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Posts: 968
0 votes RE: Am I Alice or a Butterfly?

Whoa~

I like Turncoat's Occam's razor argument. But even that has its presuppositions.

Posts: 2266
0 votes RE: Am I Alice or a Butterfly?

Check into Philip K. Dick for a more artistic bent on reality philosophy: 

Throughout his life, he suffered from severe hallucinations and a distorted view of reality. His novels reflect this, and his writing made him one of the most beloved and most critically acclaimed writers in the sci-fi genre.

Dick has said his writings revolve around two questions:
1) What is reality?
2) What does it mean to be human?

Dick's characters typically spend much of his work wondering who they are, and whether their memories are real or fake.

Similarly a common theme in his works is a comparison between an objective "Real" reality and a subjective "Perceived" reality, debating the dividing line between the two and whether it is even worth contemplating the difference; a theme that reflected his own mental state. 

He wrote serious existential and theological treatises within the context of futuristic science-fiction stories, when science-fiction novels were still in their infancy and considered as childish and peripheral by the majority of the literary world. He was one of the first authors to use fantasy and science-fiction to discuss taboo and socially risqué subjects, contemplating ideas that wouldn't be discussed in mainstream academia for decades. He mixed, deconstructed, and reconstructed philosophical and psychological ideology from everything from Carl Jung and his theories on collective consciousness through to Jean-Paul Sartre and his theories on individualism, constantly searching to define and challenge reality and the human mind. Some of his stories have been cited by big-name philosophers like Jean Baudrillard and Slavoj Zizek.

His largest work is to date unpublished save a few excerpts - over 7000 pages of notes speculating on Greek philosophy, early Christianity, theology, mental illness, and the implicate structure of the universe itself. This work, titled the "Exegesis," spans thousands of years of metaphysics and occult literature. Written during the final few years of his life, it is either his greatest triumph of skeptical empiricism or a deep descent into incomprehensible insanity.

His works are what inspired Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (which I also highly recommend), and Blade Runner was also inspired from his literary works (in this case Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which has been converted into a graphic novel that carries every line from the book). He at some point in his life claimed to have seen someone in a dream (while under drugs at the dentist's office) that he then met later in real life, prompting his mental state to deteriorate further. 

Around 1974, Dick began to have odd revelations/hallucinations, culminating with direct contact with the entity formerly known as God. Many think he suffered from schizophrenia, a possibility Dick himself acknowledged and wrestled with. He became increasingly paranoid, at one point alleging that the KGB or the FBI stole documents from his house (he did, in fact, come home one night to find one of his filing cabinets forced open); later, he suggested that he might have broken into his own house and then forgotten about it. Many suspect his later novels are so confusing because he was trying to work out these problems in his writing.

His works are a form of genius, but they stem from a man who believes he didn't even come up with his own stories, but that rather he was covering them journalistically from his means of seeing into other worlds. Fans of his work seem to think that reading his stories in order serves as a timeline of his mental state, and I've been meaning to push myself into diving into his works but keep not doing it

He was so ahead of his time that people are still looking into him now. 

 I've had a number of his writings in my amazon cart for about 3 months now on anothers recommendation, I just finished what a novel I've been working on the past month so I'll go with Electric Sheep next. 

Posts: 2266
0 votes RE: Am I Alice or a Butterfly?

There was no denying its realness beyond the obvious ability to question it as I am now, but as is currently the case with my capacity to question the experience is real enough to not yield an answer.

Exactly

If we can be blind within the dreams towards if it's real or not, how are we supposed to be able to know if this is real or not? It's essentially the Matrix question before it was appropriated to be about speed dating, and goes further on to the nature of questioning if the outer world the red pill sends them to is real or yet another simulation (suggested through Neo's powers IRL in the second film that both must be fake). 

My trouble with the question has been radicalized since my dream. I've played with questions as pure entertainment before and Have been a fan of the idea of simulacra. You can treat the world we are in now as a simulation full of simulacra as it is full of images and representations of reality that simply are not so. This goes double if you consider where you and I actually interact, not in physicality but in this hyperdimensional metaspace called the internet. 

However, there's always been the feeling that the parent set of the simulations and simulacra have been my perception at the least and physicality at the most. After the experience of the dream I am confronted that my reality here may simply be another image nested in a greater set still unknown. 

A key fundamental difference was that physics and causality fundamentally worked differently. 

How can we know that the world we're sitting in right now is consistent when we cannot gauge consistency from within the dream? This blind spot is what led to people questioning the nature of Solipsism.

Indeed, physics in causality of this different reality were different but my belief and ability to navigate them without second thought in a seamless manner - and the same goes for this world. While here I put very little thought in walking from one side of the room to the other, the physics of it and its causality, just as in this other reality are second nature to me. 

Sometimes my desk disturbs me but that predates all this I'm afraid. 

What was especially troublesome was the time each experience lasted. In all dreams but this one the experiences were ephemeral and discrete while this one was long lasting, it's whole duration seeming like it lasted decades and it was continuous. 

Starting to sound like the passage of time idea in Inception. 

More importantly though, we only exist in the moment with our perceptions offset behind it based on our reaction time. The notion of duration is only held in our minds, in our memories, so a fake memory could just as easily be simply convincing you that it's been a while... rather than it having been a while. 

If you remember years passing, that's why it felt like it happened. This does not even mean that there's a set duration attached to it, but rather that you in but a moment's time were potentially able to convince yourself of said passage of time. It's less about what we've witnessed and more about what we believe we've seen in hindsight. 

That's one of the more disturbing dimensions of this. 

I have a past and it feels lived but does it feel lived because I lived it or does it feel lived because I've convinced myself of it. 

Reality as i currently know it and dreams seem to have an unexpected intersection which is often looked over. It is always the case that when I enter a dream I enter into a context fully understanding my place in it - but that's the thing I just appear and know there's not must memory of how I got there. The peculiar thing is I don't really remember getting here either. I know the context, I was born, but I can't remember the experience of it to be sure. 

I'd only dreamed like that once, never before it and never again since, and the only reason I don't give it more merit is over Occam's Razor. 

I am not sure Occam's Razor suffices as I can't find one experience fundamentally more complicated than the other when. I could use bias to say "I am here now" so I chose this one but that may only be true only in its own context.  

I can rationalize that it was still a dream, but that it was influenced by something amiss with myself like if it were a fever dream or something (I didn't go to sleep sick or wake up sick, but as an example of what could offset the dreaming experience). 

Anything I believe I saw in the dream is merely a belief, and I have no way of proving if once I revisited California if it matched up or if I simply reinvented the memory so that it'd match up. As a matter of heuristics I cannot take what I believe now to be identical to what I once believed, even if it's over small shifts in details happening without my awareness. Memory is suuuper malleable, and our certainty in it is purely an ego thing. 

We only exist now, right now, right this moment, and everything we believe to have experienced only has as much validity as our ability to prove it to ourselves. 

 I think I understand what you're saying. 

 The only thing I have good reason to believe is that which is before my eyes or that which is in my mind this very moment.

 In other words the only reality I should be certain of is my current reality. 

 As it relates to Occams Razor my belief in this reality right now is easier to prove than any other given my current experience   given any belief in another reality would require in the validity of my own memories and past experiences, which in the context of this discussion, are already called into question. 

last edit on 11/26/2020 4:44:37 AM
Posts: 2266
0 votes RE: Am I Alice or a Butterfly?

Does it matter?

It’s not clear that what constitutes the mind is matter thus I’m not sure it does matter.

 lol

Even if it were, to what end would you be finding out? 

Idk, I haven't found it yet.

In theory. : P

I really have no idea. 

At the top end one could say I hope to find the truth behind reality but obviously that's a tall order and has been the question of metaphysics since the dawn of the pre-socratics and even longer when considering theological ideas. Those very questions have lead us to where we are now though.

If not for Anaximander and Thales the Greeks would not have explored the question of being naturally. If not for the Greeks the the Islamic Persians would not have discovered algebra and explored alchemy in order to not only know of it but materialize it. The Islamic Persians made possible the renaissance and modernism which gave us science and calculus. And from the modernists I inherited the ability to respond to you by clicking buttons and sending electrical signals. The majority of the intellectual endeavour across time has been a direct result of the question of being. 

So to what end would I be finding out? I am as unsure as Anaximander and Thales and I believe myself to be wanting in the end. But so will whoever comes after me.  

Is it purely an emotional necessity? 

Most things we humans get up to are at least partially if not completely. Why should this be any different?

I'm saying "purely" as opposed to an emotional drive towards an intended rationale.

It feels necessary but so do all things I rationalize. 

When I am proving a result I a rationalizing it not because it makes it necessary to for me to rationalize it but because I feel it necessary to fell certain of it. 

The question exists and therefore begs for an answer, regardless of context? 

Questions do not beg for answers, humans who ask them do.

lol It's a figure of speech.

I'm aware. 

Or do you imagine there's some measurable value to be had in awareness of an objective reality, even if the exact bounds of that reality remain unclear?

What makes something valuable? 

 Subjective need.  I'm asking about your values.

 I enjoy understanding things, the more impossible to understand the better.

 As such,  Being naturally gains my affection 

Posts: 2266
0 votes RE: Am I Alice or a Butterfly?
Quietbeef said:
We're a collection of faulty perceptions, that's it.

Do you just sit there accepting this about yourself beyond the realm of logic though? 

I can sit here spouting Nihilism all day and still carry the illusion of self importance in contradiction towards it. It's the value that comes from experiencing something rather than just reading about it, like the value one gets out of traveling to other countries rather than just reading about them on Wikipedia while seeing it through Google Street View.

If there is anything to be found beyond the philosophy of 'The Journey', we're only going to find it through yet more questions. It's the same notions that have stemmed philosophy and psychology in the first place, and as our processes become more utilitarian, more behaviorist, we'll be able to take these questions towards new places.

But that's exactly what I'm saying.  I don't think it can be retained, not unless a person's mind is wired that way already.  Even if we experience a true sensation of emotional independence from our perceived reality, it's about as relevant to us as that moment is.  And as you've said, we only exist in the moment.  Once it's behind us, all we have is the idea of it, and the idea of being a collection of faulty perceptions doesn't override things as fundamental and chemical as the ego.

I not only has what is behind me, I too have what is in front of me. 

And now I have question that in context of past and future is pure potentiality. It is only through acting on the question, here and now, that is future actualization becomes manifest as the future passes into the now. 

Is that particular actualization futile? Perhaps? It's physical utility in so far as belief in the consistency of this world seems to have been justified. But if you put no stock in that then perhaps its futile because we are futile as objective actors. Or perhaps its futile because its context, if true, implies its futility. But the two latter options would imply everything is futile and as such how I spend my time doesn't matter. I think I'll spend my futility asking the question. 

Looking for an objective reality is an exercise in futility, it's ultimately irrelevant by our very nature.

The Sciences beg to differ, assuming The Sciences aren't all made up in my head just as much as you and Alice otherwise are. 

Objective reality beyond the room to say "We don't know anything" is found through consistency, but getting to the point of noting those consistencies took questions. Even if this reality is fake, a dream in my own head, then feeding this dream more nourishment is bound to make my understood reality more fleshed out. 

I'm not saying looking for consistencies within our shared realities is futile, which is what science is.  I'm saying that seeking a level of objectivity beyond human perception itself is futile.

The Quantum world is beyond human perception, yet through clever experimentation and inference we've deduced quite a lot and it has built on scientific consistency - we wouldn't be able to communicate as we are now without understanding it to some degree. 

Posts: 842
1 votes RE: Am I Alice or a Butterfly?

How about this babe, I'll call you butterfly for a week and you decide which name you prefer 

Posts: 968
0 votes RE: Am I Alice or a Butterfly?
The Quantum world is beyond human perception, yet through clever experimentation and inference we've deduced quite a lot and it has built on scientific consistency - we wouldn't be able to communicate as we are now without understanding it to some degree.

I find this curious; what do you mean? I always think of theories as descriptive. In my view, quantum mechanics (or QFT) as a descriptive model is useful, but not necessarily real. There could be other descriptive models that can correctly describe the same observational phenomena.

last edit on 11/26/2020 11:02:06 PM
Posts: 2266
0 votes RE: Am I Alice or a Butterfly?
The Quantum world is beyond human perception, yet through clever experimentation and inference we've deduced quite a lot and it has built on scientific consistency - we wouldn't be able to communicate as we are now without understanding it to some degree.

I find this curious; what do you mean? I always think of theories as descriptive. In my view, quantum mechanics (or QFT) as a descriptive model is useful, but not necessarily real. There could be other descriptive models that can correctly describe the same observational phenomena.

I agree, all scientific theories are fundamentally descriptive as they are a means to understand objects by their attributes and relations. The natural consequence is that  you may never really know a thing in itself because you seemingly can never reach an objects essentia by listing attributes and as such no descriptive theory can be said to be necessarily 'real'. 

My quoted statement is addressing the nature of accessibility in science. If my science relies on empirical means to gather and verify data, then accessibility is of great importance. If I am studying Newtonian laws of motion by observing billiard balls on a table I will find the data necessary to construct my theory very accessible, so accessible that I can in fact rely upon my own senses to gather that data and rationalize it into a predictive theory by describing the attributes of the objects and their relations. This is not the case with the various theories of Quanta nor even most of astronomical studies that rely on data from wavelengths not directly observable by our own senses. The empirical study of the objects in these realms are beyond our own sensations so the creation of more sensitive sensory tools is necessitated in order to gather data to rationalize. This has come to such extremes with things such as the LHC that I would claim that we are left only to rationalize which has ultimately led to more abstract theories that are even less 'real'. This would be a side effect of the objects of study being pure abstractions do to the problem of accessibility. 

Despite such theories being less 'real' and the objects being pure abstractions they can be deemed valid do the consistency of behavior exhibited by those abstractions ultimately, as consequence we may construct predictive theories that serve as much utility as other descriptive models, such as Newtonian mechanics, whose objects are far more accessible and concrete. 

last edit on 11/27/2020 12:19:55 AM
Posts: 2266
0 votes RE: Am I Alice or a Butterfly?

If there wasn't spatial qualities to cognization or the world in general, then there would be no separation of things.
[12:09 PM]
The same can be said about succession, as without it there would be no separation of events.
[12:10 PM]
Both are merely relations between subjects and subjecters or objects and objecters.

Posts: 968
0 votes RE: Am I Alice or a Butterfly?

Ah ok, I thought you implied that the descriptive model is real in the sense that, e.g., some Newtonian force necessarily exists as a separate entity in the Universe because the Newtonian model correctly describes how two bodies with different masses move w.r.t. each other in lieu of any perturbation. But I see that's not what you were saying.

Thanks.

For me, anything that can not be observed can not be confirmed.

last edit on 11/28/2020 6:39:25 PM
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