Yggdrasill

I am confused, I find myself less and less able to accept the existence of reality. Whatever I do, reality seems like a more and more implausible concept. It just doesn't seem real. On what basis can I claim: "There is a reality."? I can find no compelling argument; the senses are flawed, who knows what I can't sense? Who knows what I can sense? And, who knows what it is I am supposedly sensing? If I could only sense a fraction of what I am sensing, and I was never tested up against someone better at me than sensing, I would never have known that my senses were flawed. This is the same in "normal" humans, we have nothing better to be measured up against, so we are mostly oblivious to our crude senses. (We can of course improve our senses with infrared cameras and the like, but what is beyond that?) As we cannot even rely upon our own senses, who are we to claim that there is a reality? "I think, therefore I am." gives no solace, as it already presupposing that you think, something that is sensed.

You can't look for any evidence in reality to prove reality, as that would be akin to proving that the bible is true with a bible quote.

Still, I am unable to lose my belief in reality, it is to deeply indoctrinated, or maybe embedded in the structure of the brain. Perhaps in a year or so, when I will be moving to a new city, I will be able to disrupt my thought patterns and actions to a sufficient level for me to stop believing in reality, but I'm not sure.

How are you able to reconcile the lack of evidence with your belief in the existence of reality?

Witt

Hi Yggdrasill,

Reality has persistence, and, dream-like things do not.

The evidence of the sense is adequate, in spite of trickery.

Absoluteness is an illusion!

Witt

Yggdrasill

Ah, but while in a dream, the dream may seem to have persistance, without actually having it. Is it not a possibility that the persistance you are sensing, is in fact an illusion? You claim that the evidence is adequate, but how are you able to judge it adequate when you do not even know how much trickery is involved? Couldn't agree more.

There are too many unknown and unsubstantiated factors for reality to be a (scientific) theory, so it seems logical for me to lack a belief in reality.

Bob Stewart

Yggdrasill,

When you ask about beliefs about reality, are you asking about my beliefs about the computer that is in front of me, about the city of New York, about the Eiffel Tower, about Mount Everest, about the first President of United States, about the first school that I attended, about the latest battles in Iraq that many of us are aware of? Or do you have something else in mind when you talk about reality?

Bob Stewart

xoc

"Reality" as perceived to us must be a function of consciousness in the sense that our subjective world is the interpretation our mind makes of what we presume is an "objective world." The existence of the "objective world" cannot be proven perfectly but to some extent may need to be accepted by "faith."

Why believe in "Reality?" Well for one, we cannot behave rationally in the world without presupposing it, and we do believe so by instinct. If our own actions and attitudes must presuppose some "Reality" then it would be inconsistent to disbelieve in it. So along with Witt's defence of "persistence of 'Reality' I would add the 'inconsistency of the non-Reality view.' so both the -(inconsistency)*-(non-reality) and +(persistency)*+(Reality) give the same result- a positive affirmation of "Reality."

And dreams seldom have the same kind of consistency of the waking world, it is very common for places to just suddenly "change" into another place etc. and people we meet in dreams to transform into other people willy-nilly. However both dreams and the waking state are alike in essence, as they are derived "through/from" the consciousness. I personally do not allot a total "non-Reality" to dreams but like to think of the varying states of our experience as having "grades of reality", or "grades of substance."(both are existentially between Being and Nothingness) The self continues in some sense in the dream world as in the waking world, it is just the semi-static nature of the "substance" which the conscious world relates is more given to a dynamic nature in dreams.

One more compelling reason to believe in "reality": pain. If "Reality" were our own invention, I think it's safe to say that we would have a much better time of it(I would anyways). The fact that we are subjugated (by?) to a world whose laws and conditions we may at time dislike, even hate, should at least be ample reason to suppose we are not just deluding ourselves; but if someone else(God, the devil, aliens who have us suspended in some prison somewhere while computers direct our consciousness,etc.) is deluding us into believing "Reality", how do we discern it?

I think that we believe what we want to believe when we can but believe what we have to when we must; necessary beliefs are therefore more likely to be true than desirable beliefs, as it is clear we are not chosing to believe some lie out of some personal benefit to ourselves. I would argue that Unreality is in fact a more desirable belief than Reality as the laws of consequences for all our actions etc. can at times be quite unappealing; also we "must" act as if we believe reality because we are not known generally to walk through walls etc which seem to prove some "solidness" to faith in Reality.

jpbrooks

Hello Yggdrasil!

This is an example of a position that probably works better as a methodology than an ontology.

The assumption of the "reality of reality" is (ontologically) unavoidable. Even if we assume that all of reality is only a "dream", we are still assuming that the "dream" is real.

jon1

I assume you're asking for the justification for belief in the external world. Well, the main reason I happen to believe in an external world is that it's hammered into me everyday, because that's just the way things appear. Of course when one examines it rationally it's found that it can't be proven that objects exist independently of the mind because it's impossible to "get outside of one's head" so to speak. That doesn't mean there aren't rational reasons for believing in the existence of them though. One of those reason is cause. What causes our sensation of "objects"? The simplest answer is objects themselves which exist independently of our perceiving them.

TiredJim

Belief in reality is just pragmatic. Any attempt to reason it into an illusion is intellectual masterbation. You're still stuck in this world and still have to obey its laws.

My advice is to spend more time thinking about topics that have some relevence to... anything.

thomaq

just a quick thought on our senses. its true that our senses can deceive us, but by what means would we eventually discover that our senses were deceiving us? the answer is, our senses plus rational thinking. thats my two cents, probably could have stated it better but there it is.

Clutch

[With apologies to Bertrand Russell...]

I don't believe in reality either, and I'm surprised at just how many people do!