A little philosophical about empirical truth and the real world

Sensory perceptions can be fake and the universe can be a fabrication. However a more important consideration is this. The only criterion you can every utitilize to judge the nature of the fabrication is sensory perception itself. Without sensory perceptions the "real" universe might as well not exist. If you never experience a "real" reality it simply does not exist for you. You will never "experience" the real universe - you will always merely experience your perception of it. Is it possible that perception is all that exists and that there is no real universe? Remember any argument you use to refute this will be based in your logical, emotional or inferenceial perception.

Classic philosophy often hints that perception is a shadow of reality. Is is possible that reality is a shadow of perception?

So, what you are asking is whether a tree falling in the forest makes a sound if there are no ears to hear it? :rolleyes:

Or maybe... What there are many things smelling good if there aren´t any noses to know it?!
We have our perceptions to fell what this World can offer for us.

Originally posted by Not The One
So, what you are asking is whether a tree falling in the forest makes a sound if there are no ears to hear it? :rolleyes:

No actually the question is different than that - if you hear a tree falling in the forest why do you assume there is a tree there at all. Take it one step forward and realize that the only reality you will ever know is in your head. There is truly no such thing as an external reality - only the guestimates you have on future sensory perceptions. You will never experience reality only the image of it in your head.

I never thought of that..... And the scary thing is, I understood every word of what you said.....

That leads right into one of my favorite quotes from George Orwell's 1984: " If the external world exists only in the mind, and the mind can be controlled, what then?"

sound travels anywhere as long as you are not in space

sensory perception are used to percieve the real world and the universe. so how do we know whether the universe is real? this is how.....
though we have perceptors, we have freewill also. we have eyes to see, the brain interprets whatever we see and creates images etc. but the most important point is that we can CHOOSE what we see. we have the choice. we can choose what we hear.dont forget that.

Originally posted by inevitability
sensory perception are used to percieve the real world and the universe. so how do we know whether the universe is real? this is how.....
though we have perceptors, we have freewill also. we have eyes to see, the brain interprets whatever we see and creates images etc. but the most important point is that we can CHOOSE what we see. we have the choice. we can choose what we hear.dont forget that.

The interpretation itself is just sophistaicated sensory percetion - nothing more. Choice is an illusion - you feel ("sense") that you have choice but you do not - whether you think in a classical sense or a quantum sense the underlying physics in thought is never a choice. The concept of free will is an amusing one, but fortunately or unfortunately misplaced and incorrect.

that was an interesting post i have also thought of extistence as that but you Carpediem have put it so well very cool

even i believe that perfect freewill is a utopian concept, but we do have freewill to quite some extent. if u would like more info on the subject, read up on MODERN PROCESS PHILOSOPHERS- A.N Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne

One's perception of reality is based solely on one's interpretation and prioritization of sensory input.

Once blinded, there is still light.
Once deafened, there is still sound.

The world of the ant is a very different place from that of the eagle.....and neither would be recognizable to the bacterium, were it to attempt to process the sensory input provided by either.....yet each can influence the reality of the other.

It is not our perception of reality which is important, but our ability to influence the reality of those around us.


Go In Peace
DrOlsen

Does sound even exist? Sound is a great example to show this point. Sound is what happens to particle vibrations when they are received by something capable of converting that momentum of particle motion into perception. i.e. when a shock wave of air particles crashing into one-an-other reaches your ear drum to be converted into nervous impulses to be interpreted by the brain.

Before they are 'heard', they are just moving particles - a form of distributed momentum. But is that sound?

What I wanna know is, to quote revenge of the nerds part III, "what if C A T spelled dog?"

KL

Yeah, me too.

Maybe slightly out of topic...but....I've always wondered if what I call the color "blue" - someone else might not call "red" - how would we ever know? I see an object and to me it's blue, because that's how I have labeled it my whole life - if someone tells me "yeah, that's blue..." but what they are seeing is actually what I see as "red" - then what?

I've always considered the "what if" of my perception of color being different from someone elses - I've perceived yellow objects my whole life, I was told - "look at the lemon, it's yellow." And to me, it is yellow and I see it as yellow .... but what if someone else sees the lemon and they CALL it yellow, but what they see is actually what I'd call blue? How would you ever be able to prove this wrong if everyones perception of color was different. And what if there exists a color I've never seen before, but everyone can see? You couldn't prove to me that it exists because I can't see it, or even imagine it - because they'd just put a label on it - how am I supposed to visualize that?

I'm having a hard time putting this into words - but as soon as I can see or imagine this new color - then it exists in my reality, until then, it's not even a possibility.....as soon as - to me - it's a possibility - it exists.

I'll shut up with the rambling now and try to form my thoughts better next time.... :)

Spi

I think that you did it very well.
But what you need to know is that the colors are percepted
by us with with sunlight´s help.
The light of the sun is responsible to tell us about the colors that we see. I don´t how, but it does.

Originally posted by spiroll
Maybe slightly out of topic...but....I've always wondered if what I call the color "blue" - someone else might not call "red" - how would we ever know? I see an object and to me it's blue, because that's how I have labeled it my whole life - if someone tells me "yeah, that's blue..." but what they are seeing is actually what I see as "red" - then what?

I've always considered the "what if" of my perception of color being different from someone elses - I've perceived yellow objects my whole life, I was told - "look at the lemon, it's yellow." And to me, it is yellow and I see it as yellow .... but what if someone else sees the lemon and they CALL it yellow, but what they see is actually what I'd call blue?I don't think it's off topic. It's part of this inherently philosophical topic that Carpediem (good moniker, BTW) started. In fact, I have three friends who are red/green color-deficient. Any of them can, and do, see an emerald as red or a ruby as green. We could call them "wrong" because their visual perceptive system is different from ours. But it's their reality and nothing will change that

The problem with this philosophy is that it can never actually be proven "wrong" or "right" in any way, because proof in itself will have to be justified somehow with someones perception, lol

Sensory perception is very raw and unrefined. It gives us information on our surroundings and that is it. From there it is stored in our short-term memory, if we choose for it to go there. We then interperet it into something we can understand.

So, is the universe real, or is it just our imagination? No one will ever know. But I can feel my keyboard, I can see my computer screen. What else is there for me to do? And what if it is just a figment of my imagination? It won't change anything. And so what if the universe is real? Big deal.

You have to live your life regardless. Have fun. Help people. Enjoy your life while you have it. That's my philosophy.

And to quote Shakespeare, "The world is people." So does it matter if they're real or not? No.

Existence exists. Existence is EVERYTHING.

Consciosness is the faculty of perceiving that which exists. If nothing exists, there can be no consciousness to perceive it.

Both consciousness and existence are irreduciable primaries. They cannot be reduced to other facts or broken down into debatable, or reconfigurable components.

Still think existence only exists in the mind of the perceiver?

Try this. Name 1 human mental process that can change the laws of nature or erase facts?

Denial. You can choose not to except the laws of nature. And, well, as far as you are concerened they don't exist.

you folks should relize one thing that Matrix is just a movie, a fiction. What is real and what is not real? What is true and what is false? Don't go there! A piece of advise: Never take the movie out of the theater.

How does denial change the laws of nature or erase a fact?

You can DENY that you're breating oxygen on a totally dishonest conceptual level. But you cannot actually NOT breathe oxygen without death.

So the actual law has remained unchanged even in the face of your deinal.