Can You Prove The Existence of The Real World?

reply to post by AlienView


"Real" is an honorific term. We can call whatever we want "real" or not. Nothing needs to be proven. But one thing is for sure, insisting everything is in the mind is the most self-defeating position ever conceived.

I think I will now give the implications of what might be if no one can prove an absolute/universal reality.
What happens in much mystical and occult mythology [including some religious] becomes understandable and possible - And this would include much of the alien/UFO phenomena. If there is no fixed reality/universe than almost anything is possible. This is not to say you can imagine anything you want and then make it happen. But it is to say you can alter [to some extent] the world you live in; and to alter it in
more than mundane ways. Like the sound barrier as to traveling speed one day it will be possible to travel faster than the speed of light - for now that is impossible but in the next phase of human evolution it will become real. The human mind, like the universe, continues to evolve and there is no fixed or absolute reality that will block this evolution.

theyknowwhoyouare
reply to post by ChrisdolmethSachs

 

How would one know if anyone else was real? What if everyone else is a creation of the same mind creating these experiences? What if They are as much me as I am me, and I am just experiencing all of these lives individually but almost simultaneously as well?

WOW!!!

thanks for that!

reply to post by AlienView


Why can't it be both? Why does it always have to be either/or?

What if we are in a pre-programmed environment that is repeated throughout a virtual world and we come/came into this sim or The Sim, like a video game character, and play the/their/our world ... each time changing it because of our presence?

Just something to think about. Or not.

Ta,

Toni

Some interesting responses, thanks. Of course had I posed the question: 'Can You Deny The Existence of The Real World?', I'm sure the responses would have been much more numerous and creative. In any case 'the real world' is of no concern unless you have gotten on the wrong side of it and it has gotten more real than desired - In which case avoidance is an art and its reality is to be changed or avoided.

Acceptance of what is the so-called real world could, and has, stifled human progress in the past and would do so in the future if man was to accept the so-called real world. For example at the time of Galileo the real world of the day accepted the Sun revolving around the Earth and most the intellectual authorities of the day would assure that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Should Galileo have accepted this paradigm of an existent real world which war erroneous? I think not. There was a time when it was accepted that matter was one thing and energy another until Einstein and others proved all matter was in fact composed of energy. So what is the real world today? In this world man can not travel faster than the speed of light - it is physically impossible. Should we accept this paradigm of reality? Again, I think not. In my opinion no existent reality should be accepted accept on a relative and temporal basis until the next paradigm sets the stage for a new so-called 'real world'.

reply to post by AlienView


Cogito Ergo Sum!!!!

I think, therefore I am!!!

AlienView
Acceptance of what is the so-called real world could, and has, stifled human progress in the past and would do so in the future if man was to accept the so-called real world. For example at the time of Galileo the real world of the day accepted the Sun revolving around the Earth and most the intellectual authorities of the day would assure that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Should Galileo have accepted this paradigm of an existent real world which war erroneous? I think not. There was a time when it was accepted that matter was one thing and energy another until Einstein and others proved all matter was in fact composed of energy. So what is the real world today? In this world man can not travel faster than the speed of light - it is physically impossible. Should we accept this paradigm of reality? Again, I think not. In my opinion no existent reality should be accepted accept on a relative and temporal basis until the next paradigm sets the stage for a new so-called 'real world'.

Howdy AV, you have raised a few points for discussion here I think.
Firstly I would like to suggest a few points to consider. The speed of light is not fixed. It is relative, so to state nothing can go faster means that you can calculate the speed of light on every planetary body. Light is effected by gravity so the speed of it must be relative to gravitational forces in play.

Now talking about how time and discoveries change so rapidly, one has to question why we still follow cultures thousands of years old. It goes against much of how evolution works in my opinion. So the world was flat then it was round. We believe in aliens and sky daddies because ancient texts told encoded stories and people ran with it. Do you see any patterns here.
It is like people choose to believe in some logic and refuse other logic.
Also matter is not composed of energy as it is the energy. Mass = matter = energy = mass = matter.
Thoughts are energy yet only an EEG can display this as a frequency, yet the mass cannot be weighed as matter.
Just some thoughts to work on.

reply to post by AlienView


No, the universe can not be observed (measured) without consciousness, and therefore, I would argue, does not exist without it.

The other thing is, the universe as we observe (measure) it may not be observed in the same exact way that another form of (extraterrestrial) life observes it. A billion different life forms will experience the universe in a billion completely different ways.

Point being, the universe we humans experience is only our way of doing so, and not the way.

OR

It's only my way of observing and not like anything else's.

You can confirm my existence just as I confirm yours. This is how we go thru life feeling comfortable about some sort of reality out there. But the actual reality is not the one our mind shows us. The actual reality is a bunch of probability waves that only consciousness can form into some sort of experience.

reply to post by AlienView


"The only knowing is knowing that you know nothing."
-Socrates (Paraphrased)

Is existence nothing more than a dream?

Did the Universe existed before the Earth was formed or the Solar System was formed? We see distant stars and galaxies when their light reaches us. Can this be considered as proof? Or is it like our brain interprets the light is coming from far off distances and hence we conclude the star / galaxy exists.

The observatories, the satellites or even take a simple camera, are taking thousands of pictures of the sky, that data is getting recorded. Now we still say there is no data in reality, it is us the conscious observers who interpret the data and declare such and such thing exist.

Say we take some snaps of the night sky. The recording instrument will record the incoming data on the recording material. If we see the snaps taken we will see starts, moon, planets etc. our brain interpret the data and arrives at certain conclusion

Now lets say in the future the machines gets really advance / intelligent. Will the machine understand that the snaps we took of the night sky are of the Universe, will it be able to say that this object in the image is a star, or a galaxy or a moon or a planet, I think yes but again no way to prove it.

Some comments referred to the double slit experiment and said observation changes the result. Well QM has got nothing to do with the observer (conscious). The wave functions collapses irrespective of if someone (conscious observer) or machine (camera) is taking the observation. I think the results will still be the same. If not then can someone please explain how does an electron knows that someone is observing and thus it changes the behavior?

Today we can see individual atoms. But we cannot see individual electrons, what we can see is their orbit around the nucleus. If the observer has got something to do with the observation, then it should have been possible for us to see the individual electron. The Uncertainty Principle says you cannot measure the position and speed of the moving particle accurately at the same time, fair enough here. I am interested in the position, not interested in speed. With thousands and thousands of observations of one particular point in the orbit of the moving electron, I think we should be able to see it.

This is my understanding and I might be wrong here. Probably the size of the electron is still way too small for our technology and top of it, it's moving incredibly fast.

Thanks

violet

3NL1GHT3N3D1
The world we see around us is created within the mind, there is no "outside" because everything we experience is "within" the mind.

The double-slit experiment is a great example of how this is true. If there is no observer, things do not act as they are expected to. We as observers have a very profound effect on reality and it could be said that we are the catalyst of reality itself.

In my opinion the double-slit experiment is screaming at us to look at ourselves for the answers. In my opinion, there is nothing apart from the mind and nothing exists outside of the mind. Whatever we perceive to be "outside" is only an illusion and/or hologram.

Can you elaborate the double slit experiment?


Good question OP
It really makes me think and wonder.

It's one of the most simple and interesting experiments in physics. The setup is quite simple. At one side of the room, there is a sodium lamp or laser to create light of one wavelength (to keep things simple). On the other side of the room there is a white wall to see the light projected from the lamp. There is an opaque screen between the lamp and the wall with two narrow slits cut into it. When the light is switched on, a banded interference pattern consisting of strips of light and dark is formed. If either one of the slits is blocked off, the interference pattern disappears. It's the same principle with the rainbow patterns caused by oil on a puddle.

This lead to the first conclusion: Since this is the same sort of effect you get with water waves and harbor walls; a pattern of peaks and troughs that sometimes cancel each other out and sometimes reinforce each other, then that would suggest that a photon of light is not a particle but more a pulse of energy like a water wave. Other experiments have proven this.

The next stage is to try and determine when a single photon goes through either slit or both slits, this can be done using a half-mirror reflector (there's a 50/50 chance that the photon will be reflected to the screen or a detector). When this experiment is run, we only ever detect one photon at any time, and when that happens, there is no interference pattern.

In effect, the act of observation has influenced the result of the experiment.

reply to post by stormcell


Thanks for explaining. I looked it up after my post. Watched a video on it. I recall learning it now.

In some ways is this related to to the theory of what we see is just what our eyes create? Light passing through the retina or something and it forms shapes, colours, etc ?


How does this apply to people who are blind?

reply to post by AlienView


I think you are right in this, that there is no world independent of the observer, but in the same breath you must also say that there is no observer independent of the world.

The world can be broken down into two components, matter and energy, the mind is also made of these two components, chemicals, and electrical currents. There is no point of seperation between the matter and the energy of 'the mind' and the matter and energy of 'the world' - where does it stop? tell me if you can, at which point is there no connection between the two? - these are not two seperate things, but an interconnected whole. A balancing, give and take relationship. So while there is no world without an observing mind, in the same breath there is no mind without an observable world. Infact to actually speak of them as two seperate things: 'the world' and 'the mind' is incorrect as it suggests a distinction.

You might ask, why is it then that we cannot 'feel' objects and people 'outside' us? Actually you can, you are always feeling everything around you but because of the illusion of seperation, the dearly held concept of a seperate identity, we have drowned out the voices of all that surrounds us - again this is actually an incorrect statement, because 'it' is not 'around' 'us', there is no seperation - ever thought about something and before you can say it the person next to you does? Or an advert comes on about the very thing you were just thinking about? Or ever been having a conversation with someone and said something, then you suddenly get the feeling of being in their shoes, hearing yourself say the thing and reacting in a certain way, and then before you know it, the other person replies and its bang on what you just felt them experience? This is a sign that your identification with the body and mind, and the illusion of it being seperate from everything else is beginning to disintegrate. You are beginning to be both the observer and the observee, you are beginning to feel the world, you are entering into the Supreme Mind.

Pursue meditation to its conclusion, and become one with that Supreme Mind.

AlienView
Notice I am saying 'the real world' not a real world. This would mean you have to prove the existence of what some might call an 'ultimate reality' - a reality that exists independently of the observer and is not effected by the mind of the observer. I question the existence of such a state and admittedly do not know if it exists. Physics and science accepts a priori the existence of the real world and operates accordingly but to my knowledge has never proven the existence of an absolute or ultimate reality that exists independently of the mind[s] observing it. Can you prove that the real world exists and has and will exist even if there is no mind to observe it? Can the world exist without 'mind' or is mind one of the key ingredients in the equations of the so-called real world? And if the observational world requires mind to exist can the observational real world be anything more than a relative concept?

There is no such thing as an object in perfect isolation - at the very least there must be an observer. To prove otherwise one would have to produce an object without an observer, which is impossible. Thank you Korzybski.

reply to post by saneguy


Yes, I think the true nature of nothing (if there is such a thing), is that which is void of any observers (consciousness).

Which makes me wonder: when we die, could it be possible that we may experience the cross over into absolute nothingness?

Just to be clear, I think there is "something" out there that exists independent of our consciousness, it's just that we create the "objects' through an interaction with our environment and our nervous system. This is what Korzybski calls 'abstracting'. What we call 'a pencil' is really an abstraction in our cortex, albeit an abstraction closely related to WIGO (what is going on). Even though we all abstract different objects there is enough similarity to make useful definitions. This might be called 'invariance under transformation'.

This is one of those " If a tree falls alone in the woods, does it make a noice? "

If you cant hear it, does it exist. If you cant see it, is it there ?

Those questions are never meant to be answered.

Dreams are real, because we see them. If we didnt dream the dreams would not exist. Maybe our world is like that.

But what about those lucid dreams where we are aware that we dream and can control them. If we could be aware about the non existence of the world, that we can not see, doesnt that mean we can control it ? Isnt this that there are religions based on manipulating mater and moving objects through space.

But we can control dreams because they are ours. The world is shared between many. How can be shure that everyone living exists, only because we can see them, or in fact that we already saw them. That we knew they existed. Does something exists only because we know it exists ?

This is how we prove the real world. The Real World is everything that exists and we know it does. The Unreal World is the world we do not know it exists and we can not control it.

The Future is part of the Unreal World. We can not see the future but we know it exists. We are aware of it, but we do not know what will happen. Thats why there is Future, and Past, but never Real Future, because the future is never Real and no one knows what will it be.

Thats why we make our decisions on the moment. Thats why the Real World in fact is the moment we make a decision.

As long as we believe in something and we think it exists, then its Real.

ZeroFurrbone
This is one of those " If a tree falls alone in the woods, does it make a noice? "

If you cant hear it, does it exist. If you cant see it, is it there ?

Those questions are never meant to be answered.

They can absolutely be answered ~ these are not riddles....

Think about it,
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to observe it does it make a sound?

The answer is unequivocally NO it does not make a sound. Why?
Because the sound waves that would have been generated by the tree falling do not have an ear drum to process it, which then sends the vibration to our brain which then processes it into a sound that our consciousness converts into a crackling noise.

Without an eardrum, a brain, and some consciousness- that sound wave continues to pass through the air undetected...