Reality Materially

[pljames]

It boggles my mind when people say their life is an illusion. I see feel and touch material reality. I have been on drugs and had an illusion. I have had delusions and illusions all my life. How can people tell me what they see feel touch is not real? Let be bang there head against an illusionary rock which I see and touched and let them tell me it's an illusion. I love philosophy, but dam life is an illusion, get help. Thoughts please! Paul

[Eclogite]

What sort of people say this?

 

Young people seeking to define and refine their world view?

Individuals trying to appear as smarter and deeper thinkers than they actually are?

Mentally unstable individuals?

 

Do you find mature, level headed, sane people making this statement? (If so, are you just imagining it? :))

[CraigD]

It boggles my mind when people say their life is an illusion.

What’s boggled your mind, Paul, appears to be a famous philosophical idea known as solipsism. It’s an important idea, one that IMHO should be in the basic vocabulary of any serious student of philosophy, but more as an illustrative extreme position than a seriously embraced one.

 

In Life of Samuel Johnson, published in 1791, James Boswell describes Johnson refuting the solipsism of Bishop George Berkley in the following much excerpted paragraph:

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it -- "I refute it thus."

Though folk sometime use the phrase “I refute it thus” to mean any appeal to common sense, I think the real meaning of Boswell’s account of his conversation with Johnson is more precise and profound: that “life is but a dream” can’t be true, because in dreams, our feet don’t properly rebound from big rocks when we kick them, or pass other "reality checks".

 

In his 1997 book The Fabric of Reality, physicist David Deutsch dedicates most of a chapter to a refutation of Solipsism, including the famous Johnson/Berkley quote. His main refutation is built around Occam’s razor, the principle that when choosing between 2 equally accurate explanations, it’s best to choose the simplest one. So while I (or you, or someone else) could be dreaming all of what appears to be objective reality, for all of our measurements of it to be so in accord with the laws of physics requires that we be as good at dreaming as the universe appears to be at being the universe, an explanation that’s less simple than one that assumes the objective universe actually exists.

 

As someone who likes to dream, recall, think about, and discuss my dreams, I find arguments like Johnson/Boswell’s and Deutsch’s compelling, because one of my surest mental techniques for realizing that I’m dreaming is to notice that the physical universe apparently around me in a dream doesn’t work correctly - falling bodies, especially, but also kicking big rocks.

[pljames]

Craig,

Sometime I feel like Occam’s razor. I see I understand I am convinced and persuaded what I see, and touch is reality for me. I have been on drugs and understand fantasy (and try to limit myself from time to time). I believe what was what is and what will be but get confused sometimes trying to understand how others understand. Like when I edit my post to be understandble, why do some readers interpret what they thought I meant? I have seen things I can't talk about because other don't believe in what I saw.

 

Our beliefs amaze me. You don't believe in flying saucers, aliens or even your reality? Really? How does one explain the unexplainable to a person who thinks you're nuts? Thanks for your patients. Paul

 

 

 

 

 

What’s boggled your mind, Paul, appears to be a famous philosophical idea known as solipsism. It’s an important idea, one that IMHO should be in the basic vocabulary of any serious student of philosophy, but more as an illustrative extreme position than a seriously embraced one.

 

In Life of Samuel Johnson, published in 1791, James Boswell describes Johnson refuting the solipsism of Bishop George Berkley in the following much excerpted paragraph:

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it -- "I refute it thus."

Though folk sometime use the phrase “I refute it thus” to mean any appeal to common sense, I think the real meaning of Boswell’s account of his conversation with Johnson is more precise and profound: that “life is but a dream” can’t be true, because in dreams, our feet don’t properly rebound from big rocks when we kick them, or pass other "reality checks".

 

In his 1997 book The Fabric of Reality, physicist David Deutsch dedicates most of a chapter to a refutation of Solipsism, including the famous Johnson/Berkley quote. His main refutation is built around Occam’s razor, the principle that when choosing between 2 equally accurate explanations, it’s best to choose the simplest one. So while I (or you, or someone else) could be dreaming all of what appears to be objective reality, for all of our measurements of it to be so in accord with the laws of physics requires that we be as good at dreaming as the universe appears to be at being the universe, an explanation that’s less simple than one that assumes the objective universe actually exists.

 

As someone who likes to dream, recall, think about, and discuss my dreams, I find arguments like Johnson/Boswell’s and Deutsch’s compelling, because one of my surest mental techniques for realizing that I’m dreaming is to notice that the physical universe apparently around me in a dream doesn’t work correctly - falling bodies, especially, but also kicking big rocks.

[Eclogite]

Like when I edit my post to be understandble, why do some readers interpret what they thought I meant?

I shall speak directly. That is to say, I shall state the objective truth even if this causes offence or pain.

 

Some readers interpret what you say because what you say is not clear, even after you have edited it.

 

This is normal. I work diligently to make my posts as easy to understand as possible. Often my attempts to do this fail. Do not get frustrated with the reader: the responsibility for clear writing lies with the writer.

 

Consider the third sentence in the above paragraph.

 

It began as Often they fail.

 

I decided that was ambiguous. What was meant by they?

 

So I revised it to read: Often my attempts fail.

 

But this is still ambiguous. What attempts fail?

 

So revised it again to its final form: Often my attempts to do this fail.

 

This final version is longer, which is usually a bad thing, but I believe it is also, in this instance, clearer.