Post: #1

This is a philosophical question so bear with me...

We would first need to define what we mean by "real". I'm not being terribly rigorous here, but, in the general use of the term, though, we often distinguish between things that are real and unreal, or, imaginary, in that things in "reality" are observed by more than one person. Two people can look up in the sky and confirm that they see the moon, and take a picture of it. There's a difference between objective vs. subjective experiences. Since there is no such thing as a neutral thought detection machine that can read your mind, I'd always be dependent on you telling me what you're thinking. You're the only one who is experiencing your own mind, so the experience of thought is totally within you and it is necessarily subjective.

It may still be real, though. But that would then mean that there are things that are real which are not objective facts nor reachable by science, wouldn't it?

On the other hand, it could be that thoughts are real, and we just don't have the technology to decode them yet. That would mean that in the future, unless we are limited by some aspect of quantum physics which prevents it, it should be possible to read minds by detecting neural patterns?

So how do you distinguish between what's real and unreal?

I don't have the answer. I just find it fascinating to contemplate.

Post: #2

Insomuch as that thoughts are generated by the changing of atoms in the molecules of something or other in our brains (is that about right??) then I'd say they're real.

Post: #3

Right but what you're talking about is a scientific theory. That is probably true but I'm asking what we actually know.

Post: #4

It's a good question. Instead of an answer, how about yet another question. "Where does that kind of question even come from?"

Why are we driven to find the real, to have the real, to be the real?

Why are the others are a part of this riddle?

If I were to guess, it's because we each know on an intuitive level we are lacking something, that something is missing. So naturally we search for it in the world and find what seems to be the answer.

However after awhile, we realize it was just a mirage and the sense of lack comes back, even stronger than before.

On one level everything in the world is a mirage. The nice car, the job, the beautiful woman, the house. Houses and apartments are so symbolic of an answer the industry is called Real Estate.

Some commonly seen synonyms for the real are the infinite, the eternal, the all, and of course freedom.

Everyone loves the idea of freedom so much it stands to reason we all must be very enslaved, and not even realize it.

You can see these words plastered in consumer products and marketing because it successfully appeals to our fundamental longing for it. That burning question inside of us which makes us go out and do what we do.

Eventually, we may discover in fact it is ourselves, our lives that is the answer. The answer to the question. Our real purpose on this planet is to see our answer.

Very few do that though, because we intuit it we would mean our deaths. The destruction of who we are as an Individual, an I, an Ego, etc. and deep down we love who we are, suffering and all. It's our precious.

A good question for Good Friday.

Post: #5

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality):
"Reality is the conjectured state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined."

I believe philosophy should be goal-oriented. Just as language. The goal of reality would be to create a concept of perceptions that can be shared and accepted among a group of people. If everyone gets caught up in their subjective perceptions (think phenomenology), that has it's merits, but reality only becomes relevant when asking whether another person shares your perceptions.

Thus reality could be defined as positive feedback of your perceptions provided by other people. If they share a perception, something becomes real. If they don't, it's unreal. That doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't exist or is meaningless, but reality gives one an anchor in society and a perspective. For that reason, it's so easy to destroy one's sense of reality through gas-lighting.

E.g. if everybody around you told you they feel the love you do, you would be led to assume that love is some kind of force that travels independent of you. You could call that thing God. Isn't it plausible to assume that this mistake is very prone to happen in a little community or indigenous tribe where people synchronize their emotions?

(04-03-2015 03:18 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  I'm not being terribly rigorous here

That's your weak point. If you don't define what it means, it can mean anything and thus you can basically make connections from anything to anything, which appears fascinating.

Imagine I asserted that apples are "guddly". Then I would assert that thoughts are guddly, too. That would, obviously, make for quite a lot of confusion. What exact similarity is there between thoughts and apples. How fascinating. It would be a great argument for the relativity of everything. But in the end, it's a constructed mind game that means nothing.

A friend of mine once asserted that life is cell division and multiplication at the same time. That a man and a woman can create a child, thus 1+1=3. Yeah, that's kind of witty, but what's the point?

Are we discussing a specific property of thoughts or are we trying to find a plausible use for the word "real"?

For me, one of the big challenges of being rational is to be as rigorous as possible in asking goal-oriented questions. What are you really asking and where do you expect the answer to lead you? If nowhere, why bother asking? Is your goal possibly to have some sort of realization and experience a state of euphoria due to feeling intelligent? Or is your goal to take away the meaning of a word to distance yourself from the feeling you associate with it? (typical for relativism)

Post: #6

(04-03-2015 04:27 PM)Onto Wrote:  If I were to guess, it's because we each know on an intuitive level we are lacking something, that something is missing. So naturally we search for it in the world and find what seems to be the answer.

Just a few days ago, I wrote an article about this:
http://manwithoutfather.com/2015/04/02/s...ep-inside/

You bring me back to an idea I've had before: The very fact that we are missing something is the driving force of our lives. This kind of "emptiness" is equivalent with ambition. There's not the one big thing to fulfill us forever.

The fact that we call it "something" should be indicative, shouldn't it? We need something to do. It doesn't matter what it is so much. It's the drive to create and achieve that drives us until we die. And that's a wonderful thing.

Maybe it's just the modern belief that life should be easy and always comfortable that makes us wonder what this feeling of "emptiness" means. It somehow doesn't fit into that worldview.

Post: #7

(04-03-2015 04:35 PM)TomArrow Wrote:  

(04-03-2015 04:27 PM)Onto Wrote:  If I were to guess, it's because we each know on an intuitive level we are lacking something, that something is missing. So naturally we search for it in the world and find what seems to be the answer.

Just a few days ago, I wrote an article about this:
http://manwithoutfather.com/2015/04/02/s...ep-inside/

You bring me back to an idea I've had before: The very fact that we are missing something is the driving force of our lives. This kind of "emptiness" is equivalent with ambition. There's not the one big thing to fulfill us forever.

The only thing that ever makes me feel truly fulfilled, truly free is when I have an insight. An insight into myself and my crazy demand life be a certain way. Seeing it's a mission impossible because my desire is actually founded on a contradiction.

That is, in order to have what I want I would need two opposites to be true and exist, not alternately, but at the very same time.

It's a rare thing for me, but I've had a few insights in my life to know that is the real. Doesn't mean I don't want pussy too, but it truly pales in comparison. The orgasm is just a taste of what a liberating insight feels like.

(04-03-2015 04:35 PM)TomArrow Wrote:  The fact that we call it "something" should be indicative, shouldn't it? We need something to do. It doesn't matter what it is so much. It's the drive to create and achieve that drives us until we die. And that's a wonderful thing.

In some respects you're right. We need something to get rid of the sense of lack. To keep the questions from creeping back up.

(04-03-2015 04:35 PM)TomArrow Wrote:  Maybe it's just the modern belief that life should be easy and always comfortable that makes us wonder what this feeling of "emptiness" means. It somehow doesn't fit into that worldview.

Yes, modern belief is we should all be "happy". That's the answer to life. Do whatever you can to be happy.

Kind of crazy to think the only reason God, the Self, or whatever secret intelligence working behind the curtain, put us here was to be happy. Is that really it? Would be kind of a let down.

It's possible the feeling of emptiness is more pronounced than it ever has been before because modern life is so much more easy and comfortable than it ever has been in history. With the exception of third world, war-torn countries.

Post: #8

(04-03-2015 04:30 PM)TomArrow Wrote:  A friend of mine once asserted that life is cell division and multiplication at the same time. That a man and a woman can create a child, thus 1+1=3. Yeah, that's kind of witty, but what's the point?

His assertion is indeed witty and spot on. He's basically saying life is about our project to resolve the opposites and he's seeing this human/divine project being expressed in biology.

It's really everywhere.

Post: #9

(04-03-2015 05:06 PM)Onto Wrote:  The only thing that ever makes me feel truly fulfilled, truly free is when I have an insight. An insight into myself and my crazy demand life be a certain way. Seeing it's a mission impossible because my desire is actually founded on a contradiction.

That is, in order to have what I want I would need two opposites to be true and exist, not alternately, but at the very same time.

It's a rare thing for me, but I've had a few insights in my life to know that is the real. Doesn't mean I don't want pussy too, but it truly pales in comparison. The orgasm is just a taste of what a liberating insight feels like.

Insights are a great thing. For me that is because I was always caught up in my head, so I would feel great from solving some puzzle. It does make sense that problem solving should feel amazing, from an evolutionary perspective.

An orgasm is not the great thing about sex for me. It's the thing one ultimately looks forward to, yes, but that forward-looking in itself is much more rewarding if not seen in a negative light. It's thrilling.

I don't understand the rest you're writing, about the opposites and that "that is the real". Care to elaborate or formulate differently?

(04-03-2015 05:06 PM)Onto Wrote:  Kind of crazy to think the only reason God, the Self, or whatever secret intelligence working behind the curtain, put us here was to be happy. Is that really it? Would be kind of a let down.

Of course not. God or whatever didn't put us here to be happy. It put us here to strive to be. There's a big difference. It's hard to be focused on the good while everything feels bad. I'd say it's a virtue. What other purpose would one need?

Beyond that, I don't think speculation is purposeful. After all, the concept of purpose is in itself anchored in human reality, if you will. Why would God need a purpose? It's a need of humans, not necessarily one of some higher instance.

Post: #10

(04-03-2015 05:13 PM)Onto Wrote:  

(04-03-2015 04:30 PM)TomArrow Wrote:  A friend of mine once asserted that life is cell division and multiplication at the same time. That a man and a woman can create a child, thus 1+1=3. Yeah, that's kind of witty, but what's the point?

His assertion is indeed witty and spot on. He's basically saying life is about our project to resolve the opposites and he's seeing this human/divine project being expressed in biology.

It's really everywhere.

But there are no opposites here. The seeming contradiction is only created by playing with existing language. Without the language, the contradiction wouldn't exist. And language in itself should contribute to clarity, not be used to create contradictions.

By the way, it's not exactly the topic of the thread, but after I took Ayahuasca, a psychedelic drug, I had the idea that thoughts are language. Have you ever tried to think without words? The attempt might make you understand what I mean when I say that it's a contradiction only created through language that is not precise.

Things are what they are, there are no contradictions. Only faulty thought processes create contradictions. And if thoughts were language, would it not be plausible to assume that contradictions arise simply from an inept usage of language?

This is, interestingly, one central theme in the teachings of Scientology. From the beginning, they are keen on telling you to learn the meaning of all the words used. They say that the misunderstanding of a single word can destroy a whole bunch of knowledge for you. There's a lot of truth in that.

Post: #11

(04-03-2015 05:30 PM)TomArrow Wrote:  

(04-03-2015 05:06 PM)Onto Wrote:  Seeing it's a mission impossible because my desire is actually founded on a contradiction.

That is, in order to have what I want I would need two opposites to be true and exist, not alternately, but at the very same time.

I don't understand the rest you're writing, about the opposites and that "that is the real". Care to elaborate or formulate differently?

Pick anything that vexes us. Anything that causes us suffering, and if we look deep enough we'll see it's because we are making a demand that opposite realities exist and be true at the same time.

Example: "I want a good girl who dresses slutty and is a whore in bed"

Or from a woman's point of view, "I want a good, stable guy with an adventurous, bad-boy edge to him"

See how these things are contradictory?

Take any joke a comedian tells and you may be able to see the punch line is in fact exposing a gap between expectations and reality. It has to done in a very superficial way so no one is affected too much, otherwise it's a "cruel" joke and not funny.

Comedy exposes the contradictory nature of our suffering. Without suffering there would be no comedy. It's why Steve Martin said, "Comedy is a very serious business."

See the contradiction at play in your current suffering and you too may laugh your ass off. For days even.

Post: #12

(04-03-2015 05:43 PM)Onto Wrote:  Pick anything that vexes us. Anything that causes us suffering, and if we look deep enough we'll see it's because we are making a demand that opposite realities exist and be true at the same time.

Example: "I want a good girl who dresses slutty and is a whore in bed"

Or from a woman's point of view, "I want a good, stable guy with an adventurous, bad-boy edge to him"

See how these things are contradictory?

Take any joke a comedian tells and you may be able to see the punch line is in fact exposing a gap between expectations and reality. It has to done in a very superficial way so no one is affected too much, otherwise it's a "cruel" joke and not funny.

Comedy exposes the contradictory nature of our suffering. Without suffering there would be no comedy. It's why Steve Martin said, "Comedy is a very serious business."

See the contradiction at play in your current suffering and you too may laugh your ass off. For days even.

Fantastic insight and well said, thank you.

Post: #13

(04-03-2015 04:30 PM)TomArrow Wrote:  

(04-03-2015 03:18 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  I'm not being terribly rigorous here

That's your weak point. If you don't define what it means, it can mean anything and thus you can basically make connections from anything to anything, which appears fascinating.
...

For me, one of the big challenges of being rational is to be as rigorous as possible in asking goal-oriented questions. What are you really asking and where do you expect the answer to lead you? If nowhere, why bother asking? Is your goal possibly to have some sort of realization and experience a state of euphoria due to feeling intelligent? Or is your goal to take away the meaning of a word to distance yourself from the feeling you associate with it? (typical for relativism)

Yes, I was thinking a bit off the cuff and I figured some other posters would help me clarify things.

I can see why philosophers spend so much time defining terminology. It's necessary to be precise.

We'd have to start with defining terms like "real", "objective" and "subjective".

While doing some self-inquiry I was questioning what we really "know" about "reality".

We have been brought up in this "scientific" age and yet when you look at science, which can only deal with things that are observed or measured in some way, it's quite limited. So that's where the metaphysics come in.

I was reading how Kant made a distinction between "phenomena" and "noumena". The first being things we can sense directly (empirically) and the second being those things that are more theoretical or at least one step removed from our senses. I'm not sure I totally understand it yet, but has me thinking.

Thoughts are interesting because they fall in that category where they may be real, but can only be observed indirectly. For instance, we could do an experiment on thinking about certain thoughts and then measure hormone levels and see how they change. But we won't know the subject's thoughts other than what they tell us about them.

If a child has an imaginary friend, we'll laugh because we know it's not real, but a figment of the mind. But we might consider that the thought of having the imaginary friend is real.

To answer your other question, part of the reason I'm interested in this is that I have been reading about the Buddhist concept of annata, which refers to no-self or emptiness. And I have been experiencing some of this myself. This is not a negative emptiness which is lacking something but more like a tranquil spaciousness. Basically, the way to understand this is that when you look inside yourself, your "ego" or your belief of who you are, your self-conception is actually just another thought itself, which like all thoughts is impermanent and subject to continuous change like everything else. There actually is no fixed self. There are recurring and repetitive thought patterns, but even those can change.

When you meditate, you are able to stretch out the periods of time where you are aware, but are not thinking anything at all, and begin to experience yourself as this sort of empty awareness. Eventually you bring it into everyday life. Your thoughts then lose the power of having any "self" invested in them.

On the psychological level, it seems to me that you really don't need anything else at all. You are already complete once you are at peace with mere existence/being itself, which is really the only thing you'll ever have. Everything else you will lose, eventually.

Post: #14

Search 'Advaita'

What appears and disappears (thoughts) cannot be real. The background on which they appear is the reality.

Post: #15

I have read a small amount about Advaita Vedanta. I mentioned it in the Eckhart Tolle thread.

Post: #16

Welcome back again... Cardguy?
Haha

Post: #17

(04-03-2015 09:12 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  Yes, I was thinking a bit off the cuff and I figured some other posters would help me clarify things.

I can see why philosophers spend so much time defining terminology. It's necessary to be precise.

We'd have to start with defining terms like "real", "objective" and "subjective".

Or not. As I was trying to point out, language is a tool. You are the master. In this case, you are making yourself a slave to already existing terms and try to figure out what they mean. But that's impossible since they per se don't mean anything, they are just sounds that we may or may not associate with something.

(04-03-2015 09:12 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  While doing some self-inquiry I was questioning what we really "know" about "reality".

Reality is a word that was used with some intent in mind. Google "etymology of the word reality" and it says:
late 15th century: via French from medieval Latin realitas, from late Latin realis ‘relating to things’ (see real).

Things are objects in space and time on whose existence we can agree.

Yeah, it could mean something else. Like banana. But it's pointless to first create a word with a purpose in mind and then - with time - infest it with a zillion other associations and then try to find out the essence of what reality is. Reality is a word. The fascination that may occur from not grasping what reality is comes from confusion about the word's usage / definition.

(04-03-2015 09:12 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  We have been brought up in this "scientific" age and yet when you look at science, which can only deal with things that are observed or measured in some way, it's quite limited. So that's where the metaphysics come in.

Yeah, true. May I propose the idea that we are only bothered by those limitations because we feel an overwhelming need to agree upon everything? To validate our perceptions?

If we were to take a different - let's say very selfish - perspective, we would stop caring about words like "real", "objective" or "subjective" and would instead, as individuals, start to care about how a certain word can serve a certain goal that we have.

When we tell a lunatic that something is not real, is our intention not merely to say that he can stop worrying about a threat because we do not perceive it?

May I propose that the obsession with science is merely a control mechanism over our minds that keeps us from thinking independently from those words? That science could just as well be called flying spaghetti monster?

Is it not obvious how extremely manipulatable we are through these words reality and objective nowadays? All we need is a group of people tell us that something we perceive is not objective and we are prone to lose our minds. We say we lose the connection to reality. Is the resulting panic not rather a fear of losing the connection to a group of people and people in general and our shared perceptions with them and thus endangering our survival by detaching?

Should we, as individuals, then not devalue the words and use them merely for purposes of connecting and sharing something with others? And thus personally experience the world in a let's say more intimate way, not assigning labels unless necessary or useful?

The first individual who used the word science, what did he really do? He provided methods and techniques to distill and isolate patterns in which reality (things) behave. Thus we have the law of gravity. What is it really? It is a pattern with a limited usage. It doesn't explain everything nor does it attempt to. It's easy today to live under the illusion that science can explain everything. The new God.

(04-03-2015 09:12 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  I was reading how Kant made a distinction between "phenomena" and "noumena". The first being things we can sense directly (empirically) and the second being those things that are more theoretical or at least one step removed from our senses. I'm not sure I totally understand it yet, but has me thinking.

If you were to coin those terms out of nothing, what would you have them mean?

(04-03-2015 09:12 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  Thoughts are interesting because they fall in that category where they may be real, but can only be observed indirectly. For instance, we could do an experiment on thinking about certain thoughts and then measure hormone levels and see how they change. But we won't know the subject's thoughts other than what they tell us about them.

If a child has an imaginary friend, we'll laugh because we know it's not real, but a figment of the mind. But we might consider that the thought of having the imaginary friend is real.

The first part sounds a bit weird. You do experience your thoughts, so how can you say they can only be observed indirectly? I assume you mean other people's thoughts.

Then true. Even if we could read all the electrical data and possibly visualize it, it wouldn't be the same as having the thought ourselves.

Why is that interesting to you? (curiously googling the etymology of the word interesting)
Want to be a mindreader or magician?

(04-03-2015 09:12 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  To answer your other question, part of the reason I'm interested in this is that I have been reading about the Buddhist concept of annata, which refers to no-self or emptiness. And I have been experiencing some of this myself. This is not a negative emptiness which is lacking something but more like a tranquil spaciousness. Basically, the way to understand this is that when you look inside yourself, your "ego" or your belief of who you are, your self-conception is actually just another thought itself, which like all thoughts is impermanent and subject to continuous change like everything else. There actually is no fixed self. There are recurring and repetitive thought patterns, but even those can change.

When you meditate, you are able to stretch out the periods of time where you are aware, but are not thinking anything at all, and begin to experience yourself as this sort of empty awareness. Eventually you bring it into everyday life. Your thoughts then lose the power of having any "self" invested in them.

I bet there are a dozen other terms out there which are supposed to mean the exact same thing. Who you are is really (haha) only how other people see you. Outside a social context, identity is really purposeless. It is indeed freeing to not obsess over that, yet we need social acceptance, thus it is folly to completely disregard it unless we are financially independent.

I reckon the importance here would lie in owning the self-investment in identity. If we subconsciously believe that something forces us against our will, we don't like the investment and feel like victims.

(04-03-2015 09:12 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  On the psychological level, it seems to me that you really don't need anything else at all. You are already complete once you are at peace with mere existence/being itself, which is really the only thing you'll ever have. Everything else you will lose, eventually.

But that state of peace is also temporary. That's the problem I have with such philosophies. You may be inclined to lie in your bed and think "Oh damn, I don't need anything." Then you go out and see a hot girl and think "I need to have her! But hell, I want peace instead and be one with myself."

I like a compromise: To be able to be in peace at will when alone. Thus I can engage in any distress during the day, knowing that I can always return to that state of peace in the evening.

Maybe you can reach a state where you run around in complete peace all the time. But I don't really see the point. Isn't the appeal in the contrast to the stress and the healing qualities of peace? Without stress, peace becomes boring.

Post: #18

Thoughts are an experience, a mental cognition, produced by the brain.

Why we 'experience' anything at all - thought,feeling, urges, impulses, consciousness, sense of identity, etc - why don't brains/humans just respond to their environment like amoebas (presumably) without conscious experience - is another question.

It's interesting to note that not everyone gets "verbal" thoughts. Some people really dont hear much inner dialogue at all. They get images, kinesthetic senses, intuitions, 'knowings', feelings, urges, etc.

Some people's brains don't represent information to themselves predominantly "verbally". They can still be (sometimes very) high-functioning though.

Post: #19

Since the thread could not have been started without thoughts, its existence answers its own question.

Post: #20

(04-04-2015 04:14 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  Since the thread could not have been started without thoughts, its existence answers its own question.

Descartes would be proud.

Post: #21

(04-04-2015 06:38 AM)Lucky Wrote:  

(04-04-2015 04:14 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  Since the thread could not have been started without thoughts, its existence answers its own question.

Descartes would be proud.

Thought provoking...

It seems Descartes was limiting himself, though, because there is a whole realm of human existence and consciousness which is beyond thought.

Post: #22

Quote:You may be inclined to lie in your bed and think "Oh damn, I don't need anything." Then you go out and see a hot girl and think "I need to have her! But hell, I want peace instead and be one with myself."

I like a compromise: To be able to be in peace at will when alone. Thus I can engage in any distress during the day, knowing that I can always return to that state of peace in the evening.

From what I can understand it's not really an either/or kind of thing. You can have complete inner peace but still experience happiness and unhappiness which are fleeting states. You see an attractive girl and feel the physical desire for sex, and then choose whether or not to pursue her. But you have complete inner freedom to do so because there is no "neediness" or mental craving. You realize it will be a temporary pleasure, which may bring some pain along with it as well.

I am talking about the psychological incompleteness which is false. It's that romantic myth (which is quite pervasive in our society) about someone else "completing you" and you "becoming whole" through a relationship. That's actually a very "beta" way to view relationships.

If you are already complete then you can just appreciate the other person for who they are or go your separate ways.

Quote:Maybe you can reach a state where you run around in complete peace all the time. But I don't really see the point.

Some have achieved it, apparently. There was an Indian author named Jiddu Krishnamurti who produced some writngs about what it was like.

Post: #23

^Yep! Tend to agree.

In buddhist/eastern stuff, it's "desire without attachment".

In western psychology, it's a healthy social drive without (too much) emotional pain/neediness/co-dependence. Being able to love and desire, but not *needing* the other person to fill a hole or avoid hurt/loneliness.

Some people are just more naturally like that than others. Some get there with eastern practices/good therapy, some chase it their whole lives and never really "get it"... and some don't pay it any mind and still live very worthwhile lives, joy and love and pain and sorrow and all included.

Post: #24

As is the case with the olfactory system, it seems quantum mechanics is deeply involved in the function of our brains. More specifically, due to the molecular structure of tubulins inside of microtubules, and since the tryptophan molecules therein can share an electron cloud, microtubules (chains of tubulins) house quantum superpositions. What this would mean in practicality is that your brain evaluates multiple independent pathways before a quantum observance occurs and collapses the quantum function. IE: The brain weighs multiple options before the mind makes a final decision. This has hefty implications. Firstly, it means that thoughts are, in whole or in part, quantum in nature, meaning they are not fully material and thus at best only partially real in terms of classical physics. Secondly, it means that there is a part of the mind which is separate in substance from the brain, such that it can cause a quantum observation of the brain. This is strong evidence of either substance dualism or dual-aspect idealism, or in laymans terms, the existence of some kind of soul.

Good resources to learn more:
https://today.duke.edu/2015/03/quantumjitters
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140109...s4012.html
http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.....98.038101
http://www.cell.com/biophysj/abstract/S0...09)00468-8
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...6313001590
http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/141203/s...07303.html
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/jou.../1.4793995
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9907009
http://arxiv.org/abs/1006.4053
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQngptkPYE8
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150403/js..._12399.jsp
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12595193
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9829025
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15771867
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.10...29063/full
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18799354
http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...d-control/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12883107
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4203918/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_xEraQWvgM

Post: #25

(04-04-2015 03:04 AM)TomArrow Wrote:  Or not. As I was trying to point out, language is a tool. You are the master. In this case, you are making yourself a slave to already existing terms and try to figure out what they mean. But that's impossible since they per se don't mean anything, they are just sounds that we may or may not associate with something.

Sorry, bud, but that'sfuckingstupid™. There is no reason to re-define existing words willy nilly. It is not slavery to have a coherent and consistent language. In fact, it is most illogical to contort language as you suggest, because then even if you were a master philosopher, your ideas would be incommunicable.

TomArrow Wrote:Like banana. But it's pointless to first create a word with a purpose in mind and then - with time - infest it with a zillion other associations and then try to find out the essence of what reality is. Reality is a word. The fascination that may occur from not grasping what reality is comes from confusion about the word's usage / definition.

That seems sound to me, but it stands in stark contradiction to what you said before, unless I'm misreading something.

TomArrow Wrote:Yeah, true. May I propose the idea that we are only bothered by those limitations because we feel an overwhelming need to agree upon everything? To validate our perceptions?

If we were to take a different - let's say very selfish - perspective, we would stop caring about words like "real", "objective" or "subjective" and would instead, as individuals, start to care about how a certain word can serve a certain goal that we have.

We aren't strictly goal-oriented creatures in the material sense, so this is not satisfying. We yearn for truth, and the pursuit of truth involves understanding the social dimension of our experience—of how our thoughts and perceptions relate to reality and to other people.

Quote:When we tell a lunatic that something is not real, is our intention not merely to say that he can stop worrying about a threat because we do not perceive it?

No, because Santy Claus is not a threat, and he is not real. Your dream about swimming in a chocolate-milk river surrounded by giant candy-canes is not a threat, and it is not real. We can tell people that things which aren't real aren't real because we pursue truth.

Quote:May I propose that the obsession with science is merely a control mechanism over our minds that keeps us from thinking independently from those words? That science could just as well be called flying spaghetti monster?

Damn, Eric Orwoll was right when he said that, as went theology and metaphysics, material science too would lose its status as an "objective bedrock" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BgJAfBoVGw

Quote:Is the resulting panic not rather a fear of losing the connection to a group of people and people in general and our shared perceptions with them and thus endangering our survival by detaching?

Doesn't resonate with me. I don't panic over losing connections with people. I do, on the other hand, panic when faced with the abyss— an antithetical notion to the existence of God.

Quote:I bet there are a dozen other terms out there which are supposed to mean the exact same thing. Who you are is really (haha) only how other people see you. Outside a social context, identity is really purposeless. It is indeed freeing to not obsess over that, yet we need social acceptance, thus it is folly to completely disregard it unless we are financially independent.

To the Orthodox, personhood is inextricably linked with social life. We believe that individuality and personhood are opposites—that being without social life deprives you of personhood. And in order to be beings created in the image and likeness of God (a triune being), we must also have social bonds with others, lest we should become mere beasts below mankind.

Quote:I reckon the importance here would lie in owning the self-investment in identity. If we subconsciously believe that something forces us against our will, we don't like the investment and feel like victims.

Only if the thing imposed is magnitudinous and unjust. If somebody takes the parking space I wanted, that imposition which restricts my freedom is not of great importance. I don't feel any wrong has been done, nor do I feel like a victim. If a small sum of money is required of me and taken at gunpoint periodically for the maintenance of society, despite the obvious violation of the NAP, I do not feel like a victim. If it is a large sum of money, that's another story. If I commit aggravated assault and go to prison for 7 years, I am not a victim. In fact, in such a case, I am a perpetrator.