What is Real? How do YOU define Real?

[Compassionist]

As Morpheus asked in 'The Matrix', "What is real? How do you define real?"

We don't know reality directly. We appear to know our sensory-cognitive-affective model of reality as it appears to be generated by the brain. One is considered psychotic if one perceives things, not perceived by others.

Are you familiar with the concept of Maya in Hinduism? Maya means illusion and states that this perceptual world that is sensed by our senses and measured by science is an illusion i.e. not what it seems. It is impossible to disprove it. This is why I am a strong agnostic about the ultimate nature of reality although I am not agnostic about the apparent nature of reality.

Does the workings of the brain produce the mind or is the brain an illusion perceived by an immortal soul? How would I know for sure? How would you or anyone else know for sure? Do any of you really exist or are you all part of a dream or a hallucination I am experiencing?

[Sir Rhetor]

By who's definition.

Now is and always is. It never ceases and never changes - how can it?

Are you arguing against the existence of time? With all due respect, that argument really hasn't been taken seriously for 2500 years, during the Greeks. See here.

This thread is actually a good place for the time debate, even better than the other topic in this sub-forum, because the time debate usually revolves around what is real.

It is impossible to escape time. Even in empty space, time exists, and can be measured, because virtual particles are created and quickly annihilated in a finite amount of time. Because of this, it may be possible to make clocks based on this, although not practical.

[bernee51]

"Now" is what is happening at this point in time, and it is not fixed. Now is like a bobber in a pool of constantly rising fluid.

Now is always changing, it is in a perpetual state of flux, Now will not be now in the future, and it was not now in the past.

Change is occurring all the time, unless time stops.

Everything ceases to be at some point, therefore by your definition nothing exists, hence my calling it exclusive: It has a set of rules based on exclusion.

I can think of nothing that doesn't change in some for, nor can I think of anything that can survive the end of the universe, unless you count things that exist in other universe, which you don't because it has no evidence.

I honestly never cared about evidence, neither did my parents, or my teachers, or the principal, or the juvie judge that always put me in a cell over the weekend because I had chronic gastro-intestinal problems. I hate that guy, glad I don't have to see him again.

Evidence never helped me out with any of my problems, evidence is nowhere near as important in a trial as well rehearsed story, or a faked smile.

Fourteen men get abused every second, and there are plenty of scientific studies that prove that female-on-male violence is a common occurence... and yet there is virtually no funding going towards educating police officers, judges, attorneys, or children about it, even it is just the opposite for violence against women.

Evidence is just one way of validating something, it is a good way, I am not denying that, but it does have it's limitations, and drawbacks.

The point I am trying to make is that I respect evidence, it's just not the be all, end all way of convincing me of something, and it has never really worked for me in the past.

I missed a lot of school, mostly because it was an hour long drive to get to school, and I had tummy troubles... well that, and I never really get along with people my age, and school sucked...

I learned how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide the first time they showed me how to do it, and then they made me do it again, and again, and again, and again... until I just refused to do it any longer, but did the teachers put me in a higher math class?

No, they just put me in detention, and then later special ed.

Though my terrible handwriting probably added fuel to the "He failed math class, so he must have a learning disability!" fire.

Evidence has never done a single thing for me, but belief sure has!

I was once a nihilistic, and depressed atheist with nothing to look forward to but a miserable life, and then dieing, rotting, and ceasing to exist... but eventually belief shown into my life in the form of a wolf that came to me in a dream, he showed me how I could live my life with love in my heart, and fire in my soul.

Other animals have come to me in other dreams, and gave me profound pearls of wisdom, but that wolf never came back.

I owe everything to that wolf, I firmly believe that he saved my life, as I was in a very dark place at the time.

That might have something to do with why I have such a broad view of reality, because those dreams to me are as, real, and profound as anything else in my life.

Thank you for sharing your story. I understand your frustration with the real bias that is men face when they are the victims of domestic violence - it was a favourite drum that i beat, onine and off, during the late 1990's.

You sound like a young man with a lot of natural intelligence - but are lacking in formal education. While I realise your experience in formal education was not a happy one, it remains a crucial element, I believe, to determining the nature of being.

A rehearsed story or a sweet smile might manipulate - but it is living a lie.

You said at the top..."Now" is what is happening at this point in time, and it is not fixed. Now is like a bobber in a pool of constantly rising fluid.

Now is always changing, it is in a perpetual state of flux, Now will not be now in the future, and it was not now in the past.

I do not agree. What you are calling 'now' is what you are observing, what you ar relating to. In his book Seeing Red Nicholas Humphrey wrote that in order to have a sense of self, we travel through experience in sort of a 'time boat'. We attch a little bit of the past and a little bit of the anticipated future to the immediate present - he calls it a 'thick moment of time'.

The immediate present, 'now' can only be experienced under very specific circumstances. The 'now' you see as changing is the moment gone by. It is 'old'.

Try to look at 'now' as that emergent instant - the border between past and present -it is not experienced but it can be lived.

Now can never end, nor can it change. What you perceive as changing, what you call 'now' is in fact not 'now' but the 'thick moment of time' made up as I noted above.

By my definition existence is only truly experienced in the 'now'. It is both 'nothing' and everything - as my signature suggests.

may you be happy, kind, loving and peaceful

[bernee51]

By who's definition.

Now is and always is. It never ceases and never changes - how can it?

Are you arguing against the existence of time? With all due respect, that argument really hasn't been taken seriously for 2500 years, during the Greeks. See here.

Yep - very familiar with Antiphon and Xeno. I note also that another Greek, Democritus noted that all that existed was atoms and space, anything else was opinion.

It is impossible to escape time. Even in empty space, time exists, and can be measured, because virtual particles are created and quickly annihilated in a finite amount of time. Because of this, it may be possible to make clocks based on this, although not practical.

The measuring creates time.

Did you read my thoughts on the matter above and the links I referred Tuddrussell to?

If so, can you addresss those points.

The concept of time is very much something we humans are caught up in. It bookends our very existence and, in between, contributes to our sense of self.

[veeman]

Interesting...and the conundrum (which isn't really a conundrum) can be seen through if existence is broken down into its constituent parts...

In Ghost in the Machine Koestler coined the term ‘holon’ – a whole part. For example, the letter ‘a’ is a whole in and of itself. It is also part of another ‘whole’, known as a word – ‘am’. It is also part of a phrase “I am…� or a sentence, a paragraph, a book and so on. If you were to destroy the letter ‘a’ it would severely compromise those other ‘wholes’ which depend on the existence of ‘a’.

We tend to see ‘existence’ as a whole when it is really a holon, made up of other holons. As physical entities, we, our physical ‘selves’, are made up of atoms and molecules. These nuts and bolts of existence ‘inhabit’ what has been called the physiosphere. From the perspective of the physiosphere we are no different from any other ‘inhabitant’ made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen etc. We are ‘one with the universe’. According to one view of modern cosmology, the physiosphere started out as simple sub-atomic particles which over a long period of time underwent a ‘complexification’ – it evolved into more complex structures.

At some point this complexification led to the emergence of ‘life’. Life brought about the emergence of the next holon – the biosphere. All living matter – or those aspects that make it ‘living’ are inhabitants of the biosphere. From the perspective of the biosphere we are no different from any other ‘inhabitant’ with a biomechanical system supporting it. Again we are ‘one with the universe’.

This biomechanical system evolved a neural network which laid the ground for the emergence of consciousness which on becoming more complex emerged as a self-awareness – a consciousness that not only knows but knows that it knows. Perhaps the very first question that arose on the emergence of this phenomenon was “Who am I?� This sphere of mental activity is the noosphere – from wiki… “For Teilhard [de Chandon], the noosphere is best described as a sort of 'collective consciousness' of human-beings. It emerges from the interaction of human minds. The noosphere has grown in step with the organization of the human mass in relation to itself as it populates the earth. As mankind organizes itself in more complex social networks, the higher the noosphere will grow in awareness.� Think of the connectivity of thought we have access to in comparison to our previous generations and it is easy to see the continued evolution of this sphere.

So to answer your question - all we perceive of existence 'resides' in the noosphere and is illusion in that it is a mental construct whcih is in constant flux. It indeed is maya, like all concepts, maya exists in the noosphere.

Interesting speculation. What exactly does it contribute except labels?

[Tuddrussell]

You say that now is the immediate present, then you must admit that it can age, and thus not be now anymore, and from this we can assume that a new now will be forged... now is constantly changing, now changes more than most things.

Think of it like how we shed, then grow new skin all the time, it may look the same, but your arm now is fundamentally different than it was a year ago.

You say that time is not real, but that doesn't stop you from measuring time, or experiencing time on a daily basis.

a lot of physicists time is a part of an amalgamation called space-time, and if that is correct, then time would be the most real thing in existence, because time is woven into reality itself!

To deny time`s existence is like being a bacteria on a lemon slice floating on the top of a glass of gin, and tonic, and pondering whether gin is real or not.

Time exists in a dimension of it`s own, look around yourself, that is three dimensions of space, up down left right, and centre all exist within those three dimensions, but time: forward, and back, exists parallel to this.

Einstein believed in space-time, Hawking did as well, as a matter of fact Einstein`s concept of gravity entirely depends on the existence of time!

Time can be bent, it can be observed, measured, quantified, and it`s existence is part of the fundamental makeup of reality, at least according to modern physics.

Time, as most people know might very well be an illusion, but Time, as a concept, and as a part of space-time certainly does.

You could truthfully say that there is no glass in a beverage that you are drinking, but to say the same about the cup it resides in, which (for the purpose of this metaphor) is made from class, and ceramic, is incorrect.

[bernee51]

Interesting...and the conundrum (which isn't really a conundrum) can be seen through if existence is broken down into its constituent parts...

In Ghost in the Machine Koestler coined the term ‘holon’ – a whole part. For example, the letter ‘a’ is a whole in and of itself. It is also part of another ‘whole’, known as a word – ‘am’. It is also part of a phrase “I am…� or a sentence, a paragraph, a book and so on. If you were to destroy the letter ‘a’ it would severely compromise those other ‘wholes’ which depend on the existence of ‘a’.

We tend to see ‘existence’ as a whole when it is really a holon, made up of other holons. As physical entities, we, our physical ‘selves’, are made up of atoms and molecules. These nuts and bolts of existence ‘inhabit’ what has been called the physiosphere. From the perspective of the physiosphere we are no different from any other ‘inhabitant’ made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen etc. We are ‘one with the universe’. According to one view of modern cosmology, the physiosphere started out as simple sub-atomic particles which over a long period of time underwent a ‘complexification’ – it evolved into more complex structures.

At some point this complexification led to the emergence of ‘life’. Life brought about the emergence of the next holon – the biosphere. All living matter – or those aspects that make it ‘living’ are inhabitants of the biosphere. From the perspective of the biosphere we are no different from any other ‘inhabitant’ with a biomechanical system supporting it. Again we are ‘one with the universe’.

This biomechanical system evolved a neural network which laid the ground for the emergence of consciousness which on becoming more complex emerged as a self-awareness – a consciousness that not only knows but knows that it knows. Perhaps the very first question that arose on the emergence of this phenomenon was “Who am I?� This sphere of mental activity is the noosphere – from wiki… “For Teilhard [de Chandon], the noosphere is best described as a sort of 'collective consciousness' of human-beings. It emerges from the interaction of human minds. The noosphere has grown in step with the organization of the human mass in relation to itself as it populates the earth. As mankind organizes itself in more complex social networks, the higher the noosphere will grow in awareness.� Think of the connectivity of thought we have access to in comparison to our previous generations and it is easy to see the continued evolution of this sphere.

So to answer your question - all we perceive of existence 'resides' in the noosphere and is illusion in that it is a mental construct whcih is in constant flux. It indeed is maya, like all concepts, maya exists in the noosphere.

Interesting speculation. What exactly does it contribute except labels?

Whatever you want to take from it.

For me it shows that a flatland view of existence is limited and limiting. Like any belief or philosophy being mindful of this view of reality does for me what religious beleifs do for other, provide meaning and purpose in the face of the apparent suffeing in the world. For me this view is the only view the available evidence supports, however, I am ready willing and able to draw difernt conclusions as different evidence comes to light.

The scenario set out above applies not only to individuals and the universe at large but to all layers between the two. I see interpersonal relationships, community and societal relationships all represented by the same sceme.

'Reality' extends beyoond the noosphere to soul and spirit which are both dependent on the nooshere (and ultimately the physio/biosphere) for their establishment and evolution.

In case you ask: ( )

Soul consists of all thought, intellect, emotions, memories, hopes, dreams, aspirations, suffering, loves, joys, hates, sorrows, regrets, creativity, spite, knowledge, learning, understanding, empathy, sympathy, pity, greed, lust, desire, initiative, and instinct of each and every human. More so, of every organism that has mental faculty.

Spirit is the structure and process of existence.

[bernee51]

You say that now is the immediate present, then you must admit that it can age, and thus not be now anymore, and from this we can assume that a new now will be forged... now is constantly changing, now changes more than most things.

I sue the terms present and past in the same way I use the word god - as the recognition of an extant concept that has a particular meaning.

I understand why you see time as an aspect of your subjective reality - it gives body to the idea of a seperate self. For most if not all we spend the vast majority of our lives caught up in this idea - iit is what makes us who we believe ourselves to be. Can you try to, just for a moment, let go of this idea that you are seperate from existence nad get your head around the idea that 'now' as the nature of an emergent universe describes reality.

Think of it like how we shed, then grow new skin all the time, it may look the same, but your arm now is fundamentally different than it was a year ago.

Exactly - and though we still call it 'my arm' the arm from a year ago no longer exists - it is not real. The only arm that is real is the one that is there 'now'. Not the arm that was there a millisecond ago.

You say that time is not real, but that doesn't stop you from measuring time, or experiencing time on a daily basis.

Of course not. Time is a concept used to measure observed phenomena and to give them sense.

a lot of physicists time is a part of an amalgamation called space-time, and if that is correct, then time would be the most real thing in existence, because time is woven into reality itself!

Same thing, in order to describe observed phenomena science devises concepts.

Time exists in a dimension of it`s own, look around yourself, that is three dimensions of space, up down left right, and centre all exist within those three dimensions, but time: forward, and back, exists parallel to this.

Einstein believed in space-time, Hawking did as well, as a matter of fact Einstein`s concept of gravity entirely depends on the existence of time!

Funny you should mention Einstein.

From the website you do not appear to have not read...

"The trouble with time started a century ago, when Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity demolished the idea of time as a universal constant. One consequence is that the past, present, and future are not absolutes. Einstein’s theories also opened a rift in physics because the rules of general relativity (which describe gravity and the large-scale structure of the cosmos) seem incompatible with those of quantum physics (which govern the realm of the tiny). Some four decades ago, the renowned physicist John Wheeler, then at Princeton, and the late Bryce DeWitt, then at the University of North Carolina, developed an extraordinary equation that provides a possible framework for unifying relativity and quantum mechanics. But the Wheeler-­DeWitt equation has always been controversial, in part because it adds yet another, even more baffling twist to our understanding of time.

“One finds that time just disappears from the Wheeler-DeWitt equation,� says Carlo Rovelli, a physicist at the University of the Mediterranean in Marseille, France. “It is an issue that many theorists have puzzled about. It may be that the best way to think about quantum reality is to give up the notion of time—that the fundamental description of the universe must be timeless.�

[Tuddrussell]

Why do you have this bizarre notion that just because something is a concept means it is not real?

There are many layers to reality, there is the physical world, where everything has substance, and you seem to think that reality is limited to just this, and this alone, which excludes everything that makes life interesting: Love, music, poetry, mathematics, logic, reason, philosophy, religion, and everything that gives my life meaning exists beyond this place of matter, energy, and forces.

Time is not made of atoms, there is no temporal energy, and it is not a force, but that does not mean it is not real, it just means that it has no substance.

Reality describes everything that is, and could be. An illusion is real, it is a real illusion, the visions within could easily be true somewhere, but it is an illusion, unless it's more than an illusion.

We are limited, none of us know everything, and thus we know nothing, because any finite number compared to infinity might as well be nothing, and it's certainly negligible.

Science is constantly evolving, what's true today, may be ridiculous non-sense within days.

Evidence is not a sure thing, if it was then there would be virtually no innocent people in jail, and scientific theorys would be called scientific facts, and there wouldn't be as many unknowns in the world.

Just because something has evidence to support it does not mean it is correct, and just because another thing does not have evidence for it does not mean it is false, less than a hundred years ago the panda, gorilla, and giant squid were all fictional beasts that only stupid savages believed in.

Where is the evidence that time is not real, other than some equation doesn't make sense unless time is not within the universe, which can be easily explained by the fact that the universe itself is made of space-time, and thus would have no time within itself.

And even if that is not quite the best explanation for that equation, it still wouldn't matter, because when I was in school, they never would have accepted an equation from me that would only be correct if we change our entire perception of the universe.

They would just give me strange looks, and mark it as wrong... I know, I've tried that kind of crap more than once, it never works.

[Tuddrussell]

Say you wake up after a car accident, and after a relatively uninteresting day, you find a suit of armour behind a door that suddenly appeared in your house that you never noticed before, and the armour gives you all the powers of a dragon: Flight, immortality, and instead of breathing fire you can throw firebolts, and instead a fangs, you had an indestructible sword.

You fight crime for a while, but then you find out that Dr. Duplication (your archnemesis) has replaced your family/neighbours with replicants.

Do you kill them, after all you have seen everything with your own eyes, you've felt it with your hands, according to your beliefs now is all that exists, does that changes if now you're a superhero, and must kill your family because they are evil replicants?

How would this situation be handled using your belief system?

Remember, you could very well be insane, or the car accident could have put you in a coma, and the "now" that is your reality might be within a dream.

[bernee51]

Why do you have this bizarre notion that just because something is a concept means it is not real?

Why do you keep repeating arguments I have not made?

There are many layers to reality, there is the physical world, where everything has substance, and you seem to think that reality is limited to just this, and this alone, which excludes everything that makes life interesting: Love, music, poetry, mathematics, logic, reason, philosophy, religion, and everything that gives my life meaning exists beyond this place of matter, energy, and forces.

And...?

Who gives these reality?

Time is not made of atoms, there is no temporal energy, and it is not a force, but that does not mean it is not real, it just means that it has no substance.

Please show me the ‘substance’ of time.

Reality describes everything that is, and could be. An illusion is real, it is a real illusion, the visions within could easily be true somewhere, but it is an illusion, unless it's more than an illusion.

So something that ‘could be’ is reality – in YOUR definition of reality.

Here, from dictionary.com, is the definition of reality from a philosophical POV...
Reality: Philosophy.
a.something that exists independently of ideas concerning it.
b.something that exists independently of all other things and from which all other things derive.

We are limited, none of us know everything, and thus we know nothing, because any finite number compared to infinity might as well be nothing, and it's certainly negligible.
Science is constantly evolving, what's true today, may be ridiculous non-sense within days.
Evidence is not a sure thing, if it was then there would be virtually no innocent people in jail, and scientific theorys would be called scientific facts, and there wouldn't be as many unknowns in the world.
Just because something has evidence to support it does not mean it is correct, and just because another thing does not have evidence for it does not mean it is false, less than a hundred years ago the panda, gorilla, and giant squid were all fictional beasts that only stupid savages believed in.

And...?

Where is the evidence that time is not real, other than some equation doesn't make sense unless time is not within the universe, which can be easily explained by the fact that the universe itself is made of space-time, and thus would have no time within itself.

Does a lion know time, does an amoeba. Do they count the days until retirement? Do they count the hours since their last meal? Does the universe keep count of time? I venture not. The ONLY animals engaged in time are we humans. What does that suggest to you?

We use the concept of time in order to create our sense of self...we express our existence primarily as memories and future hopes and dreams. These are bound up in the concept of time.

It is not surprising that we humans are so attached to ‘time’.

Say you wake up after a car accident, and after a relatively uninteresting day, you find a suit of armour behind a door that suddenly appeared in your house that you never noticed before, and the armour gives you all the powers of a dragon: Flight, immortality, and instead of breathing fire you can throw firebolts, and instead a fangs, you had an indestructible sword.

You fight crime for a while, but then you find out that Dr. Duplication (your archnemesis) has replaced your family/neighbours with replicants.

Do you kill them, after all you have seen everything with your own eyes, you've felt it with your hands, according to your beliefs now is all that exists, does that changes if now you're a superhero, and must kill your family because they are evil replicants?

How would this situation be handled using your belief system?

Remember, you could very well be insane, or the car accident could have put you in a coma, and the "now" that is your reality might be within a dream.

I’m not sure what this ‘scenario’ you are putting is meant to be addressing.