Reality... Am I the only one?

[sash]

For anyone who is interested in reading the Matrix "Brain In a Vat" theory and other Matrix philosophies they are all available from the official website (whatisthematrix.com...)


Warm Regards
Sasha

[Chris]

This question is age old. Look up solipsism as almost anything you ever wanted to know on this problem will be found there.
Generally one decides it can't prove such a thing either way, so why not believe that all the other minds you meet are real and not a creation of your own mind/Gods mind.
One can go the other way and believe you are the only awarness and the rest is a creation/illusion. But if you are wrong and do something 'bad' then you might still have to face the ruleset of the illusion (ie prison).

Hroom,

but to anyone who might ask this question .... just think ...

I sympathise entirely with your dilemma but when we are questioning figures of speech, and I don't mean to teach you to suck eggs here, try speaking metaphorically so that you become more 'adept at practice'. Metaphors can be a really smart linguistic tool. Of course, at some level, you already knew that didn't you?

This question is age old. Look up solipsism as almost anything you ever wanted to know on this problem will be found there.
Generally one decides it can't prove such a thing either way, so why not believe that all the other minds you meet are real and not a creation of your own mind/Gods mind.
One can go the other way and believe you are the only awarness and the rest is a creation/illusion. But if you are wrong and do something 'bad' then you might still have to face the ruleset of the illusion (ie prison).

Being alone is, itself, a sort of prison. Perhaps some might say it is better to be in a prison made of cinder blocks and iron bars than one made by one's own mind?

[Chris]

This question is age old. Look up solipsism as almost anything you ever wanted to know on this problem will be found there.
Generally one decides it can't prove such a thing either way, so why not believe that all the other minds you meet are real and not a creation of your own mind/Gods mind.
One can go the other way and believe you are the only awarness and the rest is a creation/illusion. But if you are wrong and do something 'bad' then you might still have to face the ruleset of the illusion (ie prison).

Being alone is, itself, a sort of prison. Perhaps some might say it is better to be in a prison made of cinder blocks and iron bars than one made by one's own mind?

But in truth, even if other minds exist, we are forever alone. To quote Aldous Huxley, who puts this very elegantly:

We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies—all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.
Most island universes are sufficiently like one another to Permit of inferential understanding or even of mutual empathy or "feeling into." Thus, remembering our own bereavements and humiliations, we can condole with others in analogous circumstances, can put ourselves (always, of course, in a slightly Pickwickian sense) in their places. But in certain cases communication between universes is incomplete or even nonexistent. The mind is its own place, and the Places inhabited by the insane and the exceptionally gifted are so different from the places where ordinary men and women live, that there is little or no common ground of memory to serve as a basis for understanding or fellow feeling. Words are uttered, but fail to enlighten. The things and events to which the symbols refer belong to mutually exclusive realms of experience.

Which is in essence saying that our brain/mind creates our entire reality based upon sensory input. We existed within a mind construct (which we perceive to be external). Everything we ever see, touch, taste, or experience is but a simulation created internally based on perceived ‘external’ input.
So whenever we touch others, we actually touch our minds interpretation of that touch, the same with all sensory perception.
So at the core of it, we are forever imprisoned within our minds.

Being alone is, itself, a sort of prison. Perhaps some might say it is better to be in a prison made of cinder blocks and iron bars than one made by one's own mind?

But in truth, even if other minds exist, we are forever alone. To quote Aldous Huxley, who puts this very elegantly:

We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies—all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.
Most island universes are sufficiently like one another to Permit of inferential understanding or even of mutual empathy or "feeling into." Thus, remembering our own bereavements and humiliations, we can condole with others in analogous circumstances, can put ourselves (always, of course, in a slightly Pickwickian sense) in their places. But in certain cases communication between universes is incomplete or even nonexistent. The mind is its own place, and the Places inhabited by the insane and the exceptionally gifted are so different from the places where ordinary men and women live, that there is little or no common ground of memory to serve as a basis for understanding or fellow feeling. Words are uttered, but fail to enlighten. The things and events to which the symbols refer belong to mutually exclusive realms of experience.

Which is in essence saying that our brain/mind creates our entire reality based upon sensory input. We existed within a mind construct (which we perceive to be external). Everything we ever see, touch, taste, or experience is but a simulation created internally based on perceived ‘external’ input.
So whenever we touch others, we actually touch our minds interpretation of that touch, the same with all sensory perception.
So at the core of it, we are forever imprisoned within our minds.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of they friends's or of thine own were.

Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

In my humble opinion, Aldous Huxley is not much of an authority...

But there is some truth to what he wrote -- if one bases one's life on words. But there is so much more to life than words. Pictures and the body unite us all. Can I prove this? More words... Can you disprove it?

The great difference between Aristotle and Socrates is that Aristotle used mere words, while Socrates used the power of community: Aristotle wrote monologs. Plato, Socrates' disciple, wrote dialogs.

Personally, I tend to favor Socrates' approach.

It was Jesus' approach, as well...

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife;
And the two will become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one.
Mark 10:7-8

[Chris]

In my humble opinion, Aldous Huxley is not much of an authority...

But there is some truth to what he wrote -- if one bases one's life on words. But there is so much more to life than words. Pictures and the body unite us all. Can I prove this? More words... Can you disprove it?

The great difference between Aristotle and Socrates is that Aristotle used mere words, while Socrates used the power of community: Aristotle wrote monologs. Plato, Socrates' disciple, wrote dialogs.

Personally, I tend to favor Socrates' approach.

It was Jesus' approach, as well...

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife;
And the two will become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one.
Mark 10:7-8

I quote Huxley as his words are of a poetic slant which transcends their syntactic meaning – I would say he has more authority then most – the quote was taken from his ‘Doors of perception’, gleaned from a mystical experienced brought about by the sacrament mescaline.

I disagree that pictures or body unite us. Perhaps as a community, but that is impersonal – it’s an external bond, any internal manifestations of that are private and can never be shared ‘as-is’. We can try and share the experience through words, or art, or even song. But these things will be filtered through an individuals belief systems, ego, and accumulated experiences to date. The end product would be very different from the intended product.
There was an interesting study recently regarding pictures. Its focus was the difference between the western and eastern mind set and perception. It turns out that westerners focus on 1 area of the picture, whereas easterners focus on the whole picture. For example a picture of a man in the forest, westerners studied the man, whereas easterners studied the surrounding forest – paying little attention to the man. We can also never be certain that we each perceive the same colour. We might interpret certain frequencies of light with a certain colour, we each learn this and attach a name to it, but we can never be certain that each of us sees the exact same hue. I am not talking about colour blindness here If one looks through the left and right eyes, we notice that one eye favours red hues and the other blue hues (or what we perceive to be blue or red). These things change the way a person would perceive a picture to be – so they would translate it different to another.

My original point was, that sensory organs take information to the brain. They never transmit information. When we look into the distance, our eyes suck in photons, pulses reach the brain and we experience the scene in a mind construct. We never see those distant mountains, we see our brains interpretation.
There are also many interesting studies regarding how eyes perceive very little of the world. They can see basic forms and shapes – not enough to create the world we perceive. Our view of reality is very heavily filtered by the brain. Like colour. If we focus on an object, only the object is in colour – the peripheral information is actually perceived in intensity (not colour tone) – yet after brain filtering we see our whole visual field as coloured.

What I’m getting at is we literally do live in our mind ‘reflected outwards’. Sentiments such as a wife and husband becoming one soul are poetic, but on this plane of existence it’s an impossibility. If you don’t agree with this, I’d be interested to know how one could experience anything which hasn’t first been interpreted by mind and brain.
My fingers on the keyboard typing this, nerve ends fire and send information to the brain. I feel this reaction, not the key. I type on mind generated keys, forever separated from whatever their 'external' manifestation might be (keys, interference patterns - who knows?). I trail my fingers up my lovers arm - however close we feel - however powerful the emotions beating in my breast - they are forever mine and mine alone. I can attempt to convey these fealings , and hopefully her belief system (ego, experience to date) is sufficiently similar to allow an acceptable translation - but the experience itself can never be anything other than mine.

In my humble opinion, Aldous Huxley is not much of an authority...

But there is some truth to what he wrote -- if one bases one's life on words. But there is so much more to life than words. Pictures and the body unite us all. Can I prove this? More words... Can you disprove it?

The great difference between Aristotle and Socrates is that Aristotle used mere words, while Socrates used the power of community: Aristotle wrote monologs. Plato, Socrates' disciple, wrote dialogs.

Personally, I tend to favor Socrates' approach.

It was Jesus' approach, as well...

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife;
And the two will become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one.
Mark 10:7-8

I quote Huxley as his words are of a poetic slant which transcends their syntactic meaning – I would say he has more authority then most – the quote was taken from his ‘Doors of perception’, gleaned from a mystical experienced brought about by the sacrament mescaline.

I disagree that pictures or body unite us. Perhaps as a community, but that is impersonal – it’s an external bond, any internal manifestations of that are private and can never be shared ‘as-is’. We can try and share the experience through words, or art, or even song. But these things will be filtered through an individuals belief systems, ego, and accumulated experiences to date. The end product would be very different from the intended product.
There was an interesting study recently regarding pictures. Its focus was the difference between the western and eastern mind set and perception. It turns out that westerners focus on 1 area of the picture, whereas easterners focus on the whole picture. For example a picture of a man in the forest, westerners studied the man, whereas easterners studied the surrounding forest – paying little attention to the man. We can also never be certain that we each perceive the same colour. We might interpret certain frequencies of light with a certain colour, we each learn this and attach a name to it, but we can never be certain that each of us sees the exact same hue. I am not talking about colour blindness here If one looks through the left and right eyes, we notice that one eye favours red hues and the other blue hues (or what we perceive to be blue or red). These things change the way a person would perceive a picture to be – so they would translate it different to another.

My original point was, that sensory organs take information to the brain. They never transmit information. When we look into the distance, our eyes suck in photons, pulses reach the brain and we experience the scene in a mind construct. We never see those distant mountains, we see our brains interpretation.
There are also many interesting studies regarding how eyes perceive very little of the world. They can see basic forms and shapes – not enough to create the world we perceive. Our view of reality is very heavily filtered by the brain. Like colour. If we focus on an object, only the object is in colour – the peripheral information is actually perceived in intensity (not colour tone) – yet after brain filtering we see our whole visual field as coloured.

What I’m getting at is we literally do live in our mind ‘reflected outwards’. Sentiments such as a wife and husband becoming one soul are poetic, but on this plane of existence it’s an impossibility. If you don’t agree with this, I’d be interested to know how one could experience anything which hasn’t first been interpreted by mind and brain.
My fingers on the keyboard typing this, nerve ends fire and send information to the brain. I feel this reaction, not the key. I type on mind generated keys, forever separated from whatever their 'external' manifestation might be (keys, interference patterns - who knows?). I trail my fingers up my lovers arm - however close we feel - however powerful the emotions beating in my breast - they are forever mine and mine alone. I can attempt to convey these fealings , and hopefully her belief system (ego, experience to date) is sufficiently similar to allow an acceptable translation - but the experience itself can never be anything other than mine.

It must be nice to have attained such certainty. In my humble opinion, however, the mind is fundamentally undefinable. Indeed, I must confess that I do not know what matter is, or my body, or time or space. What I know -- or pretend to know -- is always at a higher level of abstraction, and rarely approaches what I would consider to be elementary.

But it is good to know that you and Mr. Huxley have attained such certainty.

For my part, I shall continue to plod on in uncertainty and darkness...

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

[Chris]

It must be nice to have attained such certainty. In my humble opinion, however, the mind is fundamentally undefinable. Indeed, I must confess that I do not know what matter is, or my body, or time or space. What I know -- or pretend to know -- is always at a higher level of abstraction, and rarely approaches what I would consider to be elementary.

But it is good to know that you and Mr. Huxley have attained such certainty.

And nowhere in my previous post or the quote of Huxley have matter, body, time or space been defined. How brain/mind received information of what we consider to be external physical reality was stated, and how that information has been shown by science to be minimal at best (not the detailed reality we perceive), and how the brain generates our reality perception based on this input was written – nothing more.
It’s known that mind cannot distinguish between imagination and external reality – interesting scientific papers detail how a group gained significant muscle mass through the act of visualisation of weight lifting alone. A control group who did nothing gained no muscle mass and another group who weight lifted gained most mass. This and many other experiments backup the view of reality being mind generated.
Do you disagree that sensory organs only receive information, or do you perceive the eyes to project photons which paint the external world? If we cannot be certain of the most rudimentary logical deductions backed up by empirical evidence – we might as well stop all learning right now.
Abstract knowledge, by definition can be no more than belief system. Abstractions hold no more insight than what they are given – and even that insight is ambiguous.

It should also be said that the phasing model of ap is built upon these ideas. Physical reality being just a focus state on the spectrum of consciousness.

So whenever we touch others, we actually touch our minds interpretation of that touch, the same with all sensory perception.

• The statement is illogical. You seems to be using the word touch ambiguously. Perhaps a better way to say what you have in mind is...
  
  

  Further, whatever is received into "a thing is received according to the mode of the receiver and not of the received." But whatever is seen is, in a way, received into the seer.

  and "the same with all sensory perception..."

And nowhere in my previous post or the quote of Huxley have matter, body, time or space been defined. How brain/mind received information of what we consider to be external physical reality was stated, and how that information has been shown by science to be minimal at best (not the detailed reality we perceive), and how the brain generates our reality perception based on this input was written – nothing more.
It’s known that mind cannot distinguish between imagination and external reality – interesting scientific papers detail how a group gained significant muscle mass through the act of visualisation of weight lifting alone. A control group who did nothing gained no muscle mass and another group who weight lifted gained most mass. This and many other experiments backup the view of reality being mind generated.
Do you disagree that sensory organs only receive information, or do you perceive the eyes to project photons which paint the external world? If we cannot be certain of the most rudimentary logical deductions backed up by empirical evidence – we might as well stop all learning right now.
Abstract knowledge, by definition can be no more than belief system. Abstractions hold no more insight than what they are given – and even that insight is ambiguous.

It should also be said that the phasing model of ap is built upon these ideas. Physical reality being just a focus state on the spectrum of consciousness.

1. I know you haven't defined your terms. I thought that is what I said.[/*:m:3jn328tg]
2. You say, "It’s known that mind cannot distinguish between imagination and external reality..." But I do it all the time! For example, I can imagine reaching over to pick up an imaginary coffee cup, without actually doing so. Perhaps you are using some terms ambiguously?[/*:m:3jn328tg]
3. Furthermore, the example given would seem to indicate that the body may not distinguish between imagination and experience.[/*:m:3jn328tg]
4. Sensory organs do what they do. My hand, for example, is a sensory organ. But I use it for other purposes, as well.[/*:m:3jn328tg]
5. You write... "Abstract knowledge, by definition can be no more than belief system." By definition abstract knowledge is knowledge drawn from abstraction. For example, a child sees a variety of objects. He discovers that such sensory phantasms can be divided into categories: animal, vegetable, mineral... I would not call such knowledge a belief. To be a belief one must add a predicate. For example, many have accepted as belief that all swans are white.[/*:m:3jn328tg]

Please forgive my being tedious. But in philosophy one must be very careful, lest one be drawn into absolute statements where only relative ones are appropriate.

By the way... I suspect that Huxley may have used too much sacramental mescaline. If so, it might have affected his judgment.