation bias, or have a completely alternative way of understanding their environment from the rational civilized Western mind.
     
  10. tommeem1

    tommeem1 Members

    Messages:
    723
    Likes Received:
    117
    I am on this thread. But, I thought I would be on this thread as a single post, while I went back to it and read the discussion, as a good lurker would. Not sure if lurkers do this as well, but I take notes. Not mental notes. There is something about mechanical writing that makes me remember. That's my contribution; I read and take notes. I don't do what you all do. And I think that's one of many elements that make others, better humans. Also, the majority rule, what most people think, feel, and do.

    Maybe difference and sameness is an extension of whether or not reality and life is different or the same, whether or not life is an illusion, whether or not life is created by society or if society is an illusion. But, it's not my place to discuss such things. That's for other people, better people. Sure, I will have that single post. I will read and take notes. But, that's it. I refuse and even if I want to, I highly doubt I can, have deeper thoughts and feelings than this.
     
  11. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

    Messages:
    22,574
    Likes Received:
    1,203
    What I said relates to what you said:
    Which is called trial and error and I suggest that knowing reduces error. We cannot bring truth to illusion and make illusion real but we can bring illusion to truth and dispel the illusion.
     
    1 person likes this.
  12. AceK

    AceK Scientia Potentia Est

    Messages:
    7,824
    Likes Received:
    958
    Guerillabedlam:
    You would have to question whether the "reality" of a programmed universe is actually physical reality at all. It certainly appears to be the only reality to any "thing" or program existing within it's constraints.

    I liken this to an actual computer program, running on a machine. It may or may not be able to interact with the physical hardware directly. Any access to hardware by a program will be mediated by a call to the kernel, which will provide the environment the program sees that it can interact with. In any case, a program can change the state of it's environment by altering the state of memory, more than likely the state of memory at a specific location will later be accessed by the program and possibly other processes. Since these processes depend on that state to determine their behavior, this act will therefore alter the future behavior of any processes that depend on that state to make a conditional decision.

    I do believe it's possible also to write a program that alters ITS OWN CODE in memory, therefore the program evolves. Forking the process amounts to reproduction, and if it crashes because the alteration was not favorable, then that amounts to death .. it was not fit enough for survival. Any process that altered the runtime environment of the machine in a non-favorable way would threaten the stabilty of the entire machine and the life of the processes running.

    In any case, you are not creating something out of nothing .. in all cases the computer contains a finite amount of memory. Whether memory at any location contains something meaningful is the issue (meaningful to whom or what?). Changing the states there to something meaningful is not creating new information.

    The question of where did the computer come from originally still bears, and perhaps the only rational explanation to be conceived within the constraints of that system is that "it exists, therefore it must".

    What happens to the information of things which fall into a black hole? All information about those objects would seem to be lost forever, but is it really lost? Perhaps there are multiple levels in which realities can exist and a separate reality exists in the 'interior' of the black hole. The reality on the inside is causally isolated from the reality outside. It seems the universe inside the black hole would still have some kind of dependencies on the external universe if you think purely in terms of information. The most obvious would be that it seems that if the parent universe were to cease to exist, any reality contained within it, inside or outside of black holes should cease to exist also .. which implies that at least some aspect of the two realities depend on one another, however insignificant it would seem or undetectable it may seem to be.
     
  13. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

    Messages:
    29,419
    Likes Received:
    6,296
    I don't think that was my quote but i'll respond nonetheless.


    It's interesting stuff to ponder but I don't find it very a convincing position to build my response of the experience of human life or reality being illusion on. I'd probably ascribe to solipisim if I thought all physical reality was a deception, it seems to cut to the core of something more fundamental of perception than a computer mediated universe. I just don't find those, for lack of a better term, deceptive explanations of the human condition very tenable.



    Aren't you insisting on the existence of physical matter if you are talking about black holes and their consumption?
     
  14. Mountain Valley Wolf

    Mountain Valley Wolf Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,584
    Likes Received:
    933


    It was my quote, and I relate it to the problem of whether or not existence is the ground of our being. I believe essence, not existence is the ground of our being. Anyone who believes in God, or gods, or Hegel's Absolute, or Aristotle's nous (mind), or any other such underlying reality would believe that essence is the ground of our being.

    Anyway, if we use the metaphor that reality is nothing more than a software program in a cosmic computer, then the problem I raised (So the problem becomes, how can a mind programmed by the physical universe, alter the physicality of that universe through means other than physical causal action. In other words, if the universe is restricted to physical reality how can the mind programmed by that physical reality, perform actions of non-physicality upon that same physical reality?) is akin to, as I said earlier the program altering the programmer. But I guess altering the hardware might be more appropriate. But it is more complex than that----the software would have to alter it without using the software.

    Let me give you an example that I recently experienced. We were in a Yuwipi ceremony (a Lakota spirit calling ceremony), in a small pitch-dark room. Even the bottom of the doors were covered so as to not let any light in the room. The medicine man was in the center in an elaborate altar. All the people sat against the walls, which were concrete (it was a basement), and the room was so small that the tobacco ties and flags that set the perimeter of the altar were at our feet--in fact, we all scrunched up our feet to keep them out of the altar. The drummers were in the back of the room, against the wall as well. My wife and I sat next to a man who was going to be healed. The ceremony was actually for him and my wife and I, so we were at the head of the altar. But like I said, everyone's back was against the wall, save for the medicine man, who was tied up in a quilt in the middle of the altar.

    The only thing you could really see was sparks and light given off by two rattles that were moving and shaking across and around the room. When I say they were moving around, I mean they were moving around in the air by themselves. When the spirits actually doctored the man who sat next to us, they had him, through the medicine man who tells what they tell him, stand up. Because it was cramped, and we had our backs against the wall, my wife helped him stand (she was actually right next to him). The rattles came and moved around him giving of blue sparks when they would hit, and a faint blue light as they would rattle. Then they moved behind him---which should have been physically impossible because of the concrete wall. They went up and down his back, and then, amazingly, started moving in a back and forth manner behind his back---like drum sticks or hammers-----as if there was no wall.

    The rattles were physical objects. But there was nothing physical moving them----nothing physical would have been able to move them like that. Even the physical wall seemed to lose its physicality.

    So this would have to compare, as I see it, to software altering the hardware, but through a means other than the software itself. Software can turn on and off lights, display numbers, figures, and pictures on a CRT, just as consciousness can shake a rattle with a hand. But when rattles shake without any physical hands or any other physical means---the metaphor breaks down unless the software physically alters the hardware---or alters the programmer---through a means other than the program, or software itself.


    If life arose out of a strictly physical universe, then the metaphor holds in the sense that the computer itself would arise from itself---continually evolving into more and more complex form and structure, as it shaped the physical universe. It would undoubtedly be easier for biological life to come to be than for a computer to come into existence---but then it is just a metaphor.
     
  15. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

    Messages:
    29,419
    Likes Received:
    6,296
    The simulator of a physical universe would necessarily assume a multiverse I think. It would have to follow a completely different set of laws and behavior as what we understand in our universe as to not get caught up in such things as emergence or entropy, as well as potential unforeseen catastrophes.
     
  16. Moonglow181

    Moonglow181 Lifetime Supporter Lifetime Supporter

    Messages:
    16,175
    Likes Received:
    4,916

    I beg to differ....for example.....travelling to the moon was just someone's illusion/dream once upon a time....that eventually became a reality.
     
  17. QueerPoet

    QueerPoet Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,165
    Likes Received:
    200
    Good point, Moonglow! Yeah, sometimes dreams really do come true :)

    QP
     
  18. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

    Messages:
    22,574
    Likes Received:
    1,203
    Don't need to beg just say something different.
    An idea is not an illusion nor is a dream and you are talking about travelling or creating something. An illusion doesn't create anything but a deceptive appearance.
     
  19. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

    Messages:
    29,419
    Likes Received:
    6,296
    It's an interesting assertion. The idea initially resides in the imagination, is the imagination synonymous with dream or illusion?

    There may be overlap among these concepts and potentially one can influence another but I'd say they are not synonymous.. Dreams have a discordant nature to them which often makes them difficult to integrate into waking reality for the individual, although psychoanalysts and lucid dreamers may disagree. Regardless there seems to be a quality to dreams that particularly without practice or the aid of someone qualified to foster interpretations is not very tangible for most in waking life. Illusions, at least in the mental sphere, are more about distortions of thoughts and concepts taken for granted as one would take thoughts and concepts that actually apply to one's reality. Imagination seems like thoughts and ideas which have a potential basis in reality, although taken to exaggerative extremes which may or may not have a consistent stream of thoughts to bring them to reality.

    So as far as this pertains to travelling to the moon, I'll assume the first person to imagine going to the moon was not the first person who laid out the plan that came to actually take a human to the moon.
     
  20. Shin Sir

    Shin Sir Member

    Messages:
    40
    Likes Received:
    9
    Nah not an illusion. We are all tied and we all are one. This is a divine purpose.
     

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice