Reality

[Section 8]

I urge you to consider this phrase: Reality is only a hallucination, albeit a very consistent one.

[white rice]

When I was on shrooms, I totally believed that statement. I still believe it in some sense.

In another respect, I think reality is the amount of sensation, whether physical pain, joy, or suffering, your unique mind experiences. Compassion can help you relate to another person's reality, but I believe that compassion is relative to the experiences a person holds.

[Impenitent]

you can never walk a mile in my mocassins...

life is what you make it for yourself...

[darwinist]

Welcome to the Matrix, Mr Anderson...!!!

When all that is real, is not real.
When all you can see, you can not touch.
Whan all you can smell, but can not see.

How do you tell the real form the unreal?

[Paavo]

I think what we see and touch is as 'real' as things get. What's beyond real for a person? You can't be more than you are.

[G. Adams]

Theres nothing definitively real beyond what I think.

But does it matter that much? Even if this pleasure isn't real, its still pleasurable.

[cheesemage]

The validity of reality matters not, it is what one does with the oppurtunity.

[Balance-7d™]

Reality is but what we perceive, without senses we have no meaning...
We have a quest to understand things,in fact that is why we are discussing this right now, our brain can never quench it's thirst for knowledge.When I did shrooms also, I saw things differently, becuase the psilocybin made my brain work differently, thus changing my perceptive view of "reality".That is why we can try to understand things but not make it our sole purpose to live, also people don't realize we need to understand ourselves before understanding everything else, we are the ones who will fade, the universe will still go on when I die.

[white rice]

Nice post Balance. Your eyes and ears play a big role in what reality is. I guess the shrooms forced me to pay attention with what went on in my mind.

Have you ever read Island by Huxley?

[Balance-7d™]

Thanx man,

Nope, I wanna buy "Doors Of Perception" though.

I've read doors of perception, and my dad told me to read Island by Huxley white rice. Is it worth the time? I've read Brave New World (a more common read), and loved it.

[white rice]

I read chapters of Island from time to time because the pace was slow and the philosophical stuff didn't catch on with me. I didn't read Doors of Perception beforehand, but he borrows some concepts from it. You might see some similarities with Brave New World, but only on the outside. This book might be boring if you think you know all the answers.

But it's worth reading because it sticks onto you and one day you might think, yeah, I get it. It's a deceptive and an easily underestimated book.

[Scribbler1]

The whole issue of "what's real" reminds me of a gag I'd pull down at the bars I used to hang in. When myself and some acquaintence were just drunk enough, and the other guy would say something was real, I'd say prove it. And while he stopped talking for a second, I'd challenge him to prove ANYTHING is real, and not a figment of his imagination. We all have very real-seeming dreams and nightmares, right? And while he's proving this to me, prove that I'M real, and that HE is not just some little bit of intelligence out in the cosmos who cooked up the whole world in his dreams?

It's a great way to be able to sit by yourself in a bar and drink alone once in a while.

[castille]

I'll enjoy my life and leave you guys to argue over its reality.

Hell, if reality is a figment of my imagination, I sure have a pretty big imagination.

[Black Fox]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
Reality is only a hallucination, albeit a very consistent one.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>
Well, I'll begin to take that statement seriously the day I can't distinguish between my hallucinations and reality.

[Section 8]

Have you ever done acid or shrooms? I suggest you read some of Philip K. Dick's books, especially A Scanner Darkly and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.

why does it matter whats real or not? everything real, everythings not real.

doesnt matter.

have fun, enjoy life, wether its real or not

[Autolykos]

I agree with Ludwig von Mises that the human mind is literally incapable of understanding what reality is. We can only accept it as "the ultimate given" (his words), or reject it. But either way, we cannot prove that we are correct or that those who believe otherwise are incorrect. However, I think that accepting reality as the ultimate given ensures one's survival much better than not accepting it. For those people who think that reality is a hallucination, then if you were to ever get mortally wounded (for example), by your logic, you could simply believe that you weren't, and then you wouldn't be! But we all know that that really wouldn't be the case -- you would still be mortally wounded.

[Sasha]

Reality as we know it exists most probably because multiple people can experiance the same thing at the same time. we all see the sky as blue. This all relies on the presumption that you are not simply in my head, but then again do i realy have a head. In the end its irrelavant, reality is a means of experessing a communal phenomena

[Autolykos]

I hate to continue with the violent analogies, but if you don't believe you have a head, then you can't believe that it can be chopped off. But it most certainly can be. That is why believing in reality is a survival trait, while not believing in it is not.