Am I real?

Hello guys.

I've been wondering recently - am I real?

Do I actually exist?

What proof is there that I am anything but a dream, something imagined, something forgotten. Quintessentially something lost in space or time, that exists in another form, as part of something else, something more real.

And if I am real, is reality real?

Do other people exist, or do I imagine them? Are they just puppets, who look and act like me, but are not the same?

Am I going to wake up one day and struggle to believe that I fell for it?

Am I going to die one day and be laughed at for believing in the unreality I was presented with?

It strikes me that just because others act like me, talk like me, walk like me, they may just be simulacrum of that which is. I sat in the park today and watched people going by, and I was struck by the sudden impulse that actually, they were not real. They behaved real, but that didn't make them real.

There are differing degrees of verisimilitude in all that is, or appears to be. People will tell me that others are real because, ostensibly, they are alike to me. But while, clearly, there are degrees to which this is true, without actually being them, I can only say that they have the appearance of being real.

All things have the appearance of being real, which is why it is so convincing. If you get to the essence of yourself, you will find that much of what appears to be real simply is not. It just appears to be. There are elements of fakeness that you exult and celebrate because it makes you feel good, or bad.

You will sit and linger on your mind, convinced that your mind is what you are. Even though, in truth, your mind is a tool for your consciousness - whatever that is - to use at its whim. Your body is a tool and, if you are real, you are in control of what it does. Your thoughts aren't.

I propose that I am not real and that you are even less real.

I appear to have walked in on The Matrix... only, where's Samuel L. Fishburne?

You're not original, but you may be a psychopath.

furriner wrote:You're not original, but you may be a psychopath.

You may be a lesbian, but you don't see me dishing out the candy floss. ,

You see, furriner, just because something has the appearance of being real, does not make it real. The problem with the modern world is that people are told that things are real and they regurgitate ANOTHER person's ideas of reality insistently without being able to verify that reality themselves. I personally position myself in the role whereby I know nothing other than that which is self-evident, whereas everything else that is not self-evident - i.e. the existence and nature of others, and the things around me, even the things within me (other than my consciousness), cannot be verified as anything other than that which has the appearance of being real. Now, Descartes asserted that I think, therefore I am. Descartes was wrong. Thoughts are but that which the mind creates, and I am not my mind. I am my consciousness, my mind is a tool - no different from my hands or arms - that is utilised for a certain purpose (namely cognitive function such as analysis and identification of danger). The correct assertion from Descartes would have been I am, therefore I think. For even thought is not a certainty. Only consciousness is. One must fully discover the nature of consciousness to understand the nature of reality.

The way I see it is as follows. If I see green, and somebody else calls it green, are they seeing blue, but calling it green, because they were told that blue is green. That's where what is real and what is not real is warped. There is absolutely nothing to assert that you or real, or that I am. We only have the appearance of being real, which is not the same.

If you are not real, I am not real? Am I a figment of your imagination or are you a figment of mine? Is one of us a  "godlike" creature that is inventing worlds galore? If I wake will you disappear? If you wake will I disappear?

I don't want to be a figment of your imagination to be honest. So you'd better be real.

So Gus, still on the chastity kick?

I don't know, eowyn. But it would be highly presumptuous to suggest that you or I are real just ... because. You could be God. We could be a living collective. We could be vagaries of dream. I could be nothing but words on a screen, with neither mind nor body, merely a presence. Or you could be. Although, if we die, and there is nothing, then reality was no more real than if it had been nothing. Hence, none of us would be real, nor would reality.

Nobody called Lawrence Llewelyn-Gusman can be unreal.

But why have we invented such a complex world if we aren't real? Why have maths, science, philosophy, history? Why have awful things happen? Feelings make most of us feel real. Are you saying you don't understand emotion?

Eowyn.

I can prove to myself that I am real, to an extent. But I cannot prove that anything else is real. I cannot prove that you are real, or that anything around me is real. I cannot prove that existence is real. And I cannot prove that myself, in this form, is real. Now, if I was to say this aloud, and others were to say the same, except with me now being one of the individuals that they cannot prove is real, then how can I verify my own reality? Am I real, or am I merely insisting that I am real? To myself, and to them.

Nothing that believes it is real will tell you it is not.

Gus - we are as real as England's Ashes wins in 2005, 2009, and 2010-11.

I'll give you are you real - are you freal?

And the word of the day is...verisimilitude.

Chivalry Augustus wrote:If I see green, and somebody else calls it green, are they seeing blue, but calling it green, because they were told that blue is green. That's where what is real and what is not real is warped. There is absolutely nothing to assert that you or real, or that I am. We only have the appearance of being real, which is not the same.

eowyn wrote:If you are not real, I am not real? Am I a figment of your imagination or are you a figment of mine? Is one of us a  "godlike" creature that is inventing worlds galore? If I wake will you disappear? If you wake will I disappear?

I don't want to be a figment of your imagination to be honest. So you'd better be real.

You appear to be a pigment of his highly coloured imagination.

As long as you are not a figleaf on his mental pigmeat.

Ang may be quite content in that position; it's probably best not to make assumptions.

Not sure Gus would cope. Unreal, man.

While the biological functions seem to happen in real-time. Birth & death are also comparitively real. These are acts of bondage that trap one in this space-time continuum. Loyalty, love, obedience, unity, value, worth of currency, borders, economy, fiat currency etc are pretty fictional.

What you need to understand though, is that this world is a trap. This trap called Planet Earth is managed by negativist beings who have planted themselves in the deep-state of english-speaking govts. These work in tandem with dark forces managed by the dark lord himself to create a universe (nay a darkverse) in their imagination. The beings in this prisonplanet managed by these negativist prison guards are forced to burn fossil fuels for transportation. Countries and borders have been drawn up to prevent populations from travelling freely (which in some cases may be a blessing in disguise since moon-worshippers seem to be unruly travellers and unwelcome guests in most cases). Apart from that the main intention of borders and gateways is to throttle populations on this prison planet. Make them feel like slaves etc, which is a deep plan of the managers of the darkverse. 

Wars are imposed periodically every 3 years, so that human positivity can remain stunted and negativity can overwhelm mankind. Various vulnerable faultlines in human character have been mapped and these faultlines are constantly probed and challenged to reinforce negativist behaviour. This also demands that humans live as islands, insecure, unadapted, & individualist, as each man to himself and thus easily manipulatable by the powers who work in a large team themselves with each arm seeking to complement the other in deviousness and viciousness. Taking away the liberties of hitherto free men & women one at a time so that nothing drastic is evident on the surface, yet the edges are constantly gnawed at until they become but a tiny speck. And then fades into irrelevance. Many a dreamy bait is thrown in the way to progress and hasten this development. 

So, yes. You do live in a prison. The world is maya (an illusion) which we have been made part of. Our biological functions are not illusionary but the world and society with the respective roles that we are given are pretty illusionary and can change at any given time. We have been trapped into this illusion by being enslaved in a biological, decaying device known as the human body. This acts as clock, constantly ticking, till it gives up and our mortal traps are opened up and we go back to base as free spirits or as orbs encircling the multiverse waiting for the next challenge or biological trap. 

Does this answer satisfy ya somewhat ?

I knew it. Gus bowled Bucks a juicy half-volley.

Nobody doubts that the Buckmeister's real, in the sense that he's a real pain....

Dear God, I thought for a moment Karti had returned.

If reality is an illusion it is a very persistent one.

In all seriousness though, I think that the fact something called the universe exists is self-evident, even it its true nature isn't well understood. 

Where I disagree with your reasoning is that you and I are 'beings' in the sense that we have some non-corporeal essence that is somehow in control of a lump of meat and chemicals. Consciousness is the illusion. A staggeringly large collection of fundamental particles (quarks, leptons, bosons etc.) whatever they are, exist for some reason and obey some very simple rules for some even stranger one. On a large enough scale, you get emergent behaviours, wherein the interaction of many many quarks create systems which also follow rules, although these rules are less fundamental than the ones governing fundamental particles themselves. Cf Conservation of Momentum, Hooke's Law and so forth. 

(It is possible, likely even, that the rules we observe governing fundamental particles are simply emergent from some even smaller, simpler entities with their own rules - for an idea what I'm talking about, look at Conway's game of life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP5-iIeKXE8 to see how complex behaviours emerge from simple rules).

The very large system you think of as yourself exhibits extraordinarily complex behaviours to the extent that it spews philosophy on cricket forums. But all it is is the expression of simple laws constructively interfering in a kind of symphony. The fact that part of the symphony sounds like something we might identify as a consciousness, that thinks it has some sort of control over the rest of the system, seems to be a cruel cosmic joke, as far as I can make out.

Don't know after reading some of the above I feel I might be inhabiting a parallel universe.

Are your tits just as nice over there?

The fake ones in the avatar?