If I perceive 1%, but not the 99%, is my perception real or not? What makes it real, what makes it false? How can I know what I perceive is 1% and not 99% or any other percent? Who quantifies that? On what base? How it is quantified?
I haven't checked every response here...but this has been around for some time. http://www.crystalinks.com/holographic.html
Yea..... It's like the same to try to 'think' about non-duality by dualistic means.....the 'illusion' is already the 'thinking of the individual' not the content.... In general it's always like: An illusionary idea of myself has got an illusionary idea of 'something' else... but....both is included in reality... Just like :What is percent at all. Or how much is one 1% from infinity?.....value is illusionary. Anything that is related (to an illusion) is illusionary. It is made from a particular perspective...and only relatively 'real'.. Also the reality cannot become.....it IS (real).....means reality 'relies' in being not in becoming...just like I am! And not I am Yen.... I totally agree with this. Why would it have to be one or the other? Because people take 'their' reality as absolute (reality)...and do not distinguish...this is also the reason why there are most of fights in humankind...
I see it almost the same and compare this with e.g. an bird. He have another reality as we, because he can't see e.g. in the same colors, will never able to draw a picture and other things. It's because his horizon is very limited same as his ability's. Now matter how hard he tries he will never break such limitations, maybe one day via evolution but that's another topic I think. In this context I see reality vs. Imagination and illusion as an good start for a discussion.
1) A bent stick; 2) A straight pencil in water; So, how am I being deceived? Where is the illusion? When I see the second image, I don't think, "oh look, a bent pencil." So how is it that I "perceive a bent pencil?"
As for the rest of the discussion: you forget the Kant to Hegel development (Ding an Sich), gentlemen... Good night...
@sid_16: I don't see a straight pencil, but a bent one. The only fact that you know physics and learned about refraction, you know the pencil is straight. Your knowledge tells you the pencil is straight, even though your eyes see it bent. @gorski: Read something written by Vivekananda. It will change your perception.
Das Ding an Sich is beyond thinking...is it 'recognized' by thinking it becomes...an (separated) object by thoughts. This is maya, the illusion. Answered above. Either way the 'pencil and stick' are objects by thoughts. It is dependent on your perspective...also to assign 'the illusion' to one of those depends on your perspective... Both are perceived as bent objects by the eye...
Not all are equally 'enlightened' like you seem to be but for the argument's shake when I see the images , the things pictured both look to me like bent pencil/stick. From source SEP,
Hmm... Smith actually does not help at all.....the point is "appears other than it really is". It implies one knows how 'it really is'...according to Smith reality is just a question of probability... This makes no sense at all....it are rather different degrees of illusions then... Deception and illusion belong together.
Soccy: "Tell the truth boldly, whether it hurts or not. Never pander to weakness. If truth is too much for intelligent people and sweeps them away, let them go; the sooner the better." Hmmm... I don't feel any change in my perception of anything or anybody, nope, sorry... Yen, please write a paper on the subject and try to publish it in a Philosophy journal...
So you want to say you are not able to change 'your' perspective? No matter what I publish it wouldn’t affect 'the reality' in a way, though...
No, he is not able to change my perspective - there, that wasn't all that difficult... Indeed, you wouldn't change "reality" because you would not manage to get it published...
Yen sir, the problem of perception, I suggest you should look it up, if you're unfamiliar with it, in the link I posted earlier.
...and while you are at it, here's a little bit of good, old heavy duty philosophical literature to boot, just so you actually know what you are talking about, Yen... https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hp/hpkant.htm http://www.iep.utm.edu/germidea/ - a general context... or http://www.academia.edu/721862/Nietzsches_Critique_of_Kants_Thing_in_Itself - one way of leaning into it... they all did... And would you just look at this pillow fight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Noumenon Have fun!
@gorski: read the whole book, not just a paragraph. @sid_16: if you see a straight pencil, then you need an eye exam. P.S. Quoting from a book doesn't make you knowledgeable. but you prove you're able to read. That's all.
Excuse me, Sir, I had no idea I had to write a 100000 pages essay to tell that a straight pencil put in water appears bent. I KNOW the pencil is STRAIGHT even though while in water I see it bent.
The thread title is :Is reality an illusion? It is a wide spread topic, but addresses myself. This means I post what I think about. When there is a reference I can post it, too. (It is actually conform to Maya as I have found out later in my life) Then far later in detail we could debate about for instance how is the relation of Maya to Das Ding an Sich according to Kant and later to Hegel…but that is actually not the topic. I have a problem when people say do it the right way and then post references to other ‘people’. I want to know own opinions/points of views. I do not want to parrot Hegel’s or anybody others own idea of reality…. Another thing would be….like: Read this please …..link to reference…and reflect your thoughts of reality/illusion on it! Not to get me wrong. I would do it, but only one relation at once. It requires a lot of time to read/study…that is the point. Mostly out of curiosity I read what is linked…but not anything the time when answering. I try to reduce it when posting on the essential by pointing out a general ‘mechanism’ which is noticeable to me. The own reality is a result of a particular own perspective. To speak of “appears other than it really is” is nothing special, because a statement about reality is ever made from the individual perspective. This reality is always dependent on the perspective! The sea seems straight from a beach but is bent from space because the earth is a sphere.... This means: ”Anything perceived appears other that it really is” would be the correct statement. The Easterners say: “Individual spirit is Maya” The only approach that makes sense is to examine the practical process of perception itself….to write about the reality brings no new info and to read about does never lead to a ‘Knowledge’ of ‘the reality’… To most people the own reality is ‘the reality’ and…they assign the attribute ‘real’ to probability. Means the more individuals say it that way, the more real it is. Or the longer the particular state lasts the more real it is. They think they know ‘the reality’ what it is and that is the major illusion. I 'know' the stick is straight as well, but 'something' let it appear as bent... At the stick it is some extra tension at the pencil it is the refraction because light speed reduces in water more than in air. Where is the illusion?