today something caught my eye. what if the world is an illusion like we can see things we can touch things we can hear things it looks all real, but are we not real are we just an illusion of something and of that something, something. is a table a table am i really typing this or is this just some kind of illusion that everyone thinks its real. i mean yeah people think it is real because they can see it and most likely prove it. but the way i see it is that no one actually can prove anything if they can see it, touch it, hear it, because what if it is an illusion. whats your opinion?

I think therefore I am

My opinion?

Hmm... To be honest, I often think about this. Here's another one for you, (although I'm pretty sure it isn't real, I have mused about it) What if you're the only real thing and everything and everyone around you is just an image, a feeling, and a sound, but nothing more?

I'm not trying to say that I think I'm the most important person in the world or anything like that. I know darn well that I'm not, I just can't help but wonder though.

Here's what I truly believe, though.

I agree with that =)

This has been debated for centuries. And the bottomline is, we may live in an illusion - but since we react to it as real, use it as real, and think of it as real, it IS real.

exactly, like sosboots said, i think, therefore i am.
if we are living in an illusion, there is nothing we can do about it. we only need to think about reality in one dimension. ours.
we can say that everything we know is just an illusion, but we can also say that if this is an illusion, then the REAL reality is just an illusion, a and that beyond that is just an illusion.
we need only to think about what WE know as reality. and you can argue that point, but the fact is, technically, reality is a theory that was created by man, and since it was only created for us, we only need to perceive it as what WE know.

Yes and no.

Yes, reality exists within your mind as relayed by your senses, therefore its a copy of reality and therefore an illusion, a very realistic one and in accordance to the real thing I would think.

No, reality is still out there doing what it is doing without you having to experience it.

An illusion of what?

Actually its an illusion of life because death will surely come. And yes whatever you think of will be real. Whatever you believe will be real.

yeah totally understand what you mean, it like you are the only one that is real yet i could be an illusion and same with the people around me, kind of like the forum about the world is fake and basically you are the one person who is actually real but then you think i am probably an illusion which makes me not real. sorry if it didn't make sense.

Your saying that everything is an illusion if it has an "end" in the terms your speaking of? ie Death?

Well, it has some merits to it because you really are the only person in existance, everyone is. Your mother is an image of a person you've built up in your mind. If you walk down the road and someone you don't know walks past you they might as well not exist. Existance is within yourself. Sure things that happen in the world can mold and change you without you knowing, but that's besides the point, being aware is more important.

This is arguably the most discussed topic on Um and obviously goes to the heart of our existence.

My opinion.

Life and the universe is real, but we have an evolved/created capability which leads us to question such concepts. Have fun playing around with such ideas, but never act on them in a way which has the slightest chance of doing you harm.

And if you do come to the conclusion that life 's an illusion, then grasp the effusion, and not disillusion.

In other words make sure your created reality is blissful. Not much point otherwise, is there?

Well said Mr Walker. Personaly I feel my life is just one big experiment. I don't cause harm and usually don't recieve any. I think death is the ultimate life.

as far as we know, you could be some alien in a coma.

Theoretically true, but where did the aliens subconscious get the hard data required to create this fantasy of a middle age teacher in a country not known for its space alien population? How did the alien learn to speak and think in english and fill its head with all the essential and extraneous data that fills mine? To pursue that line of reasoning, you have to go further into speculation and away from the data available, perhaps looking at gestalts or group consciousnesses.

These are the secrets of the mind that we shall never or take a very long time to find out.

We cannot think beyond our limits

Futurists.

yea i agree with sosboots, "i think therefore i am" what you think in your mind IS the reality, there is no reality in general, everyone lives in a different reality, because really the way i look at the reality and the quantum mechanics stuff is the the only you can perceive reality into manifestation is just via a simple electrical pulse constantly firing in the brain, therefore you will think its real, no one knows if an specific object let just sitting on yuor couch really exist or not, because the possibility can not be 100%, its an illusion, only the brain can see world, not the eyes, are we living in an matrix? or are we just an scientific experiment created by another highter superior race? etc, we will never know, its all possiblity, and these possiblity can not 100% "we can not think beyond our limits, therefore we can not see beyond reality" maybe the ulimate truth lies beyond our mind........=]

descartes

People playing soccer? :S

i'm pink therefore i'm spam. complete rubbish, but nonetheless applicable in this case because just because you think does not mean youare self aware. If thinking is just a controlled sending of electrical impulses from one connexion to another, then my washing machine thinks: doesn't mean its alive.
The question is, does my washing machine think that life is all about getting the grime out of my clothes or does it yearn to know about Descartes. If it does, how does it know about him ?

Min xx

Do you call a singular hydrogen atom a sun? Do you call trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions (keep going) molecules of hydrogen compressed from the forces of the gravity created a sun? Do you call one singular electrical impulse awareness? Or do you call many complex electrical impulses working in sequence with eachother along with input from all your surroundings and all the other complex systems in play to create that "something" awareness?

well : no, no, possibly and sometimes. i dont know any1 who calls a single hydrogen atom a sun and i dont think any scientists would either. the composition of the sun is not solely hydrogen, there is approx 25% helium in there an a load of other stuff being created and destroyed all the time, so what you describe aint a sun. one lonely solitary electrical mpulse could be the last thought of a dying person so it could be awareness at the point of death, but then again it I dont think there would not be an actual last thought that could be handled by one single neuron. i dont know enough about neurology to say for sure. so i guess it depends what that impulse was in, something living or not living. and many electrical impulses la la la what you said could be awareness if its in something alive but not if its in say the Dublin city centre security camera system which has NPR and biometric access. that thinks and recognises but it aint aware. i'd hate to think that was all awareness was. i think there's a spark or soemthing missing from it. is this what you meant ?

love Min xx

I look at life kind of like playing a game. Everyone has a character in the RPG and everyone decides the fate of that character and those around him/her. You can decide to help creat or destroy life. You can also make one even happen that results in a massive amount of events on down the line. But also, everything you feel, see, smell, and hear is only as real as your mind tells you it is. How ever much you believe in the world that you supposedly live in, it's all able to come apart in a matter of minutes if no one plays out their part or parts. Decide the role that you play and then go with it. You can align your self on either side you wish. Whether it be the Lawful or the Lawless or the side that tries to be a neutral because both playing fields have honest opinions that are true to the core. So live until you believe that you can live on no longer and then you age and then if you give up, you die.

enough WoW, play a real game.

What I'm saying is that a whole different kind of thing is created from smaller things. As soon as you clump enough of anything together you start to make something different. One electrical impulse on its own can't be called awareness. Neither can a fiew. When you have something as complex as the human being though you start to get something "more." Awareness is SOMETHING made up of something else.

agreed. but ur describing sapience not sentience. its the sentient mind that can percieve the reality of the universe. a dog or a horse or a monkey can become intelligent only in a way that is perceived by ppl, but they are not able to judge that they are doing a certain action that has meaning in the context of the ppl teaching the animal. they do what we call intelligent tricks because they have been taught by repetition or by pleasing their provider. Pavlovs dogs. dogs, horses and monkeys have no perception of the real meaning of their tricks, but people do have a perception of the reality of the world around them. it's the main major difference that separates us from animals.

love Min xx

Are you kidding me? you think reality could really be that way????

look here

ive had a crazy idea for a while, im sure other people have.

With the increasing processing power and capabilities of our computers, theoretically in the future we will be able to recreate alot of things, from complicated human ai to mathmatics on a universal scale.

So what if we are all a part of a mathematical equation or a game for instance?

God would be a game developer and the universe would be merely a game. laws of physics are controlled by mathematics.

Say for instance an RTS game nowadays. if you are playing it and you move the character, the character will do this. Now say the computer characters have much more detailed AI and so think as we do, self aware etc, understand their universe. They would have no idea they are being manipulated by the player and so would have an illusion of free will.

They would have their own thoughts, emosions everything we feel.

Glitches in the game would be an explanation for anything we perceive as paranormal, ghosts etc.

im not saying for one minute this is infact true but it makes you wonder what if we are merely characters on a much more complex and sophisticated computer game. Brings up questions regarding free will, meaning of life etc.

our purpose in life may be to entertain lifeforms as part of a game.

take spore for example except 100 years in the future when our pc's are much more powerful.

Makes you think

*Shrugs* just because we have a higher developed tool than animals doesn't mean that we don't have the same "mind material." We just know how to better utilize ours, animals still experience reality in more or less the same way we do I would imagine, they just don't experience or understand it in the same way that we do. They still have the same basic senses in varying intensity. Our brain power are just significantly greater.

What about getting to the root of why we are different? What biological problem was evolution solving by developing sentience? Perhaps sentience was not the solution, but a side-effect of the solution to some other problem? I know these thought-trails aren't really fruitful, as they are building speculation on speculation, but they are enjoyable.

Anyway, what is the point you two are contending over? I tried to follow along as best I could, but my sentience doesn't seem to be completely up to the task this morning.

Showgirl, when you mention "spark," it brought to my mind that you were referring to some currently intangible or unknowable addition to biology that gives rise to sapience. If so or not, can you expand on that?

PsiSeeker, do you feel that the only difference between a human mind and say, a dog's mind, is complexity? If so, can you describe to me what complexity means? If not, then what other ways do you consider a human mind different from an animals?


OS

This is what I was mostly referring to, I was trying to show that its impossible to try and define an entire system ie conciousness from one thing. (Ie one electrical impulse.) A washing machine isn't nearly complex enough to even start to exhibit thinking characteristics. One singular electrical impulse too isn't nearly enough, and besides, it doesn't have the right system in which it operates either. We need electrical impulses for the continual life part but the system is just as important. (Ie the human brain)



The only different between a human being and a dog's mind is what molds the mind. We have a higher intellectually developed tool for our use. A dog's mind doesn't however some of its instincts and senses are more highly developed. Essentially everything has the same mind, just different parts have been molded different via the brain.

hello Os yeah kinda got off topic havn't we. I was just going along the angle that coz ppl are different we are able to challenge the difference between what is and what could be. it makes me wonder about these ppl getting worked up about the idea of the world is an illusion. i think from my studies that it would be possible for a lower base animal to be convinced and at worst confused by this kind of illusion but not ppl with the higher intellect and knowledge base of homo sapiens backed up with sentience. the intellect if u can call it that of an animal is inherently different to that of ppl even the dumb ones and ppl can tell. i mean thinking is so so so massively an understatement of what ppl do on so many different levels and sentience is the best way of naming what it is that i think is the difference. spark is also a pretty good word to use but sentience is a more impressive word anyway what im trying to get round to saying is that coz of the structure makeup and useage of the human brain it would not be possible for that mind to be duped into thinking that a chosen imagining was a reality. its my belief that it is this difference that makes ppl unsucceptible to that kind of fooling even if it was injected directly into the brain via the five senses

why is it we dont all have those virtual reality tvs that they have been saying we are going to have since forever ago ?

there have been many studies done on the human brain some on malformed brains with very little physical material yet which still support a living person with all the functions of you and i some on exceptionally clever brains Einstein being one and some on ordinary ppl. although science has shown some basic structures and functions. some true deductions about its processes and methods of working there are more exciting discoveries being made all the time like the belief that brain functions can be carried out by the entire nervous system and spinal column and even it is believed some organs of the body. im sure there are going to be many more discoveries in store for scientists studying the brain and its functions but the one thing i dont think will ever happen will be the artificial intelligence that movies ar so fond of showing i dont think a machine would ever be able to have that spark we talking about without being a living growing thing with a changing and adaptive neural system. i just dont think you could make that artificially. what do u think hun ?

Min xx

So, would you say that a weak analogy might be:

"Dog mind" is to "Human mind" as "Intel 286" is to "AMD Athlon X64?"

Both are made of the same basic building blocks built on similar principles, but one is faster and handles different data?

If so, I would have to say I disagree, but it's more a matter of belief: As a Christian, I believe that the literal event that happened when God breathed life into Adam's nostrils was the introduction of conscious self-awareness, the creation of Adam's intellect as the master of his mind. From that, I believe, albeit with nothing that I can prove, that our minds are of a completely different class than that of animals because we are our intellect (what we consider "I",) and animals do not possess intellect (and as such, have no concept of "I.") (Was that Freud's id? I hope not!) Note that I do not equate "intellect" with simple problem solving abilities. I believe the rational, intellectual mind is much more than that, but I have yet to derive a quantitative definition of what that is. It may not be possible, but that won't stop me from trying!

OS

Edit: Still clicking "Submit" before I proofread.

In one sense, you could argue that everything is an illusion, because we interact with "reality" based on how our psychology interprets sensory input such that we can (hopefully!) interact with our environment. I can give you a very simple example: The light image falling on your retinas is actually an inverted image due to the refraction through your lenses. But you don't "see" the world upside down. Your psychology (or maybe the optic nerve itself, but that might still broadly be considered psychology) reverts the image such that you see things just where they should be, as confirmed by reaching out and touching visible objects.

May I ask what your studies are?



I think what you're saying here is that unless the "illusion" follows the rules of logic that we understand and is consistent, then we wouldn't be able to accept it as reality. The question I would raise then is: Which came first, our understanding of logic that shapes what we perceive, or does what we perceive shape how we understand logic? How can we ever be sure that what we experience is the only logical, internally consistent reality that can be experienced?


Because as you said, we can't "trick" the brain well enough yet! I suspect that true VR won't come around any time soon, but that "illusory VR" is not too far off. True VR will develop from engineering and neuroscience, but illusory VR will develop from people who think like Kriss Angel: psychological hacks with no plugins required. After all, look at the Crypto and ET forums to see just how far out there people can go when they truly want to believe something!



Again, I agree with you completely that I don't think we'll ever be able to make our own artificial peers. There is something to us that is more than the sum of our biological parts.

Someone I spoke with many years ago (1991?) talked about a hypothesis that blood may be the carrier of memory. He made some very compelling arguments and was even able to explain why recipients of blood transfusions don't acquire the donors' memories, but I haven't seen anything recently on that line of thought. Can you point me to any links on information about the spinal column performing functions? That sounds fascinating!

OS

Since the brain is of physical matter, and since the mind is essentially a product of the brain what will happen if we upgraded the brain of the dog via sophisticated bio-engineering to the intellectual level of that of a human being?

The world around us are here because we have thought of it. and really believe in it.

I don't know. But I don't believe you'd end up with a self-aware dog. Maybe a really smart dog, but not self-aware. Unless your sophisticated bio-engineering included transgenic bits of human DNA then you'd have a dogman (a hunine?) which may or may not be self-aware.

I'm still struggling with what "self-aware" means, so take that all with a grain of salt.

im standing by my statement. the dial of the control can be set to a simple program. electrical impulses are sent from the dial through a circuit board to the various parts of the machine which make it do different things, pump, turn the drum switch on or off the heater. the circuit board does the thinking. i'm not saying its aware i'm just saying its thinking in its most basic definition of the word.



aside from the nervous system, sensory apparatus eyesight, hearing and so on, neocortex and physical structure of animal brains animal minds and human minds differ in fundamental ways. animals cannot retain knowledge, they just display evidence of intelligent behaviour such as i mentioned before. they are unable to understand the concept of theory and thats not just due to the language barrier. animal minds only display intelligent behaviour in response to adapting to their current environment, however dogs in particular can be significantly harmed by running them until they collapse from exhaustion. people choose to do this, dogs dont. also, animals and ppl differ almost totally in their method of sensort interpretation. animals think only in terms of basic functions like hunger thirst fear and pleasure and so on but ppl bring psychological and theoretical presumptions into their sensory input. a dog does not feel cold in the same way as ppl do. to dogs cold is just another sensation, not something to be avoided !!
I agree with you that the human brain is more highly developed, but ur saying the only difference is what molds them is over simplification in the extreme.

Min x

In my opinion self-aware is the ability to have a separate point of observation from the current state of where you reside in reality to where you now reside in reality.

Thinking requires a motivational force. The motivational force of the dial is the hand, the motivational force of the hand electrical impulses sent from the brain. The motivational force of the brain is you. Therefore the "thinking" of the controller isn't the controller itself but you, as it is an extension of you. The controller is not thinking. It doesn't exhibit a self-system to be able to think. It is just an extension.



Are you serious when you say that animals can't retain knowledge? Do you know what it means to retain knowledge? Animals most definately do retain knowledge, the linking methods of the different parts of their brains are different, and the systems they naturally use by way of retaining knowledge are too but they are definately capable of retaining knowledge. Not in the complex form as human beings certainly, but not without the ability.



Just because they are unable to understand the concept of theory due to a different brain system because of the way they developed via evolution does not mean the "mind material" is any different. What do you define as logical deduction? What do you define the defence mechanisms a troupe of babboons as a preditor enters their territory? The calls they make after recognising the preditor, the understanding of these calls by other members of the troupe (communication), and action there on on. How is this not some form of intelligence?

Our methods of sensory interpretation or less developed than some animals. Our ability to reason what we have received however far out-weighs that of an animal. Animals most definately do not only think in terms of hunger, thirst, fear and pleasure. Humans think in terms of these too. However animal's brains still have the ability of wondering. Human beings just do so in a phinominally more complex fashion.

How does a dog not feel cold in similiar ways as humans? We feel cold we try and avoid it. A dog feels cold it tries and avoid it. Our method of avoiding it may be more complex but its still the same underlying action.

The only different between the mind of an animal and the mind of a human is by the way it is molded. They have different tools of use than we do, ours are phinominally more complex for what we want to do. If we tried to chase down a bull as a pride of lions would using only our hands and feet we would fail miserably. One of the main things that separated human beings from animals was its ability to realise that it could use its environment for what it wanted to achieve. Consequently we molded our environment to suit us. Animals on the other hand mold themselves to suit their environment. The human being is an anomoly of nature. We're the only species that completely change our environment to suit us.

i see where ur coming from. and you'll laugh at this we used to say at school when anyone brought that up was how do you know ur eyes are not in upside down ? an inverted image falling on an upside down object will be the right way up ! just a little fun but seriously, i have a problem when ppl use the word illusion in this context coz its not dictionary definition an illusion. its an image. illusion implies something that isnt there. if even u are saying that the eye inverts the image then ur example supports the precept that it is not an illusion but merely an inverted image of what is actually there. by the same argument the image is then only converted into electrical impulses that are interpreted by the brain and backed up by other sensory input but not altered in any way until it gets to the brain like u said. this same convo also usually brings up the idea of the perception of different colours by different ppl.i'm in clinical psychology and psychoanalytical studies btw brought me some astounding insights already.
umm difficult to put ur finger right on what it is that makes u believe or not i guess would have to err on the side of the rate of growth of the human psyche balanced with the rate of the evolutionary process. homo sapien seems to have evolved at a much faster rate than any of its cousins near or distant. I believe the brain has a lot to do with that rather than the other way around. @ crypto ET forums ! i have no webbys for the supposed expanse of the brain, the idea was passed on by one of our lecturers. I will try to get a source from him for you.
Later

Min xx

a self system able to think as you describe is awareness, a thing whch I just said my washing machine does not have. the dial does not do the thnking, the integrated circuit does. call it decision making then, rather than thinking, if my definition of thinking is so different to yours. the turning of the dial does not directly affect the heater element for example, the circuit has to deduce which switches to throw and which cables to send electricity down in order to make an action decided by the chip work. of course its thinking, but its not aware !!


ur confusing knowledge with intelligence. animal brains work on a different level. much more basic. instinctual and reward driven. a dog can learn tricks, but this is not retaining knowledge. its more like cause and effect followed by repetition.she will remember her owner or where she buried her bone, but this is not knowledge, this is intelligence to interpret recurring images and sensory stimulii.



just re-read ur first line here and u answer the question urself. understanding of the concept of theory and all the psychological connotations thereof denotes sapience. if you point to ur dogs toybox, she will look at ur finger end, not the toybox !! an animal is incapable of such a simple theory as this, that something is 'over there' unless it is shown to her. ur troupe of babboons are acting under instinct. instinct is the main method by which animals live their lives, and yes, it is intelligence, it just isn't knowledge.



complete rubbish. what is ur evidence that animals think in other terms ? where is ur evidence that animals wonder ? u cant say something like that without backing it up with at least an example.



animals senses are attuned to survival as u said, but they do not associate the same things with the sensations they feel that we do. hence, a dog will feel cold but not shy away from it like a person will unless it fears for its safety. if u put ur hand on a hotplate, u do not have to think about pulling it away, neither do animals its reactive instinct , but if you went into 10 different rooms with 10 different types of bomb in them, you would run out of all of them. an animal would make like Wile E Coyote and get blown up every time. ppl retain knowledge, animals cant even though they have intelligence.



not so, for the reasons i have described. if this were the case, animals would be able to retain knowledge, would be able to learn the same things that ppl do, would be able to think, choose, talk even, that ppl do. animal brains work on instinct, basic emotions and rewards cycle. the mind must evolve as the physical body does and animals are just not that evolved yet, hence they are 'animals' and not hairy people.



agree with you on this. i was wondering, what do you mean animal and human minds are the same except for the way they are molded, yet say they are not as complex as humans ?

over to you
Min xx

Have you by any chance watched the truman show just a few to many time's

What we experience as "mind" is due to how our brains work. Depending on what species of animal you are will determine how you experience your mind. Essentially there are three levels of the brain. The brain stem (cerebellum), the mid brain (emotional) limbic area and the cerebral cortex. The brain stem is mostly controls the basic survival instincts. Muscle movement, coordination etc. The limbic area is in control of emotional output. And the cerebral cortex higher levels of thinking. Every animal exhibits each of these levels, in different proportions. Its ignorant to assume that a human being is so phinominally different from an animal. We're just far far more developed in what we do and our understanding of our surroundings. Animals do still exhibit behaviours of "intelligence."

even if the world is an illusion, it seems so real, feels so real that u might just as well call it real...

i find you rude and offensive. dont call me ignorant just coz i have a different opinion to u. i think u will find in the scientific circles that more educated ppl than u consider animal minds different on many levels to human minds.
and if you actually bother to read my posts instead of assuming what i am saying, u will see that i agreed that animals have intelligence. i said they do not have the capacity to retain knowledge. amd furthermore u provide no evidence or example to back up the first thought that jumps into ur head.
read and understand before u decide to criticise another persons words then u may not make such a fool of urself.

Min

Well an illision is something that is not real that we experiance in a bigger plain (thats all I can call it) and you could be in an illision within an illision so no we don't know.

First of all I don't pretend to be the most educated scientific person around here, if you have something to say that disproves me then say it. I realise I still have a long way to go, I haven't even graduated from high-school so yeah.

I found it offensive that you assume animals are nothing but incompetent biological beings who have no ability to exhibit anything resembling human intellect.

How can something be intelligent without the capacity to retain knowledge? . I do read and understand what others say, I'm not criticising anyone, just pointing out that conciousness and intelligence are more than a fiew electrical impulses. And animals definately have the ability to show the retainment of knowledge (maybe not is a sophisticated way as we) and intelligence.