Originally posted by symmetricAvenger
what you fail to understand is that matter is a combination of energy

have a nice day

Oh and read more books

Hey bud no disrespect but i think its you that needs to read more.
kx :-)

Originally posted by Xtinguish
Ok! My first thread so I hope it doesn't bomb. I've did a few quick searches on this subject, and have found no philosophical discussions on it. I'm going to throw out some ideas I've read and become partial to on the subject. I look forward to replies of all kinds!

Look around! You will see all kinds of things. Chairs, walls, tables, your computer, and even other people perceiving the same exact things as you! Do these things really exist? Is it really crazy to say that truth would have that none of this exist at all? How could that be? Won't these things still be existing even if no one were in the room to perceive them? It isn't like matter simply vibrates in and out of reality when someone comes along to perceive it. That is just plain absurd!

So how does this matter work? How come things appear a certain shape, size, and color at a certain distance, and then completely different at another? Is it possible that that this matter is totally only mind-dependent? Meaning that all matter is dependent on us perceiving it through our senses? What is matter without the mind? What is color besides but various degrees of light? Isn't color just our eye, mind, and prism? If colors were real properties wouldn't they admit no alteration, as some living things in nature can perceive things we cannot?

What about sound? Isn't it just vibrations in the air beating on our ear drums? Doesn't sound need the mind for us to perceive it? How would it exist without the mind? The same for touch, taste, size, and motion.

Our sense of touch is always either pain or pleasure. Is either of those only just nerves sending signals to our brains? A perfect example of this would be putting one hand in a freezer, and the other in the oven. Then dip them both into a tub of water. Wouldn't the water appear cold to the hand which was heated and warm to the hand which was frozen? How can the water be both hot and cold? It can't. It is merely our mind creating the illusion of hot/cold and pain/pleasure.

How about size and motion? Doesn't something appear different to a fly then to a human? How if size is a independent characteristic without the mind? How about motion? If someone travels three miles at one mile an hour, and another perceives the same speed as one mile three miles per hour, who would appear to whom is going faster?

So, lastly is what George Berkley called his Master Argument. This idea is attempted to show no object can ever exist outside of the mind, and to even think so is inconceivable. Try and think of an object unconceived. Did you do it yet? Nope! Because soon as you try you have conceived of it!

There is a lot more to this argument of matters non-existance. I didn't want to have you guys reading a novel so I'll part here. I look forward to replies on the subject.

[edit on 22-6-2009 by Xtinguish]

It is a well proven scientific fact that there are "opposites" in all things in nature. Matter does infact exist as does Anti-Matter. Our solar system has long been thought to be a singular star system, however, astronomers have noted that all known solar systems are binary and thus, our solar system is also a binary star system. Our binary twin, a brown dwarf, is making its way in from a 3600 year journey bringing with it the Destroyer, Wormwood aka Nibiru or Planet X.

Although you make a compelling "opinion", science fact does not support your theory as proposed.

You might want to consider doing more indepth research before bloviating based on a quick search and lack of fact to support your argument.

Well done,

You just convinced me that everything around me is an illusion, which is a subject i've been having difficulty coming to terms with lately.

Everything is nothing until our mind perceives it.

Thankyou.

Love&Light

Jacob

I don’t mean to be rude but a lot of what you are saying is plain wrong. Things really do happen in our physical world, it doesn’t matter if anyone is there to perceive it. You say

“What about sound? Isn't it just vibrations in the air beating on our ear drums? Doesn't sound need the mind for us to perceive it?”

NO! Sound is pressure waves traveling thru air and/or any other liquid/solid. Can you hear sound under water? Yes, but it sounds different because water has a higher density then air. Are you trying to say if no one is there to hear it that it doesn’t exist? That is crazy!!! Other animals may perceive it differently but that’s only because their ear is built differently but the pressure wave is still the same.

It is the same thing for all other senses. A light wave consists of energy in the form of electric and magnetic fields. The fields vibrate at right angles to the direction of movement of the wave, and at right angles to each other. Because light has both electric and magnetic fields, it is also referred to as electromagnetic radiation. Some animals can see more or less of the electromagnetic spectrum because their eyes are built differently but that doesn’t change what is there.

So yes, a person can live in there own made up perception of reality or one can try to understand everything around them…and live in reality.

What you're describing is a sort of physics-oriented existentialism, which I've always found extremely fascinating and fun to ponder. All facts, after all, are contingent upon the assumption of accurate perception and measurement. Suppose that assumption is wrong. What then?

I think I can go as far as saying, "Because I have only my perceptions to rely upon when experiencing what we call physical reality, it is at least possible that my perceived physical reality does not exist." I can't go so far as to say it definitely doesn't exist, though, because I have no means of proving that assertion. Matter can exist, but then again, perhaps it doesn't (at least as we perceive and conceive of it.)

I think another interesting question is, "Hypothetically assuming that my physical reality as perceived does not exist, how then is it that this question exists in the first place?" or, "What could exist, other than the perceived physical reality, to account for the fact that I am having this thought and raising this question?"

I don't think we can answer those questions definitively, but they are certainly fun and stimulating to consider nonetheless. I do feel that one thing we can say (almost) for certain is, "Something exists, by virtue of the fact that we are even having this discussion." What that "something" (or its nature) is, however, technically remains unknown and unproved.

[edit on 6/23/2009 by AceWombat04]

Philosophy is for people who don't want to know the truth.

Originally posted by Level
I don’t mean to be rude but a lot of what you are saying is plain wrong. Things really do happen in our physical world, it doesn’t matter if anyone is there to perceive it. You say

“What about sound? Isn't it just vibrations in the air beating on our ear drums? Doesn't sound need the mind for us to perceive it?”

NO! Sound is pressure waves traveling thru air and/or any other liquid/solid. Can you hear sound under water? Yes, but it sounds different because water has a higher density then air. Are you trying to say if no one is there to hear it that it doesn’t exist? That is crazy!!! Other animals may perceive it differently but that’s only because their ear is built differently but the pressure wave is still the same.

It is the same thing for all other senses. A light wave consists of energy in the form of electric and magnetic fields. The fields vibrate at right angles to the direction of movement of the wave, and at right angles to each other. Because light has both electric and magnetic fields, it is also referred to as electromagnetic radiation. Some animals can see more or less of the electromagnetic spectrum because their eyes are built differently but that doesn’t change what is there.

So yes, a person can live in there own made up perception of reality or one can try to understand everything around them…and live in reality.

You miss something quite fundamental here though.

Sound is created in the human eye by a wave of energy being impeded in its wave path and the subtle surface of our ear drum vibrating in resonance with the frequency of the wave. Thus what we hear is the vibration of our ear drum, if the wave form had not interacted with our ear, there would have been no transfer of energy and no perception of sound, it would have continued its journey until it was dampened to nothingness by the frictional forces of other waves of energy encountered.
Consider an echo for example this is a wave of energy, vibrating between various surfaces, interacting with our ear drum to create a resonate vibration of corresponding frequency and with each pass being dampened by the frictional forces of the other wave forms it interacts with in a transfer of energy.

This is also the same principle with light. The energy wave interacts with my eye and through the process of retinal vibration creates an image which is projected by the brain. The energy wave would exist whether we perceived it or not. It is the interaction and transfer of energy that causes the reality perception. Consider what happens when you close your eyes.

Energy waves are existent, our five physical senses enter into a vibrational frequency with the corresponding energy that they are capable to perceive, but the perception only occurs when a conscious transfer takes place, which is then assimilated and identified by our brain/mind construct and the appropriate emotions, feeling, sensation, perception returned.

Originally posted by Xtinguish
So how does this matter work? How come things appear a certain shape, size, and color at a certain distance, and then completely different at another? Is it possible that that this matter is totally only mind-dependent? Meaning that all matter is dependent on us perceiving it through our senses? What is matter without the mind? What is color besides but various degrees of light? Isn't color just our eye, mind, and prism? If colors were real properties wouldn't they admit no alteration, as some living things in nature can perceive things we cannot?

What about sound? Isn't it just vibrations in the air beating on our ear drums? Doesn't sound need the mind for us to perceive it? How would it exist without the mind? The same for touch, taste, size, and motion.

Just because our brains interpret the light waves, sound waves and feelings that our ears, eyes and nerves pick up, doesn't mean that matter around is totally false. It is illogical to think that just for sensory experience, matter doesn't exist. First being, we are NOT sure if observation effects the objects in question. We do know that they stay where they are left and remain when we return, so we can only assume that they haven't moved.

So if your argument is based on our brain's interpretation of things, how come they are almost always the same every time we look at them? I don't believe that matter shape shifts when we look away. It still could do that... But your argument is against matter exists, why would you think that? Everything still "exists", there just isn't a said standard to what you can perceive, as everyone probably sees a warped version of the same object. To discount it even being there would be ignorant.

I have always wondered how we differentiate colors. What could be red to me could be orange to you, or vice versa. But then I realized, it is universal what colors are, so why does it really matter? If either of us can point out a color that we recognize as red, blue, yellow, why would it really matter what actual color we see?

Though I will give you something: it truly is impossible to tell what is reality and a dream. For all we know, we could be drifting in a dream. Maybe what is in a dream is truly real. All sensory experience shouldn't be taken to be 100% correct, but at the same time, it is important to take note of it and not discredit it at the same time.

So, lastly is what George Berkley called his Master Argument. This idea is attempted to show no object can ever exist outside of the mind, and to even think so is inconceivable. Try and think of an object unconceived. Did you do it yet? Nope! Because soon as you try you have conceived of it!

I can see objects in my mind that I have never seen before that serve no purpose. Objects or things conceived this way are attributed to a style called "abstract". You cannot think of anything unconceived (though, I don't know where you got from things not being able to exist outside the mind to unconceived), because once you think of ANYTHING you have conceived it. Everything we know is based on our sensory experience, but even so, we can conceive of things that do not exist in a sensory realm.

[edit on 6/23/2009 by FadeToBlack]

wow juicy, juicy stuff here.

I think the endless search for the true nature of reality defines who we are as a species. But that is all it is right now. A SEARCH. We think the answers are there but honestly we aren't ready for those answers IMO. We are like those 2-D flatlanders about to be introduced to a 3-D object. Maybe along the lines of a caveman with fire for the first time. When it happens, everything will change.

If the cat is in the box and imperceptible until we open the box and look at it, what about the cats reality in that nothing exists apart from the cat itself and the box until someone else opens the box?

Surely by the same philosophy none of us exist until we are in the presence of someone or something else who can perceive us?

Does this not make the whole process of "being" somewhat useless?

If nobody needs perceive me why shouldnt i sit infront of sports programmes played by people who really dont exist and filmed by people who dont exist either to be watched, bet upon and cared about by people who dont exist?

My brain hurts aswell and im wondering if i have the wrong end of the stick here but when all is said and done, does it really matter?