Does the physical world exist?

reply to post by FOXMULDER147

 

When you touch a wall you've not actually touching it at the sub-atomic level, sure, but there's got to be something there covered with electrons that repels your hand and simulates the sense of touch.

It makes sense to assume that something is... umm, a wall.

Just because all our perceptions are processed in the mind doesn't mean stuff doesn't exist out there in reality. on the contrary, the real world stuff must exist in reality to stimulate all the sensory perceptions you experience.

It makes sense to assume that something is...umm, energy - vibrating at a slow enough rate for our limited perceptions to experience it as a "solid."

We have gotten far enough in science to measure the actual energy of thoughts. Is it really so far out there to imagine that our thoughts influence the energy we perceive as the material world?

This is silly. its like saying,
"what I see is not real"
well if you cut your eues out.
it will not be real any more!
but you can still touch it!

we live IN this world.
and we still live in it.
if you interact with it its real.

It is how we see reality.
if that reality is just in are minds.
it is Still real...

I swear you post a lot of threads in the science and technology forum that should probably be put int the philosophy and metaphysics forum. Not trying to be a mod, though. Just sayin.

Originally posted by Matrix Rising

There's no evidence that an objective physical world exist. We don't touch anything or see anything. It's all based on a sensory input of information. So the holographic principle and black hole thermodynamics could really be key to what we call reality.

When you look at vision. We never see anything out there. Light hits are retina and information signals to our brain tells us the spatial dimension and color of what we should see. We then project a 3-dimensional image based on that information.

So light hits a 2 dimensional surface are and we project a 3-dimensional "reality." It's the only thing that makes sense. If a tree is out there, why don't I just see a tree? Why is the image formed in my brain? Why is the spatial information formed in my brain?

Umm. Let's take a few steps back, I think you've been tricked by a demon, Descartes...

I won't comment on trying to look at vision, or this strange personification you seem to be giving the brain, but I will comment on your 'premise' that "We never see anything out there," though I may already be convinced that you may not see many things.

So then, you believe that light hits our eyes, and our brain tells us what colors and extensions we should be perceiving, which some how "forms [the image] in [one's] brain", and that we are not actually seeing what we are seeing, we are seeing nothing other than our own thought contents. So then the only things we experience are ourselves. And if we're only experiencing ourselves, it must be ourselves that are the only experienced things. And it would seem that if a thing couldn't be experienced, it could not be said to exist. So, enjoy your solipsism: you are the one!

Luckily I experience many things that are not myself.

Anyone who claims they have no physical existence should just stop eating for a bit.

I wonder how unhappy one must be in order to feel the need to pretend that the world does not exist.

Is the world any less real to the airman in a bunker at Nellis Air Force base who is right now piloting a drone in Pakistan and getting ready to drop a bomb on some people? He isn't in Pakistan, the only sensory stimulus he receives is through electronic transmissions, yet he gets he "is" there - ask the Pakistani that survives.

Thanks for the responses.

Science tells us an objective physical world doesn't exist. Everything we touch, see, smell or taste can be broken down to 1's and 0's. Everything is a construct of information.

The question needs to be asked, who or what arranged information in such a way that it would project a simulated "reality" that is truly complex. We never touch anything, information tells us how it should feel. Information tells us how things should look and smell.

There's no objective material reality out there, everything is a sensory input of information that simulates what we call reality.

The real question is what Powers this physical world where does the power come from that makes reality exist.

Here's some of an article I read years ago and I still read it from time to time.

At today's rates of compression, you could download the entire 3 billion digits of your DNA onto about four CDs. That 3-gigabyte genome sequence represents the prime coding information of a human body — your life as numbers. Biology, that pulsating mass of plant and animal flesh, is conceived by science today as an information process. As computers keep shrinking, we can imagine our complex bodies being numerically condensed to the size of two tiny cells. These micro-memory devices are called the egg and sperm. They are packed with information.

The spooky nature of material things is not new. Once science examined matter below the level of fleeting quarks and muons, it knew the world was incorporeal. What could be less substantial than a realm built out of waves of quantum probabilities? And what could be weirder? Digital physics is both. It suggests that those strange and insubstantial quantum wavicles, along with everything else in the universe, are themselves made of nothing but 1s and 0s. The physical world itself is digital.

Our awakening to the true power of computation rests on two suspicions. The first is that computation can describe all things. To date, computer scientists have been able to encapsulate every logical argument, scientific equation, and literary work that we know about into the basic notation of computation. Now, with the advent of digital signal processing, we can capture video, music, and art in the same form. Even emotion is not immune. Researchers Cynthia Breazeal at MIT and Charles Guerin and Albert Mehrabian in Quebec have built Kismet and EMIR (Emotional Model for Intelligent Response), two systems that exhibit primitive feelings.

The second supposition is that all things can compute. We have begun to see that almost any kind of material can serve as a computer. Human brains, which are mostly water, compute fairly well. (The first "calculators" were clerical workers figuring mathematical tables by hand.) So can sticks and strings. In 1975, as an undergraduate student, engineer Danny Hillis constructed a digital computer out of skinny Tinkertoys. In 2000, Hillis designed a digital computer made of only steel and tungsten that is indirectly powered by human muscle. This slow-moving device turns a clock intended to tick for 10,000 years. He hasn't made a computer with pipes and pumps, but, he says, he could. Recently, scientists have used both quantum particles and minute strands of DNA to perform computations.

www.wired.com...

It's a 4 paged article that was published in 2002.

Originally posted by Matrix Rising
I think the answer is NO.

This is silly simply because it is unworkable. You are playing around with the meaning of the word "exist."

Almost all people agree that physical things "exist." For someone to come along and tell us that they don't is just confusing.

I have seen New Age lecturers and others try to make this point. They could still make this point without kicking stable data out from underneath us.

The physical world "exists" because we have defined it as our primary measure of "existence."

Now look at this data: There are a certain number of people on this planet - a rather large number - who have had out-of-body experiences. And what do most of them "see" when they are out of their bodies? The same gosh darn world that they see when they are in their bodies!

So the model of awareness that says that we are trapped in our heads and experience everything through electro-chemical channels is incorrect. We can experience the physical world directly, without using those channels, and when we do the only change is that it tends to "brighten up." So the body senses are just electro-chemical replacements for our direct senses. Unaided, they miss a lot of what is going on. But we tend to do that anyway.

Physical reality is kind of like a weed wacker. Have you seen those things? They are just a little filament spinning around at a high rate. Would you put your finger in a weed wacker? No? Why not? It's just a thin little string; hardly anything at all. But its fast spinning motion gives it the ability to cut grass. Physical reality is the same way. It is extremely fast motion which gives it "solidity." And we experience that solidity as a very real thing!

So I don't need all this talk about how the physical universe "doesn't really exist." We are playing a game called "physical universe" and in that game you better believe it exists!

There are better ways than this to understand the higher truths.

Everything is made up of atoms that are made up of nucleus and electrons these have huge amounts of space between them rather like planets orbiting a sun. If you took all the empty space out a human there would only be a tiny speck of dense nuclei and electrons left. Its the same for other objects trees mountains animals etc etc. Therefore when we touch something in reality we are touching the energy between the atoms not the atoms themselves. Everything is almost entirely energy

reply to post by l_e_cox


If you claim the physical universe has an objective physical existence, then give me the scientific evidence. I read through your post and I saw a lot of hyperbole but very little science.

You said:

Almost all people agree that physical things "exist."

Almost all people agreed the earth was flat but that didn't make it true.

You said:

We can experience the physical world directly, without using those channels, and when we do the only change is that it tends to "brighten up." So the body senses are just electro-chemical replacements for our direct senses. Unaided, they miss a lot of what is going on. But we tend to do that anyway.

Give me evidence of one person that has touched matter. You said we can experience the physical world directly, then give me some scientific evidence that this is the case.

reply to post by l_e_cox


Could not have said this better myself!

The OOBE illustration is germane to the 'reality' discussions that abound here...

Akushla

reply to post by Matrix Rising
What you are talking about in your op is solipsism. Solipsism cannot be tested as a belief; there is no way to confirm or disconfirm it, and it has no practical effect on the world. In science, the inability to test something makes it instantly rejected as a theory. So you are asking for proof of the unprovable?

This thread belongs in the philosophy metaphysics forum because it is has absolutely no scientific basis whatsoever. The best argument against Solipsism is that it can be 'safely ignored' without actually being directly refuted. As a belief, it simply doesn't matter. This is the hallmark of something that simply isn't true.

and what are taxes doing in my brain???????

reply to post by Atzil321


Well said. OP, why to you persist with this "science has proven that objective reality does not exist" nonsense? Science says no such thing.

reply to post by AdAstra


great !!! and true , they have no idea what they are talking about ,.... people before stated theories, better try to escape from the prison of language in which you are traped , all of you ....and after that we can have a little chit-chat..

Reguardless of if "the physical" is actually what we percieve it to be or not, it is still what we call physical. If everything really is holographic then this is as physical as it gets. If were in some type of reality matrix then what form of us is plugged in? I always imagined a bunch of flickering lights, like stars in the night sky, all talking and sharing information to work toward some common goal. Like in the matrix, your mind makes it real. So, its as real as you want it to be. One life here in the physical, and another as pure information in the inbetween. They both serve a purpose. I always wonder when Im on this topic if it really isnt a hologram, but our minds and eyes dont see like any other intelligent life in our galaxy then could any super advanced alien life know about this and see it as a weakness they could use to walk among us? The earth is around 4.5 billion years old and the universe is what? 12.8 billion? A civilization with just a billion year head start would probably know 99% more than any of us could even imagine. I like the idea of a hologram reality because it would explain spirit, ufo, and other strange phenomena but still this theory raises more questions then it solves. Proving it would only prove that we have no idea what real even is.---------- Happy Thanksgiving everyone----------

reply to post by Matrix Rising


lol i am?
we love you

reply to post by Matrix Rising


Hi Matrix,

Please read the below link. you might find it usefull

The Existence of the Physical World