• Anonymys
    117
    You are, right now experiencing what your brain is telling you to perceive. What you're looking at, what you're touching, and what your hearing, all encompass how the brain experiences life. So, what if your brain is actually translating what your feeling, into something other than what is truly there. For all you know, you can be hooked up to a few machines that are translating electrical signals to what you believe is the real world. How would you be able to tell the difference? What can you do to change your situation? How would you live after the fact: knowing that your whole existence has been a futile attempt at nothing? What would you do afterward?

  • lambda
    76
    If the world doesn't exist then neither does your brain since your brain is just another part of the perceived world.
  • Nils Loc
    1.3k
    The thing in itself (ie. the world pre world) needs an observer to be known.

    Without senses and the apparatus of perception you can't sense the objects of sense or perceive perceptions.

    Whether the world exists without an observer is not an interesting question. You might as well flip a coin for the answer.

    Are we in a simulation? When we find out, we'll find out.
  • prothero
    429
    Your perceived world is created by the interaction of your mind with the external world. Your perceived world is not the "world as it is" but rather a filtered, organized and enhanced version. The world itself does not have colors and sounds, it has EM radiation and vibrations in the air (even these are human conceptions). Instrumentation allows us to extend our senses but that is still a partial and incomplete view of "the world in itself".

    This is perhaps where a little Kant (Copernican revolution) is helpful, not too much though or you will slip over into absolute idealism.
  • Sir2u
    3.2k
    How would you live after the fact: knowing that your whole existence has been a futile attempt at nothing?Anonymys

    If you have enjoyed what you have experienced, then why should it have been a futile attempt at nothing?
    Seems to me that if that is what life is then you should enjoy while you can.
    Does it really make any difference if everything you think is real is just electrical impulses that come from outside your instead of electrical impulses that are created inside your body? You still perceive it as true.
  • Anonymys
    117
    Did you read the description of the OP?
    For all you know, you can be hooked up to a few machines that are translating electrical signals to what you believe is the real world. How would you be able to tell the difference?Anonymys
  • lambda
    76
    Yeah, I did. Did you read my response?

    Objects like human brains and machines that transmit electrical signals are all part of the perceived world. So if the perceived world doesn't exist then neither does your skeptical hypothesis.

    The point I'm making is that your 'skeptical' hypothesis isn't really skeptical enough since you are naively assuming that objects like human brains and machines that transmit electrical signals can exist independently of perception.
  • WISDOMfromPO-MO
    753
    This sounds like the manifest image vs. scientific image problem.
  • BCAccepted Answer
    13.1k
    I heard we were disembodied brains floating around in a vat of warm slop.
  • Anonymys
    117
    I'm, not saying that the physical world does not exist, I am stating that it is the imagined world that is nonexistent.The world that you have experienced since birth. If you watch Rick and Morty, they enter a game with this premise: You press play and live a life, the life of Roy, you get points based on how well you live Roy's life. When Morty gets out of the game, he is horribly confused because his perceived live, that he has lived for the past "x" years is nothing that he had imagined, and had, in reality, only taken a few minutes. This is the kind of world I am talking about, one that is true, but is also not what you have percieved all of your life.
  • Anonymys
    117
    I believe they are very close together, yes
  • Anonymys
    117
    Nope, but I have now! Thank you!
  • Anonymys
    117
    If you have enjoyed what you have experienced, then why should it have been a futile attempt at nothing?Sir2u
    Imagine you go to work, a long day, angry boss, and lots of unappreciated work that was done by you. Then, you wake up and realize that the day just started and you now have to go to an even worse job, with a worse boss, with much worse pay. I believe you would be pretty "bummed", to say the least
  • Ciceronianus
    2.9k
    My brain is telling me that this is a difference that makes no difference (it apologizes for paraphrasing William "Wild Bill James" who Mr. Spock was paraphrasing when he made a similar statement--or perhaps when their brains told them to do so). My brain tells me to say that if what we (me, you and our brains) perceive is different from what "really" is there, then what "really" is there would have to be pretty much what our brains tell us to think is there, since we do all sorts of things with what is "really" there which we couldn't do if what is "really" there is significantly different from what our brains tell us is there. Now my brain tells me to go back to doing the work it tells me is there for me to do.
  • prothero
    429
    Yes, evolution has seen to it that our "representation" of the world is close enough to ensure our survival and our science has seen to it that we can manipulate the world to our own ends in many ways.
  • Forgottenticket
    212
    The point I'm making is that your 'skeptical' hypothesis isn't really skeptical enough since you are naively assuming that objects like human brains and machines that transmit electrical signals can exist independently of perception.lambda

    I agree with this.
    Others have pointed out the "hallucinatory" explanation for mind always resort to positing macroscopic biological (neurological) causes.
    (Never micro like quantum or something larger scale like social). It's probably because the biological places an anthropic living thing on it. I realize you would say those things do not exist independently of perception either but I wanted to get that point out there.
  • Sir2u
    3.2k
    Imagine you go to work, a long day, angry boss, and lots of unappreciated work that was done by you. Then, you wake up and realize that the day just started and you now have to go to an even worse job, with a worse boss, with much worse pay. I believe you would be pretty "bummed", to say the leastAnonymys

    This happens to many people everyday, and they HAVE to call it reality.
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