"reality Is Merely An Illusion


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That is a lovely lovely quote. Thank you for that.

Once you ask the question "is this real?" (providing "this" is defined as everything), you can never get an answer. All the data we have to go on suggests

... yes that it's real

AND

... that it's an incredibly persistent and consistent illusion

whereas things we can identify as illusions (dreams, stories, magic tricks, films, theatre) don't appear to persist very long - we wake up, the film ends, the conjuror takes a bow - and/or may not be consistent - dreams shift, coins don't ordinarily pass through solid surfaces, and so on.

We don't have a frame to measure "reality" by, whereas the things we recognise as illusions appear to end at the frame (the TV box, the end of the show, waking up).

If anyone does have a frame, it's the physicists, and the mystics.

It is conceivable also that any consciousness which survives death would also have a frame.

Edited by Bluecat
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~ It's a quote by Albert Einstein...

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a persistent one."

Now I think that an interesting thought! What think you on that thought?

Reality really is dreadfully persistent, so much so, you have to wonder why anyone would ever consider it an illusion. The strongest argument for the non-reality of reality of which I can think, arises when existence is observed in the context of time.

The past is gone -- it once existed, but it no longer does. The future has yet to arrive, so it doesn't exist, either. All that exists, is what exists now. And what is now?

Now is a fleeting, one dimensional point, moving along a line. Theoretically, any segment of time can be divided in half an infinite number of times. The non-existent future springs into existence and then moves into the non-existence of the past, a million times, and more, in the blink of an eye.

I'm not bold enough to site this as proof that everything is illusion, but it sure does make me think that there's something fundamentally flawed in our perception of reality.

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Now is a fleeting, one dimensional point, moving along a line. Theoretically, any segment of time can be divided in half an infinite number of times. The non-existent future springs into existence and then moves into the non-existence of the past, a million times, and more, in the blink of an eye.

I'm not bold enough to site this as proof that everything is illusion, but it sure does make me think that there's something fundamentally flawed in our perception of reality.

Would love to hear some discussion on this, seems interesting.

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You think it isn't? :lol:

Um, think what isn't what? Think reality isn't illusion? Every time I stub my toe, I'm pretty convinced that reality isn't illusion.

There are plenty of head games that could lead me to believe otherwise, but all the mental posturing notwithstanding, reality always manages to remind me that it's still there.

I guess that's the pesistence thingy that Einstein was talking about.

Edited by Verisoph
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It's not that reality is an illusion. It is what it is.

It is our understanding of reality that is an illusion. The map is not the territory.

Our understanding of reality doesn't quite fit.

There are always outcomes that are not predicted, no matter what concept of reality you possess.

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theres still the possibility that your crazy as an oilpan full of clamshells and have no grip on reality.

~ :lol: That's true. That old "Am I a man dreaming I am a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming I am a man?"

I've dreamt I was asleep dreaming of being awake {I think... I get confused sometimes :unsure: }

I finally realised that whatever reality or not I may be in I've just got to treat it as real. Because that moment is.

I could be in a coma somewhere living a totally imaginary life {yeah, yeah, shades of 'Matrix' & hundreds of other sci-fi stories} it still would be my reality, wouldn't it? It would be an extremely elaborate construct, don't know as I'm smart enough to craft such. Or each moment could just create the illusion that the past has happened...

Y'know, I'm probably gonna have odd dreams tonight! :lol:

Edited by Qryos
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It's not that reality is an illusion. It is what it is.

It is our understanding of reality that is an illusion. The map is not the territory.

Our understanding of reality doesn't quite fit.

There are always outcomes that are not predicted, no matter what concept of reality you possess.

~ True, we are confined by 5 simple senses. We may strive to create sensors to understand what we can't physically know, but they are basically ways to enhance what we already have.

To actually know reality beyond what we are capable of comprehending...

Well, maybe before birth &/or after death, don't know.

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~ True, we are confined by 5 simple senses. We may strive to create sensors to understand what we can't physically know, but they are basically ways to enhance what we already have.

To actually know reality beyond what we are capable of comprehending...

Well, maybe before birth &/or after death, don't know.

"The essential purport of the world-famous monologue in Hamlet is, in condensed form, that our state is so wretched that complete non-existence would be decidedly preferable to it. Now if suicide actually offered us this, so that the alternative "to be or not to be" lay before us in the full sense of the words, it could be chosen unconditionally as a highly desirable termination ("a consummation devoutly to be wish'd" [Act III, Sc.I.]). There is something in us, however, which tells us that this is not so, that this is not the end of things, that death is not an absolute annihilation." -- German philosopher Schopenhauer

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Reality really is dreadfully persistent, so much so, you have to wonder why anyone would ever consider it an illusion. The strongest argument for the non-reality of reality of which I can think, arises when existence is observed in the context of time.

The past is gone -- it once existed, but it no longer does. The future has yet to arrive, so it doesn't exist, either. All that exists, is what exists now. And what is now?

Now is a fleeting, one dimensional point, moving along a line. Theoretically, any segment of time can be divided in half an infinite number of times. The non-existent future springs into existence and then moves into the non-existence of the past, a million times, and more, in the blink of an eye.

I'm not bold enough to site this as proof that everything is illusion, but it sure does make me think that there's something fundamentally flawed in our perception of reality.

:clap2:

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