The Wired has you

Thought 1
Reality.
what we perceive as real, and what we know to be real are not the same things.
The only way we can take in information about the world is through our senses and the neural pathways firing in our brains.
To say we all share one, identical reality is a laughable notion at best. For all we know when someone says something is green, what we think of as green and what they think of as green are two radically different colors. What they think is green could be what we think of as blue. Both viewpoints are equally valid. And there is no way to determine who is right and who is wrong, or even if there is a right or wrong.
So if we all live in our own cocoons of memory, then technically the only things that exist are the things we know to exist already. So nothing exists in the world, in what we perceive as the world, that we do not already know. Its simple really, our world, and our reality, are the sum of our memories, our thoughts, nothing more. If we extend this, we could go as far as to say that everything exists only because someone somewhere perceives it, this is taking the tree in the woods hypothesis one step further. Instead of thinking, does the tree falling make a sound. What we should be thinking, is did the live tree ever exist in the first place. Common logic dictates that it did, and it is safe to make that assumption because our world is strung together by a web of similar experiences shared by everyone across a common line. Out of this sharing, patterns emerge, when we convey the existence of something to another it becomes real to them.
For instance my computer is a laptop, an acer aspire. But before I said that, you didn't know what my computer was, it wasn't real for you in that way, you know that it exists because logic holds that I'm using it to type this right now, but you don't know what kind it was, for you it was just a computer, for you it could have been anything. In your reality, until I said what kind of computer I had, it could have been anything, you could perceive it as something different. It only became an Acer after I told you what it was.
So what about people? Are we like everything else? Only having substance as long as other people know we exist?
The law enforcement calls a person they've never seen and can't identify John Doe. a generic name used until the identity of the person could be found. But what if it was never found? What if this John Doe seemingly appeared out of no where. If no one knew the person existed before their appearance can we prove that they did exist prior to their appearance? No. we can't. So if we continue to extend our statement, we could say that nothing, and no one exists except in the memories of other people.

continued next post

Thought 2
Software
So if the mind of a person is all that is real for them, then how do they know the information they see and recognize as cognitive input from the human body is in fact real? We perceive it as real, but all we have to go on are our thoughts and our perceptions, one of which can be fooled. We accept the input our body provides us with, only as a means to verify our existence in the universe, because we exist only within our memories and the memories of others, we require our body and that contact with the outside in order to prove to ourselves that we do in fact exist.
Mankind, is a creature that no longer evolves. Compared to other animals, the incidence of cancer in man is exceedingly small. One theory says that man is no longer able to evolve. If this is actually true then what an absurd creature that man has ultimately evolved into. Not knowing what it is that drives them or even keeps them alive, they keep their bodies merely to satisfy the desires of the flesh. As a general rule, all of the functions of the human body without exception can be put into simple words, and described in terms that are purely materialistic. The body is nothing but a machine, if the physical restrictions of the body prevent the ability of humanity to evolve, it would be as if the fall of the species called man had already been decided by a god that doesn't even exist. The information etched inside humans is not only that which they themselves have acquired as individuals, the species called man has knowledge collected by his predecessors and information has accumulated within him, therefore, if that information isn't shared its meaningless, and amounts to nothing more then data.
What does this all mean? That the existence of what we consider to be ourself, is not our bodies. We're software. We're not hardware.
continued next post

Whose software? This is very interesting . . do you have a feeling as to whose software we actually are, what being(s) is/are the author(s) of this human program? I've been pondering of late that we might actually be the artificial intelligence we often wonder if one day we will somehow create. . .

You are the master of your mind.

Yet you continue to allow your mind to master you.

Relax, and allow your heart to receive some of the breath that surrounds your mind.

Sit silently, do nothing.

Be in this moment.

The real journey is neither existing nor not existing.

As long as you keep the energy in the head, you can avoid the real direction.

The only real truth is going to be on the journey inward.

No more questions, no more questioner.

Originally posted by Tsakara
What does this all mean? That the existence of what we consider to be ourself, is not our bodies. We're software. We're not hardware.
continued next post

Soft, Hard, or Otherwise...

As individuals, we are meer bit and bytes in the grand scheme of things. Though, collectively we have the potential to represent mega, giga, terra and beyond...

Your "voice" is but your's and your's alone. What you choose to "do" with it is again your's and your's alone. ($.02)



On a side note:
Your posts come across a bit "Matrix"-like. (?)



 







[edit on 5-12-2007 by 12m8keall2c]

Thought 3
Existence.

The Wired, the net, the web, call it what you will, the globe spanning network of information we humans have created is a world of its own. The wired is so immersed in the connectivity of the real world that you may say they are one and the same.
Mankind can evolve. By creating the global network of the wired, we have finally created an exit, a way to cheat mortality. What if the human mind, the human ego. Could be freed of the restrictions of the flesh. If it could transcend them, and exist on another plane, one that we ourselves have created?
You might go as far as to say that the physical body exists at a less evolved plane only to verify one's existence in the universe. That it isn't needed. because the only things we see as real are the things that we perceive as such, the information we receive through the wired is just real as the sensory input we receive from our bodies about the outside world. The wired might actually be thought of as a highly advanced upper layer of the real world. In other words, physical reality is nothing but an illusion, a hologram of the information that flows to us through the wired. This is because the body, physical motion, the activity of the human brain is merely a physical phenomenon, simply caused by synapses delivering electrical impulses.
Our bodies are nothing but shells to contain our minds. We have yet to realize that we have created a new medium of connectivity, we have outgrown our bodies and retain them for purely materialistic reasons.
But are their others that have already taken the next step and moved beyond the limitations of the human body?
Have you ever considered another possibility, that what flows through the wired isn't merely electrical information? If we can assume that it was the development of a worldwide system of electricity, phones, and computers that caused the eventual formation of the wired then I have to wonder if another world was created, if that web of electricity carries more then what we think it does, or even what we can imagine it does. Here in the real world, God exists only as an imaginary concept, but in the wired, there may actually exist a sort of embodiment of an all powerful being, one that sees everything connected to it on a level plane, where all eyes are opened for it. I don't know whether or not it should actually be called a God, but in the very least, but it may have the same supernatural powers that were written in the old myths and legends. The ideas of ghosts, UFOs and other unexplained phenomenon, could be a sign that the border between our world and the world of the wired, are starting to break down. That the effects of these individuals that may or may not exist, along with the exponential expansion of technology, is wearing away the boundaries between our world and the wired world. Causing the two to merge into one, where information is shared mentally across vast distances, instantly, with no need for any sort of interface.
It may already be happening, and the knowledge is kept from us, in an attempt to keep our world separate from the wired world. We may not even know its happening until its already over.

12m8keall2c, antar, both . . . thnx, words heard!

antar: I am warmed deeply that you had that special best friend, and strengthened that the special experience of that friendship is forever special in your heart . . . thanks for sharing

Ahh the age old question, what is reality?

Reality is the measure of things permissable within the confines of time and space. If it takes up time and it takes up space, it's real. Even hallucinations are real since they take up time to be hallucinated and space within your brain.

Thats just my humble opinion of course.

Men have probably gone mad contemplating such things, thats why I leave such thoughts to the philosophers.

If I'm having lunch with my children and laughing and enjoying the good company and good times, I don't care if it's real. I'm grateful for the experience regardless.

Even if they aren't real, I'm still grateful for the good times I've had. I suppose I'm grateful for the bad as well, for I always learned something. Flowers love the sunshine but it's the rain that makes them grow...yada, yada, yada...

I'll continue to leave it to greater minds than my own.

Originally posted by 12m8keall2c

Originally posted by Tsakara
What does this all mean? That the existence of what we consider to be ourself, is not our bodies. We're software. We're not hardware.
continued next post

Soft, Hard, or Otherwise...

As individuals, we are meer bit and bytes in the grand scheme of things. Though, collectively we have the potential to represent mega, giga, terra and beyond...

Your "voice" is but your's and your's alone. What you choose to "do" with it is again your's and your's alone. ($.02)



On a side note:
Your posts come across a bit "Matrix"-like. (?)

you have totally missed the point.

if you get into object orientated computer programming, you end up thinking down these lines alot, at least i did, and still do in alot of things.

Take a real world example

At the base level you have the blueprint, it contains instructions on how to build a house, but knows nothing about what a house is.

For example, my house is an instance of building... my next door neighbours house is also an instance of a building. The both share the same variables (they have a roof, and doors) but they are two unique objects.

I am an instance of a human...subset of sapiens, again with parameters, but unique.

When you look at this, you can have totally unique, complex entities.. based on a common set of rules, sharing common parameters... yet still being unique.

Could we be software... or are we something much more complex, which we dont even have the terms to describe... possibly by design (the blueprint doesn't need to know what colour a front door is to build the basic house)

When you get into this stuff it really changes the way you think

I think I know exactly what you mean. I have felt this way before, although I never did know how to put it down into words. Like they keep on giving us these rules, and we all believe them. THEY shove realism down our throats. Science, logic, critical thinking, all software that they have imposed upon us. We are all capable of anything, but first, we need to break out of our software prison.

"It is a prison that we cannot see, touch, or smell"- the Matrix

Thank you for sharing this information with us. It will help all break out of our software prison.

Originally posted by Tsakara
The only way we can take in information about the world is through our senses and the neural pathways firing in our brains.

The only way we can take in information is through our physical bodies after which our brains through an intricate neural system interprets the electrical signals that were sent from the point of physical contact with the external stimulus.

Originally posted by Tsakara
To say we all share one, identical reality is a laughable notion at best. For all we know when someone says something is green, what we think of as green and what they think of as green are two radically different colors. What they think is green could be what we think of as blue. Both viewpoints are equally valid. And there is no way to determine who is right and who is wrong, or even if there is a right or wrong.

The notion of categorization of this and that is not necessarily valid but it is quite possibly irrevecobaly true in that green is green and can be measured by a machine and this communicates that the compositions of the color green occupy a specific portion of the unqualified interpretation of what we consider the external world, to which we can see contains that which was and can still be measured though not everyone has the same interpretation of what constitutes a proper measurement of what we want to measure and therefor we can only assume that our perception is where the flow of information becomes into reality.

Originally posted by Tsakara
So if we all live in our own cocoons of memory, then technically the only things that exist are the things we know to exist already. So nothing exists in the world, in what we perceive as the world, that we do not already know.

And we touch every aspect of our universe through many fractalized portions of interaction for the simple reason that every vibrates and has its' own frequency and nothing ever really goes away so we are actually looking at the light that was bounced off an asteroid on its' way to the moon of our planet before it was bounced away by an errant seagull who had decided that the smell of sea water was not his cup of tea...


Its simple really, our world, and our reality, are the sum of our memories, our thoughts, nothing more. And our thoughts occupy matter, a physical aspect of this universe that is ever evolving into something else, a different thought, an added upon thought like when you are building something and have to add a piece of leather so that it isn't a cold and calculated representaion of what you had envisioned.

It is as simple as adding one plus one plus one plus one plus one for a very long time, even the end of time for that is how long the physical world will continue shaping the evaporations of time and memory.

Originally posted by Tsakara
If we extend this, we could go as far as to say that everything exists only because someone somewhere perceives it, this is taking the tree in the woods hypothesis one step further.

this isn't taking the analogy any further precisely because their was never tangible analogy only pixalated spaces of a screen that conformed itself to what you had typed and the location I had chosen to stop the cursor and allow it to remain in front of me and that is why you can say that perception and existence are completely different. A rock may not need to percieve its' existance and may not give a tootsie roll pop about any arguement of the space and time it consumes.

Originally posted by Tsakara
Instead of thinking, does the tree falling make a sound. What we should be thinking, is did the live tree ever exist in the first place.

If I thought that should have a jaw dropping philisophical experience than I should perhaps ruminate on what may happen tomorrow and what occurred today and yesterday and reconcile any patterns that my perception straightens out of the mangled wreck of nonstop information that comes forth. A tree may not give a shiny hubcap about what my arguement of its' existence and I am sure that I have never had a tree explicitly direct my behaviour so what I would perhaps be more inclined to ponder may be the reason for my behaviour and what I want it to do. If a tree asks for a hand concerning complex rhetorical organization then I may proffer help.

Originally posted by Tsakara
Common logic dictates that it did, and it is safe to make that assumption because our world is strung together by a web of similar experiences shared by everyone across a common line. Out of this sharing, patterns emerge, when we convey the existence of something to another it becomes real to them.

And what is real for you and for me is not necessarily merely contingent upon your communication of such rather the amount of import I have chosen to allot said communication. The only reason I have even gone this far in mimicry of your style is to illustrate that a seemingly coherent presentation of abstract concept is...

....quite simple. I am entertained to have walked you such a length for a "Duh" moment.

You see, your entire presentation can be rendered moot in the fact that your theme is that of "no one can know", yet you are presenting yourself to be the authority who does know. Welcome to your own fallacy!

What point did a previous poster miss? The one that was interlayered within the redundant and repetitive syllogy that you were kind enough to grace upon us in an inaccessible manner?

Are you here for a discussion.....or for listening to the sound that your fingers make when they touch your keyboard as you type...though I suppose you could be utilizing a voice into text converter doo hingy.

MY point is this....if you are going to illicit a response from the people on this board, then you may want to consider that your posts could be made as real as the non-percieved tree that fell in the woods...just by turning off our computers.

And for the record....I think alot of your presentation is promising, though very much incomplete....decent enough ruminations, but concluded without inclusion of all available factors...

Looking forward to your response....