How real is reality!?

N

notme2000

The Art Of Fact
Registered Senior Member
I realize this is one of the very premises of philosophy, but none the less, I'm curious to see what people have to say on the matter of empiricism, the belief that all knowledge comes from senses...

Ok, let me elaborate for those who are not familiar with the concept... The color red. Does it exist? First thought would most likely be "Yes, of course". But let's think about this... Red is how our eyes recognise light waves reflecting off an object with certain physical properties. Thus, if there were no eyes to perceive it, would the color red still exist? (If a tree falls in the forest and no one's there to hear it, does it make a sound?) Probably not, just the light waves we perceive as red (our soundwaves from the tree)... Now this is pretty simple stuff so far... But everything we have ever experienced relies completely on our senses... And since I just showed that sight is simply perception, interpretation, what's to say the rest of our senses aren't as well? Space between two objects is how our brain links the 2 objects. So that falls in to the depth perception of sight. Feeling, such as pain, is simply our nerve endings' recognition of contact, but the feeling itself does not exist. Taste, just the taste bud's interpretation of certain chemicals. Same for smell. Sound is our ear's way of making sense of the soundwaves hitting it...

Well now that I've shown that all senses may be deceiving us, I will get to my (borrowed from great philosophers from the past, Immanuel Kant, for one) major point. Look at an apple and you now know the color red, in itself, does not exist. Nor the taste of the apple, etc... Well then, can you say with any certainty that the apple exists? That anything exists? Is our entire reality based on our senses!? This could mean 2 things...

Plato's "The Cave" deals with this by stating our reality is not the true reality, but the shadow... Our senses are holding us back from experiencing reality in it's true form...

Descartes was more of a skeptic, and suggested the possibility that our senses were not hinting at an underlying reality, but completely deceiving us all together. The only thing we can't succesfully doubt is our consiousness... Cause something has to be doubting it... (I think therefore I am). Thus even your own body is nothing but an illusion.

I'm really interested in hearing others' opinions on this. Who would you side with, if either, Plato or Descartes? Or a new theory all together!? One subject that often comes up while on this subject is The Matrix, lol. Or perhaps you would like to correct me, I may be wrong in any or all of these statements.
 
Last edited:
ok

for a start anyone who has studied physics will tell you that a sound is a vibration of air particals

so YES it makes a sound

NO it doesnt make a nosie cause noise is how our ears interprete sound

and no i belive if our scenses are gone the world doesnt exist cause our interface is gone
 
for a start anyone who has studied physics will tell you that a sound is a vibration of air particals
Click to expand...

And anyone who has studied philosophy will tell you that physics is how our mind interprets the relations between objects, forces, energies, etc... Thing is, everything physics studies could be an illusion. You have to look at the BIG picture to grasp the question. I'm not asking you to believe it, just entertain the possibility.

i belive if our scenses are gone the world doesnt exist cause our interface is gone
Click to expand...

Ok, so what about just you, when you are dead. Will there still be a world for me to live in? Or what if the universe dissapeared first, could our senses and consiousness still exist without it?
 
depends

i am not sure about this

either the world is MY dream, in which case u dont even exist so no or its as is and yes
 
You will never prove this becuase the only way you can precieve anything is through senses

You have a berry. It looks like a berry. It feels like a berry. It smells like a berry. It tastes like a berry. All evedence points to it being a berry. You have no proof that it is not a berry. It must be a berry.

Your senses may be tricking you, but you will not sense a lack of senses with touch, taste, smell or sound.

Any statement that your senses can't prove is a belief.

OG!
 
OG? If that means "Oh God", I hope you don't look down on me or something, I already thought of your point, but was curious to see what other points would be made.

P.S. Welcome to Sciforums!
 
No. Og is one of many made up words that I enjoy using.
Others include:
Ubercool
Booyakka
Soaky
Toasty
I don't look down on anyone unless they're overly negative.

Its a phylosophy board. I expext to heard odd statements.
 
Don't try to hard. Just blurt out random florts when you can think of what to say. Thats why most of mine a appositives and veriations on the word cool.

Or mabey its the concept of cool. :)
 
Reality is purely subjective.

I hope I'm not some alien's pet computer project... :eek:

A quote you guys might like:

"No man can prove upon awakening that he is the man who he thinks went to bed the night before, or that anything that he recollects is anything other than a convincing dream." - R. Buckminster Fuller
Click to expand...

If the alien is making modifications to my program, I hope he gives
me a bigger... errr, umm... wallet.

;)
 
There's a scientific theory, not just philosophical, that time does not exist... We are currently in a moment and all the memories we have are just a configuration of neurons in our head, unmoving.... You've been sitting at that computer reading this word for eternity, and forever will be... But the consiousness travels through all these different "freeze frames", creating an illusion of time... But the coolest idea of this theory, is what if this cell animation, of sorts, doesn't go in any order!? What if a second ago you were on your death bed, but now you're consiousness in the moment in which you are reading this post, thus you have no memory of the death bed "freeze frame". Just a theory... This could also mean that maybe consiousness is a singularity... In another "freeze frame", maybe I was you, and you were me...
 
that was something i was thinking as well

how the hell do i know what happened before now?
 
reality

as a scientist, i have a empiricist's view of reality.

what is real are those phenomena that we can sense directly or indirectly.

within this structure we call reality, scientific hypotheses can be generated. These hypotheses must potentially be falsifiable to be considered scientific hypotheses. Scientific hypotheses have predictive value in confirming our view of reality.

I do not deny that there are things outside our perception, outside reality. However, as an empiricist, I deny that we can have any knowledge of these things, and have no more validity than me saying that there are pink elephants orbiting the earth that are undetectable.

It is beyond doubt, within our reality, that the color red or the noise of a tree falling, exist as phenomena (either in wavelength of emitted light or in sound waves). How our senses, and ultimately our brains, percieve these phenomena is irrelevant to their existence. It would be like asking, "If humans did not exist to percieve the earth, and the solar system, and the galaxy and the universe, would they exist?" This type of question is the ultimate arrogance.

In regards to time: time is merely change and humans use incremental periodicity (i.e. clocks, calenders, etc.) to measure this change. Humans no more invented time than we invented distance because we use rulers.

BTW, FYI the study of what we know and how we know it is termed epistemology.
 
Re: reality

I do not deny that there are things outside our perception, outside reality. However, as an empiricist, I deny that we can have any knowledge of these things, and have no more validity than me saying that there are pink elephants orbiting the earth that are undetectable.

Why don't you think we can have knowledge of things outside our normal perception? Perhaps in deep meditation we can "visit" places, consider things normally outside our personal perception. Why would a perceived lack of knowledge diminish validity?

In regards to time: time is merely change and humans use incremental periodicity (i.e. clocks, calenders, etc.) to measure this change. Humans no more invented time than we invented distance because we use rulers.

I totally agree...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
reply to phillipc

i'm not sure i know what you mean. visit places, like in your mind as imagination or fantasy? you know fantasy is the antithesis of reality.

i don't mean 'normal' perception, i mean total, direct and indirect, perception.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top