How do you know what reality is?

[fatmt]

Occasionally, when I am dreaming, I dream that I am waking up, but I am actually still asleep. I was in a dream within a dream.

If dreams within dreams are possible, how can we be sure that this form of reality is, for lack of a better word, real? Why can't this be just another, longer, dream?


From Wikipedia:
In philosophy, the brain in a vat (BIV) is a scenario used in a variety of thought experiments intended to draw out certain features of human conceptions of knowledge, reality, truth, mind, consciousness, and meaning. It is an updated version of René Descartes's evil demon thought experiment originated by Gilbert Harman. Common to many science fiction stories, it outlines a scenario in which a mad scientist, machine, or other entity might remove a person's brain from the body, suspend it in a vat of life-sustaining liquid, and connect its neurons by wires to a supercomputer which would provide it with electrical impulses identical to those the brain normally receives. According to such stories, the computer would then be simulating reality (including appropriate responses to the brain's own output) and the "disembodied" brain would continue to have perfectly normal conscious experiences, such as those of a person with an embodied brain, without these being related to objects or events in the real world.

A brain in a vat that believes it is walking



These concepts have been explored in films such as The Matrix and Inception. Elon Musk believes we almost certainly live in a Matrix-like world.


What do you think?

 

[Jon]

That is a very interesting concept. It reminds me of the simulation argument, where some think the probability that we are actually a simulation is near 100%. Yet in this case, the simulation is in our own mind! Although its possible we could still be in a simulation, but within that simulation, we can still be faced with the same question you bring up.

This made me just think. If its possible that we live in a computer simulation, with a creator above us, why is that any less real than reality itself?

 

[fatmt]

If its possible that we live in a computer simulation, with a creator above us, why is that any less real than reality itself?

Different ways to answer this one, but if we lived in a computer simulation we would not know what reality looks like.

This is a Twilight Zone episode from the 80s, called Dreams for sale (9 mins duration). The protagonist believes she is having a picnic with her family until something goes wrong.

This is a possible interpretation: waking up from a dream in a different era but, substantially, you are still you. This is a similar premise as The Matrix, for example. Similar because you are still you, but the Matrix's reality is dominated by AI-driven machines.

But what if we lived in a computer simulation but in reality we were completely different beings? For instance, what if we thought we were human-like in appearance, but we actually looked like the aliens from the film Arrival? What if we were actually insects, dreaming we are humans? What if we didn't have any arms, or legs or even have a body at all in reality?

My point is, the possibilities are endless, because we would not know what reality really is.

Does that make sense?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Always thought Meg Foster had the most striking light-blue eyes. She's not bad to look at.

This idea of "imagined or questioned reality" is of course, classical solopsism. Besides the Matrix and Inception, add in Total Recall and Dark City. Not to mention that Dr. Strange had some fun with ideas of twisted reality.

The whole problem is simply that we do not know how the brain's neuronal activity eventually becomes a stream of consciousness. I think if we ever solved THAT little knotty problem, we would have a true handle on the meaning of reality. However, I think we are seeing some form of reality because if we all lived ONLY in a mentally synthetic environment, nothing would ever go wrong.

If there is NO reality, we would all have the adventures that we craved to escape a dull reality. We can BE the knight in shining armor or the brave soldier who wends his way through violent battlefields unscathed. We can be the sheik with a hareem or the king on a throne. When you think about it, fictional stories allow us to imagine that experience. Which means that the stories would be part of our meta-imagination. Layers within layers withing layers - deliciously complex. Occam's Razor would tend to discount the odds of that being entirely inside our heads with no external referent to have triggered those thoughts.

Therefore, even if it is only that we see through the filter of our mind's eye and must interpret our senses to form a mental semblance of reality, I think it must be based in something very real. The really great thinkers can break through that mental filtration and make meaningful predictions about reality. So Einstein explained the Photoelectric Effect to win a Nobel Prize. August Kekule' devices the structure of benzene. Pasteur discovered polarization of light. Copernicus saw past the religious chaff to define planetary heliocentric orbits. Hideki Ukawa mathematically predicted the existence of the mu meson over a decade before someone else actually found proof of one. The list goes on.

We know that at least some of those predictions and discoveries are good because they dovetail nicely with predictions and discoveries of other people. That can only happen in one of two different ways. One is that we have each TOTALLY fabricated world history, world culture, and all of science to get here. The other is that reality must exist and must resemble the consensus of our gathered-and-compared perceptions of reality.

The first of those options (a totally imagined world context) would make each of us a God of the microcosm, the master of our own existence. Which means each of you out there don't exist anywhere except in my own (vivid) imagination. Reminds me of a short story, "The Prototaph." It is a time in the future when everyone can get insurance for their loved ones through a centralized computer system with AI actuaries. So the protagonist comes in, applies, and is denied insurance. He appeals and is denied again. He petitions to discover why he is denied. After going through many layers of bureaucracy, the answer is that HE is the person who is imagining the rest of the world. If HE dies, there will be nobody around to collect OR to pay out. So HE is uninsurable. Perfectly in line with the concept of the question.

I find that I don't care for the implications of the first of those two options. I prefer to think that a reality exists and I am interacting with it, even if only "through a glass darkly." I find that viewpoint to be of greater comfort. But all I can say is "I like it more." I can't say with any definitive proof that I am right.

 

[fatmt]

Occam's Razor would tend to discount the odds of that being entirely inside our heads with no external referent to have triggered those thoughts

Except that - in a virtual reality - Occam's Razor, Einstein's Photoelectric Effect, Pasteur's polarization and everything else would simply be a product of that universe. In other words, every single instance of a virtual reality is completely consistent with the virtual reality itself, and any and all attempts to explain such instances would, too, be bound to the same laws.
Put it in a different way, because we are not allowed to 'peek behind the curtain' as it were, we assume that there is no curtain.

The first of those options (a totally imagined world context) would make each of us a God of the microcosm, the master of our own existence. Which means each of you out there don't exist anywhere except in my own (vivid) imagination. Reminds me of a short story, "The Prototaph." It is a time in the future when everyone can get insurance for their loved ones through a centralized computer system with AI actuaries. So the protagonist comes in, applies, and is denied insurance. He appeals and is denied again. He petitions to discover why he is denied. After going through many layers of bureaucracy, the answer is that HE is the person who is imagining the rest of the world. If HE dies, there will be nobody around to collect OR to pay out. So HE is uninsurable. Perfectly in line with the concept of the question.

I am glad you brought this up - as I sit in front of my PC and type this, I hear cars going by, the gentle July's breeze, and when eventually I hit 'Post reply' Jon and Doc will presumably, at some later time, read this post.

Save that, from my own perspective, I have no guarantee that Jon, you, Bee, Donald Trump, Brad Pitt or the rest of the world I perceive really exist outside of my own consciousness. There is no way to know, just as there is no way for you to know (assuming you do exist) that I am really typing this message.

I prefer to think that a reality exists and I am interacting with it, even if only "through a glass darkly." I find that viewpoint to be of greater comfort. But all I can say is "I like it more."

Somehow, this philosophical question has always intrigued me. Maybe there is a sub-conscious spiritual need that I need to fulfill, something that tells me that this (whatever this is) is not all there is.

 

[Jon]

I suppose we are touching on the philosophical argument of objective vs subjective reality.

 

[fatmt]

I suppose we are touching on the philosophical argument of objective vs subjective reality.

The angle of the thread for me is more about Solipsism, as Doc described. I have seen a thread where you guys were discussing subjectivity, I think it's slightly different.

 

[Jon]

Save that, from my own perspective, I have no guarantee that Jon, you, Bee, Donald Trump, Brad Pitt or the rest of the world I perceive really exist outside of my own consciousness.

Maybe I am not using the right terminology. Some people think there is an objective reality out there. Others think there is no such thing, and that it stems from just the mind. That was what I was intending to refer to.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

In other words, every single instance of a virtual reality is completely consistent with the virtual reality itself, and any and all attempts to explain such instances would, too, be bound to the same laws.

I have to modify my position. There are THREE main divisions of this question.

1. Reality exists and we merely see some facet of it. Reality is created by natural forces.

2. There actually IS a god and we are ALL facets of His imagination. Equal in effect would be the setup of The Matrix because regardless of whether it is God or the central computer running the virtual world, it is a world not of our making - but is the product of SOMEONE's action.

3. We are each disembodied intellects dreaming up a world of our own. This of course totally avoids the question of who WE are that we would be in such a predicament since our perfect virtual existence covers up our origins.

I avoided #2 initially because in truth, there is no way for us to differentiate between #1 and #2. In either case, we didn't make the simulation for ourselves, which is what they would have in common.

The thing is, we CAN make a philosophical investigation of the differences between #3 and the other two choices. #3 has us being our own "gods" and directing our existence. But in such a life we would not have our own tragedies, or at least I don't think we would. The fact that our lives can include tragedies makes me think that #3 cannot be true.

Then it comes down to "Is someone external running the show" or "Is the show running on its own momentum."?? The idea of an external agent running the show again just kicks the can down the road.