Is our reality a true reality or a perceived reality? Are we not on the same earth? Do we not know what morality is? Is our reality what others see or just what we see? Will others see our world change around us, or will it only apply to how we as our own individual person view the world? Is the universe one being, or is it made up of different forms of intellect with their own perception on what reality is?
It's always nice to think about things like this. Hypothetically speaking of course.. Is conscious not the driving force of the Universe? It exists because we are here to witness it. If you were to die today, right now, nothing would exist anymore. Life is a singular experience. Everything you see before you exists because your conscious has given rise to the human senses, which allow us to experience this reality projected by our brain. You only see what you want to believe, this is all in your head. We are all one, experiencing itself subjectively.
Woah. You're quite philosophically scattered, great questions - I'll try to help. If it is your reality, ask yourself what you believe reality is. Is it true? I'm assuming perceived as in, you're asking if it can be perceived. Well, no, it cannot be other than by you, yourself. My conclusion: Reality is subjective. It is seen through your point of view, interpreted through your experiences. How may I limit how you observe reality? After all: it's your reality. Of course we are, but I've set out the framework of subjectivity. This, meaning that we all observe our lives and the lives of others (around us) differently. It is up to the person, the soul, to make interpretations - connections - and live how they please upon this earth. Now we're getting into Ethics, but I'll try to make it easy by looking at two different interpretations of this question. How about I lay it out in one way I find easiest: Contrast these two philosophers - Thomas Hobbes and Joseph Butler (I'll explain). Hobbes believes we live egoistically (to serve ones self) and Butler believes we live altruistically (to help, serve others to give life purpose). Both, though, come down to the fact that we serve others to grant ourselves happiness. What I'm getting at is we all understand what morality is, but as I've said: everyone is different and everyone looks at situations much differently than one another (subjectively), therefore it's up to us to follow a path of "morality". I think what you're trying to get at is this, though: moral skepticism It's okay, friedrich nietzche agrees and asks himself the same question, but he is a skeptic to all morality. Well, as I've answered and as we've discovered and you will discover through looking at more philosophy is that everyone is different, my friend. We all are so different and unique and what you believe is right, for example, may not be right for me. We are our own individuals, we think subjectively, as I've explained. I do not believe the universe is one being (reminds me of pantheism), I believe the universe is exactly what you said: a make up of different forms of intellect with their own perception on what reality is. You've got it Keep studying philosophy like I am, it's a fantastic subject and you'll only continue to expand your mind.
BY FUCKING GOD THATS THE BEST ANSWER EVER!!!!! I will wait to hear more before i confirm this. and funny thing is I actually wrote this in 9th grade and i was looking at my old files and found this
I think we do in fact exist. When you think about it, it seems you are only imagining it all correct? It is all in your head? But what makes us all accept a similar reality if we all experience a different one? Ultimately, reality can be broken down into a subjective reality, and an objective reality. The objective reality is what we can ALL accept as real. Nature. (tornado. car. shoes) Then you have your subjective reality. This is dependent on what one single person experiences (thoughts. feelings. morals. reason) Do you understand where I'm coming from?
Our "reality" is more like a hologram to the true reality of our souls. For example in deep meditation, REM sleep, or the use of external sources (e.g. Cannabis, Psilocybin, Ibogaine etc.) all show us a different yet in extreme cases a completely different reality. Basically our life is more of an illusion rather than truth.
that's the kind of questions philosophy asks that i have a hard time with. "are you a figment of my imagination or are you a figment of mine?" my "philosophy" is. most of what most of us see is simply the part of reality they're able to see. you could never look into a black hole and if you ever got close enough to even try, you'd be pondering that question in a very different reality, so there's at least one place you can never directly observe it, but this text you're reading is real. why try to deconstruct reality when there's so much of it around you to just experience and appreciate directly? i think, you'll get that answer and many more in the next life myself.
Basically what everyone is trying to say is, yes you could think that you are imagining reality. Or you could accept that there is a reality that we can ALL accept as real. This reality can be seperated by what YOU think is "real".
i've already SEEN the other side, so i already KNOW there's way more to reality than meets the eye, but you just can't prove it to anyone else, so each has to find it on their own. i tell you though, the subtext i got out of that was "why don't you just go kill yourself already?" i'm pretty sure that's NOT why i was sent back or have cheated death more times than most people face it. i can only assume that my purpose will find me in the end no how matter how many people try to lead me astray.
Because 'reality' requires interpretation from the brain, we have to say it's perceived. With that said, I don't believe a perceived reality changes that much (this'll be showing my pragmatism roots). Regardless if we may see things differently (though most of us do not), we still have systems that allow us to objectify reality. You see blue? I see violet. How can we come to terms on these two colors? We study the object's frequency and observe that it's ~650THz. From a completely physical aspect it's okay to leave a color as a number, but it takes the perception element of our reality to say, oh that frequency is blue (whatever that means ) - which may be ultimately incorrect, but my point is - who cares? As for morality, once again I don't see how this changes between objective reality and subjective reality.
we can all agree nature is objective. If we all see a tornado on the news, we could all agree it IS real, yes? Now subjective is what YOU perceive to be real. (such as your color scenario)
perception and reality are two DIFFERENT things. perception distorts reality through emotional, cultural, intellectual, & even sensory filters. personally drives me nuts when people call yellow cheese white and orange cheese yellow or hot pink purple, but who's to say that everyone even perceives colors the same? people with color blindness REALLY have problems seeing colors as most of us do, and i'm inclined to think that maybe a lot of people have a milder version of that that's not good at picking up red in colors. 100 different people can all see the same thing and say it happened 100 different ways. that doesn't alter reality, just how it gets processed.
I feel like we live in a false reality. We know we exist and acknowledge each other and the rest of our planet, but we really don't know our purpose here. I feel like other animals have that sense of self-existance that humans lack. So we come up with religions to answer our questions, but then those are questioned by logic and science. So who's to say what we perceive as "reality" is even close to how people thousands of years ago did, since old religions died and new ones took their place, with that coming new morals and values to live by, and therefore different views of how the world should function arise. Idk, i often wonder if we are really just puppets for an almighty being or just some random experiment the universe came up with, but that doesn't justify why we have evolved the way we did or how little we connect to the rest of our galaxy... [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-gPv36NQLU[/ame]
I'm glad it came out okay, Philosophy is such a hard subject to explain and layout. Just think: Metaphysics, Ethics, and Epistemology. There's so much to learn... I believe it (that you wrote this in grade 9). I've been questioning reality and thinking metaphysically since I was very, very young. I'm studying philosophy, then law, so if you wanna' ask me questions I'm around. There's also such a great group on GC that does just as good as a job on these topics... Keep the wheels turning! What do you call what you're experience now? (As tainted by morals, inclinations, and duties as we are)? I'd call it reality. But, why can you not be satisfied by me stating that there is nothing (that has created our earth or is governing us)? Religions have done an effective job "filling [this] void", answering questions of creation and defining morality - but is it the truth? Why should we believe fundamentalist doctrines? It is easy to think that God is the mover, the beginner of causation. I do not believe this, though, and I find with these questions ignorance is bliss. I no longer question what placed us here because it's a relentless, circular argument that will prevail for the rest of our (logical) lives...
TOTALLY! virtually everything around most of the people reading this is man made and an artificial reality. even more artificial is the "buy buy buy!" media most westerners are brainwashed by that takes them even further from reality, nature. reality for many is simply what someone tells them it is sadly. simply living in the man made world naturally separates one from reality when you're bombarded by AGENDAS be they economic or political or both. i believe we all have free will and that god doesn't intervene in that, though does try to get our attention and steer us in the right direction, although man made personified dieties stray from the truth in the same way commercials that show you vacations with sexy supermodels or how virile you are behind the wheel of a smogmobile are detached from reality. we are just "random noise" in the cosmic scale of things with life on many worlds among the billions times billions of stars in the known universe. the laws osscience are merely god's cosmic cookbook. out of the random and chaotic, arises self organizing order. the seeming devastation of multiple worldwide extinctions, the last one being most dinosaurs, is what allowed us warm blooded hairy mammals to fill in the void. we're merely a natural consequence of the universe's laws with the "consciousness of the universe" if you want to call it that, existing in another dimension deep in the chaotic "no peeking!" (double slit experiment) rules of quantum mechanics. if we have a purpose here, maybe it's simply to look up and see the stars and wonder what everything means until our souls are separated from these bodies and we can see it all for ourselves. were like god's universe of found art.
I can see why some think reality is an illusion of sort. A space/time that the observer can really interact with. It all seems to make to much sense, in the sense that you literally, sense reality. This leads to idea that there is a potential purpose that exists outside of reality that governs the laws of reality in the universe. The meshing of everything in existence gives the observer a sense of oneness with the universe, because, as a whole, existence is that ONE flip that lands on potential, rather then non-existent potential(absolute nothingness)