Science tells us reality doesn't exist

If reality is an illusion, then it would be quite easy to explain quantum entanglement and how FTL information exchange is possible. And, why would our reality need be anything more than an illusion. We're easily fooled by our dreams while experiencing them, we run from the monsters we experience within them, yet they are not materially real. We can perceive vast distances while we dream and believe that that distance is real. I sat on a bench next to a lake once in my dream .. yet how did all that fit inside my head, there's not that much room for a lake in my head, ha. If reality is an illusion, that would make FTL info exchange very easy to explain. The illusion operates at the speed of light, but the holodeck computers are much much faster than that, in fact they are instantaneous, they would have to be within a multiverse construct where all has already been defined. Time and space and matter and energy are all illusions. And so are we.

[edit on 1-4-2010 by Divinorumus]

Originally posted by Matrix Rising...The Mind creates reality....

...Those who study things like the Unified Field of Consciousness or Idealism realize this is what we should find because Mind creates reality....

...Nobody has ever touched matter. When you touch a hard table or a soft pillow the electrons from your hand repel against the electrons from the pillow or table and your mind perceives things like hardness and softness.

The Mind constructs reality.

This may be an obstacle that's hard to overcome because many scientist are materialist

[Ellipses represent where I have removed sections of text to get down to the points I want to respond to directly.]

This is a huge issue you are talking about, and it's good to see some people thinking about it!

I think there are two different issues at play here, though. One is the materialism vs immaterialism vs dualism vs etc. debate. That debate is a question of ontology, a question of what types of things there are in the world. The second is the direct realism, indirect realism, idealism debate. That is a debate about epistemology, about how we know things, how we know about the things that are. Two different, but possibly interrelated questions.

You are right that an idealist like George Berkeley (1685-1753) would tell you that we are not interacting with matter. In fact, he thought matter was impossible! Many philosophers of the past would have agreed with him too, and a few still today, but not many. His epistemology was idealist, as was his ontology. According to Berkeleyan idealism, we know these things directly, and they are completely mental. Now, does this mean that he thought there was no world out there? Surely not! He thought that these mental things were just as objective as I am sitting on this chair. Also, he was a nice guy, he wanted to donate a considerable sum to start a university in the US, but died before he could make it happen. Berkeley, California is named after him, as is the university.

Now, there are other views out there! For example, Berkeley once said that there were two possible views out there, his and that of John Locke (1632-1704), so he spent a lot of time criticizing Locke to show that his view was right. Personally, Locke is a favorite of mine. His view is called Indirect Realism. Locke thought that there was a physical world out there full of tables, chairs, trees, bodies, etc, but that what we interact with, what we "touch" in our mind, is just a representation, just a mental thing. So you see, your two claims can be combined under a Lockean framework. We can both say that there is matter out there, and that we never directly observe it, never "touch" the stuff epistemically. So, for Locke, there are mental things, and material things; we only interact with the mental ones, but that's fine because they represent the material ones. I could go on about this forever!

And then you come to the direct realist materialists. These guys are the kind you were talking about, they think that we directly perceive the world, and that it is made of matter. I agree that there are problems with such a view, but it is extremely popular in academic circles right now. For a good defense of this view, look up Skepticism and the Veil of Perception by Michael Huemer, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers (2001).

Now, you are right, physicists today will tell you that the world is not really solid like we thought, that it might be made up of vibrating bits of space, energy all the way down. This does not, however, entail idealism. It just shows that the physical world, which would be there if there were minds or not and is not just a mental thing, is different than we used to think, but that's fine.

reply to post by devilishlyangelic23


I would argue a more symbotic relationship for consciousness and "reality". Like this picture, one hand being reality the other being consciousness. And it's only with artifical certainty that one argues which was first in my opinion.

I suggest that these scientist speed through my hometown on a Saturday night, and when the cop that doesn't exist stops them...and they tell him to go "blank" himself, ...they can then test their theory on Sunday morning and tell us how real "reality" is.

How can science (the study of reality) tell us that reality doesn't exist???

IMO, scientists are just hypocritical idiots who will publish any story, to gain attention and more funding.

reply to post by Korg Trinity


Many people don't know how to go about getting what they want. For example, a guy sees this beautiful young lady and he says, "I want her." While he may actually want her, he may not have a clue as to how to go about getting her.

Right then and there, all bets are off. What winds up happening is that he remains actionless and she tires of wasting her time waiting and moves on. The same principle can be applied to anything in life. Your dreams will wait, but only for so long.

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows

And it's only with artifical certainty that one argues which was first in my opinion.

So your saying theres a 50% chance that all of the beliefs of mysticism and religion could be false.

Thats quite a thing to ponder for you.

[edit on 4-4-2010 by Wertdagf]

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
reply to post by Korg Trinity

 

Many people don't know how to go about getting what they want. For example, a guy sees this beautiful young lady and he says, "I want her." While he may actually want her, he may not have a clue as to how to go about getting her.

Right then and there, all bets are off. What winds up happening is that he remains actionless and she tires of wasting her time waiting and moves on. The same principle can be applied to anything in life. Your dreams will wait, but only for so long.

Yes sir, but as long as you positively pursue her, always trying to find effective ways to help your chances....then you will get her, eventually. It's all about determination.

You have to know the in's and out's of everything if you hope to succeed. But then sometimes, and this is what sucks, you have to get lucky.

Originally posted by FrostyPhilosopher

[Ellipses represent where I have removed sections of text to get down to the points I want to respond to directly.]

This is a huge issue you are talking about, and it's good to see some people thinking about it!

I think there are two different issues at play here, though. One is the materialism vs immaterialism vs dualism vs etc. debate. That debate is a question of ontology, a question of what types of things there are in the world. The second is the direct realism, indirect realism, idealism debate. That is a debate about epistemology, about how we know things, how we know about the things that are. Two different, but possibly interrelated questions.

You are right that an idealist like George Berkeley (1685-1753) would tell you that we are not interacting with matter. In fact, he thought matter was impossible! Many philosophers of the past would have agreed with him too, and a few still today, but not many. His epistemology was idealist, as was his ontology. According to Berkeleyan idealism, we know these things directly, and they are completely mental. Now, does this mean that he thought there was no world out there? Surely not! He thought that these mental things were just as objective as I am sitting on this chair. Also, he was a nice guy, he wanted to donate a considerable sum to start a university in the US, but died before he could make it happen. Berkeley, California is named after him, as is the university.

Now, there are other views out there! For example, Berkeley once said that there were two possible views out there, his and that of John Locke (1632-1704), so he spent a lot of time criticizing Locke to show that his view was right. Personally, Locke is a favorite of mine. His view is called Indirect Realism. Locke thought that there was a physical world out there full of tables, chairs, trees, bodies, etc, but that what we interact with, what we "touch" in our mind, is just a representation, just a mental thing. So you see, your two claims can be combined under a Lockean framework. We can both say that there is matter out there, and that we never directly observe it, never "touch" the stuff epistemically. So, for Locke, there are mental things, and material things; we only interact with the mental ones, but that's fine because they represent the material ones. I could go on about this forever!

And then you come to the direct realist materialists. These guys are the kind you were talking about, they think that we directly perceive the world, and that it is made of matter. I agree that there are problems with such a view, but it is extremely popular in academic circles right now. For a good defense of this view, look up Skepticism and the Veil of Perception by Michael Huemer, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers (2001).

Now, you are right, physicists today will tell you that the world is not really solid like we thought, that it might be made up of vibrating bits of space, energy all the way down. This does not, however, entail idealism. It just shows that the physical world, which would be there if there were minds or not and is not just a mental thing, is different than we used to think, but that's fine.

Interesting but what about rationalist like Leibniz or transcendentalist like Kant's views on these arguments?

reply to post by ClinTrojan


Hey Clint,

You are right, there are about as many views in philosophy as there are philosophers!

You asked about Rationalists like Leibniz and Transendentalists like Kant.

Well, I think that among Rationalists there will be great disagreement. Leibniz didn't think matter was real; he thought that we were each a metaphysical point, a self-contained windowless entity called a monad, and so was everything else. Descartes is often given as a typical rationalist, and he definitely believed in matter; he was a dualist, thinking we are a soul connected to a body, and that both are equally real.

It seems you could be a rationalist and have almost any type of belief about the external world. You could think that some beliefs (typically math and logic type stuff) are justified mentally, inside your mind, but that the external world is known through the senses in any of the ways different empiricists might.

As far as transcendentalists, that gets even harder to figure out. Kant may be the hardest! (And I'm definitely no Kant scholar.) He definitely thought there was an external world out there to be studied, and he supported the sciences, and thought his system would provide a solid basis for science. (He thought the empiricists and rationalists who came before him failed.) But, it seems very much possible that he thought the external world was something very different than the matter we usually think of.

I guess the point I am left thinking is... remember, a lack of matter does not mean there isn't a real world there to be explored. Lets say the stuff we thought was matter is really just made of energy at the bottom level, that doesn't make it unreal, it just makes it different than we thought. Suppose Berkeley or someone like (some interpret) Kant was right and this matter stuff is either impossible or inaccessible, they still thought that we had a real world out there to do science in, it is just they thought that our assumptions about it were wrong.



[edit on 5-4-2010 by FrostyPhilosopher]

reply to post by Divinorumus


i guess the answer to your question is truth, yes in certain perspective reality dont exist because what exist is of truth existence and truth existence is itself the one reality so it cant be objectively perceptible

it is weird how the simplicity of truth is contradicted with the complexity of its extensions lost from

i guess it is gods business and life responsable of that such wrong spiritual presence,
it cant be acceptable that true people are forced to what is such inferior reality applications that dont even recognize reality conception truth

it cant be but because of gods that tyranny to what is right and who is willing right

how isnt it possible to have anyone to return to at least when direct agressions are clearely meaning the interdiction to act alone as true
it is crazy what a sane one is forced for that time to endure
all that work alone on oneself rights ending in such humiliations in dirt of lies out and killed suffocated inn

the only explanation at last is the inferiority of god, with all his size and knowledge pulling miserable humans bodies down so they wont be higher than him
that cannot be admissible in any perspective or way
puting out all his beasts and snakes and hide behind to invent lies about meaning well from cleaning the most negative livings

it is absurd to talk with true ones about what cant be existing,

i cant get to understand how gods are so evil pervert ones, how they clearly reveal loving making hells to anyone and how rights above them dont stop them and kill them when they are such opposite to right

sorry for getting out of topic here just ignore what i write why cant we say whatever we want anytime
it is just words which is even less then nothing it is a concept of nothing missing its fundamental positive point lives sources

As always trying to read all the recent posted posts as fast as possible I read:.....Science tells US really doesn't excist.....

I thought ...Wow...finally some hard evidence that all the US states operate for themselves.

Unfortunately .....that is not what the thread starter wants to discus.

truth is one source so abstractly it is the only one, but as a source it means one without ever being one, and the one meant is always the concept of one free life reality so since it is the concept there cant be anyone then, that is how for sure any god is liar and never anyone

what is truth,

free certain senses interactions conclusions as one truth

any point can be the most free positive sense becoming true source of itself objective absolute life

now truth is not that but the conclusions of that fact that is the conclusion of void certainty as freedom sense source

it is like the void itself knowing being void become certainty of void concept at a point realisations then from there become freedom certainty at a point free concept reality moving as living one

so truth is always a concept life

and it is always one because it is the most free positive moving point as itself source absolute reality one

when you know the truth you would understand better how it is right to relax, it doesnt matter if it is you the absolute posiitive source of yourself or it is a sense reality of objective free life, when you know the truth you would know how one is truth and not you nor objective anyone

the most positive free can be anything move as free end reality or anyone realisation will, that would be the present truth life for that move only then for each objective changement from realisation or move another sense of free most positive absolute itself source rise then
and then truth know as concept it becomes easy to regulate anyone move will or free reality regarding it, you just wait your turn when you are sure having absolute sense to realize or be totally free absolutely out of all from as standing still for a while as, wait while knowing how then appreciate what is not of you but true acting as source true
then knowing how one can act as free source true for some that another also act then meaning someelse

but the concept is what matter as being reality living free out, it doesnt matter even the true means that is how truth is one right

it is always the goal concluded that matter as one not even the true source that did it even if it is free absolutely positive real it would be itself absolutely alone so nothing objectively to say about
that is how also it is the truth anything can be at a point that source of all

truth couldnt become but because of else confirmation of same move freedom sense so truth became of that same objective reality share plus each moves wills extrapolations also realities shares conclusions of same result as concept free life end

that is why surely truth is definitevly exclusively objective, there is no truth but from what another at the minimum surprise you of what you couldnt at all be its source, it is really the truth as the original free source wihtout meaning anything
but the problem is what means become for constance justifications of free life reality absolute end concept but also constant present free reality life
that surely what led to physical matters cells life, how all cells always by meaning positive free life objectively they are each itselves while together meaning same one truth

we reach to know truth as humans from what we are basically aware of being attached to a free concept life will originally, so we are two different awareness free living, one more willing to live as true since of freedom sources truth and one free body awareness of living conditions realities that mean its positive free sense reality as a living not conditionned to forms of living

when both achieve to mean objective truth then it is right, and you can work with your soul awareness as one free living positive sense of free concept life,

body awareness is more real living when it moves for truth it can always see a limited space for its free concept life
soul awareness is more a concept living freedom that lack any realisation point objectively

reply to post by Wertdagf


No what I am saying is so far over your heard that even if I tried to tell you what I meant in monosyllables with pictures you'd still come up with some silly crap, simuliar to what you just did.

Heck Science said that Monatomic Particles or Subatomic particles did not exist too. Now they have been proven wrong by the Hadron Colloiders

Monatomic particles are not longer a myth, your theory may one day be proven right but at what cost?

[edit on 6-4-2010 by precicio]

[edit on 6-4-2010 by precicio]

Originally posted by drew hempel
www.ted.com...

Ramachandran neuroscientist details the Ghandi Neuron -- how the mirror neurons get decoupled from our cortex inhibitors so that we experience phantom limb or also experience other people's physical sensations as our own. The pure electromagnetic sensations are not limited to the individual which is an illusion.

He says the mirror neuron works on a virtual reality.

[edit on 31-3-2010 by drew hempel]

That was one great vid and quite profound in its understandings and implications. As with the OP it also surmises that reality may simply be a 4d holograhic representation of our Mind etc

I never post on ATS, I simply watch what others have to say and collect the information given by various members. But after reading two of your posts about the universe being nothing but virtual reality, I have begun to wonder if we are all trapped in a matrix, such as in the movie from 1999.
In any case, some scientists have already said that dark matter affects the minds of people, causing more wars and hatred. Could this dark matter be feeding off us when we die? Could it be the creator of the matrix?
I am just interested if you have anymore information on this?

reply to post by ZeroSum


i like your nick zerosum it says the spirit of zero how it is not neutral but very positive, and immediately it inspired me the answer to this, how in maths equations sums zero mean always different positive variables identifications
and not opposites identifications like everyone as crazy shout

reply to post by imans


reality is actually that zerosum being one positive presence certainty fact whatever you want to call it

zerosum identify that reality is itself fully out, there is nothing more that refer to something else as time or constant variables or doubts or mystery, it is really all what is known itself source

it is the intelligence that do this meaning how whatever moves because of constances need and present initiatives all is still there same base reference moves, maximum intelligence would clarify truth as the base reference principles to justify the zero sum as all what is as it is

reply to post by ZeroSum


Yep -- the Actual Matrix Plan expose I wrote

nonduality.com...