Is reality Real?

[Arlo]

I fail to understand the concept of 'you only exist if you're being observed'. That would mean that anyone stranded on a remote desert island would not exist anymore. Yet they sit there waiting when someone discovers them. Robinson Crusoe would have not been written lol.

Robinson Crusoe wasn't written by Robinson Crusoe.

[SPKmes]

So if I hide in a closet, then I no longer exist.  Sweet! Now I can get out of doing unwanted jobs my wife gives me

Until she finds you...then you exist again...

[FBKampfer]

Until she finds you...then you exist again...

But if he doesn't exist, is he still there to be seen? Right now I'm unobserved, but I still see my hands as I type. Can I observe myself? Are any of us truly self aware enough to consciously observe ourselves?

What if all this is a hallucination, and none of you are real? What if I'm actually god, but wanged my head getting out of the shower, and now I'm dreaming in a coma?!??!   Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhgggggrjddfhgku dswrhh!

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Robinson Crusoe wasn't written by Robinson Crusoe.

There wouldn't have been anything to write about if Crusoe ceased to exist when he was alone, duh.

[SysError]

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

I fail to understand the concept of 'you only exist if you're being observed'. That would mean that anyone stranded on a remote desert island would not exist anymore. Yet they sit there waiting when someone discovers them. Robinson Crusoe would have not been written lol.

This is not going to sound convincing to a 21st century ear, but imagine if you will, that you lived in the pre-Kantian world of 1710.

What Berkeley would say, I believe, is that you exist as a finite spirit/person and that through your experiences of your sensations, you see God’s nature.  And it is as a finite spirit that our perceptions of objects make them “real”.  The Laws of Science/Nature is really God’s way of exposing/revealing ideas (which, for Berkeley, are the same as real objects/matter) through our sensations and thus experiences. When no finite spirit (an individual) is observing say a table, the table exists because an infinite spirit/God gives it existence.

Today many casual observers will slam on their mental breaks when they see a justification rooted in the existence of an infinite spirit.  (We are very modern we say….)  But in Berkeley’s time you had no choice but to explain how your idea(s) either supported or enhanced the prevailing concepts of God. 


I’ll accept that the following is a bit of a square peg in a round hole; but substitute Supersymmetry for an infinite spirit.  Supersymmetry, which is a principle and NOT a theory/law, provides us with a way of explaining a number of issues within the Standard Model and provides one possible way of establishing a unified theory between Quantum Theory and Relativity. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CeLRrBAI60

I think that all this is pretty interesting stuff, but the point I want to make here is that without the principle of Supersymmetry we would have one less very useful tool to understand the universe. 

Here is a definition of the word Principle: “a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning.”  For now, today Supersymmetry is in a sense performing the same role as an infinite spirit did for Berkeley.

BTW: I thought that the Ted talk presenter got too defensive when the moderator drew a connection to Berkeley, probably because of the dependency to an “infinite spirit” that he did not wish to make.  After all, his thoughts are really driven by the logic of mathematical models and not any principle of a spirit!

[MrRiplEy[H]]

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

This is not going to sound convincing to a 21st century ear, but imagine if you will, that you lived in the pre-Kantian world of 1710.

What Berkeley would say, I believe, is that you exist as a finite spirit/person and that through your experiences of your sensations, you see God’s nature.  And it is as a finite spirit that our perceptions of objects make them “real”.  The Laws of Science/Nature is really God’s way of exposing/revealing ideas (which, for Berkeley, are the same as real objects/matter) through our sensations and thus experiences. When no finite spirit (an individual) is observing say a table, the table exists because an infinite spirit/God gives it existence.

Today many casual observers will slam on their mental breaks when they see a justification rooted in the existence of an infinite spirit.  (We are very modern we say….)  But in Berkeley’s time you had no choice but to explain how your idea(s) either supported or enhanced the prevailing concepts of God. 


I’ll accept that the following is a bit of a square peg in a round hole; but substitute Supersymmetry for an infinite spirit.  Supersymmetry, which is a principle and NOT a theory/law, provides us with a way of explaining a number of issues within the Standard Model and provides one possible way of establishing a unified theory between Quantum Theory and Relativity. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CeLRrBAI60

I think that all this is pretty interesting stuff, but the point I want to make here is that without the principle of Supersymmetry we would have one less very useful tool to understand the universe. 

Here is a definition of the word Principle: “a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning.”  For now, today Supersymmetry is in a sense performing the same role as an infinite spirit did for Berkeley.

BTW: I thought that the Ted talk presenter got too defensive when the moderator drew a connection to Berkeley, probably because of the dependency to an “infinite spirit” that he did not wish to make.  After all, his thoughts are really driven by the logic of mathematical models and not any principle of a spirit!

This would be a logical continuum to age old pattern. Man knows little, explains everything with God. Man understands more, explains more things with science.

[guncrasher]

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

the answer has been proven to no, however it does make sound waves.


semp

[Arlo]

There wouldn't have been anything to write about if Crusoe ceased to exist when he was alone, duh.

Because fiction requires a basis in reality. Like, lets say, all of Douglas Adams' books. 

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Because fiction requires a basis in reality. Like, lets say, all of Douglas Adams' books. 

You forget that there have been real life Crusoes who have written their first hand experiences.

[eagl]

Why is it when a unexplained event or unusual phenomena is explained, the message it brings is suddenly discounted or ignored?  We don't ignore the message of impending danger when we hear a train whistle just because we know how the sound is made, so why are "supernatural" warnings ignored just because we think we can explain the cause via science, or can now observe how the warning was created?

As an example, many of the health warnings in the old testament book of Deuteronomy are still entirely valid (cook your food, don't poop in your house, etc), yet people scoff at them simply because the folks that wrote those rules couldn't explain WHY they were important without using a supernatural spirit as the basis for the rule.  We know the scientific reasons behind many of those rules (and many social reasons behind some of the social rules like don't beat your wife), so a great many people discount the entire book as nonsense simply because we can look behind the curtain and see how its done now.

You don't see many atheists ignoring train horns at crossings just because they know some guy is pushing a button which sends highly compressed air into a very loud horn, yet they're all eager to throw out every rule, no matter how good of a rule it is, if the original justification for it was even remotely spiritual.

Knowing reality makes us so much stupider sometimes.  A dose of myth and legend may be healthy now and then.

[Arlo]

You forget that there have been real life Crusoes who have written their first hand experiences.

Am I forgetting that you've gone figurative?  And you are also using second-hand information to back your reality. I'm not sure you're as sure as you want to be.

[guncrasher]

You forget that there have been real life Crusoes who have written their first hand experiences.

dude, you ever think that windows 10 has somehow manipulated your unconscious mind?  after all there's a reason why MS wants automatic updates just like V.I.K.I did.


semp

[eagl]

The next step of the shared experience, shared waking dream, is underway with win10.  It automatically shares wifi access credentials, bypassing password entry for wifi access.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/30/windows_10_wi_fi_sense/

It's the next step of course, getting everyone connected on the same net, surfing the same matrix.  Its already almost alive so this could be the tipping point.

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