Is Reality an Illusion ?

Discussion in 'Serious Discussion' started by R29k, Feb 12, 2016.

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Is Reality an Illusion ?

  1. Yes

    26 vote(s)
    47.3%
  2. No

    19 vote(s)
    34.5%
  3. Don't Know

    10 vote(s)
    18.2%
  1. SOCRATE_MMXII

    SOCRATE_MMXII MDL Expert

    Jan 25, 2012
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    It's not important how I got this. Maybe smoking some pot will help you.

    "All roads lead to Rome" in the end.
     
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  2. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

    Oct 21, 2009
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    It is important!

    But the rest is true! :)
     
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  3. Oh no you both ....

    but SOCRATE: not all roads lead there, ask dareckibmw he now it!

    haha...
     
  4. SOCRATE_MMXII

    SOCRATE_MMXII MDL Expert

    Jan 25, 2012
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    It's not important how you do the journey.What's important is to do it.

    :confused:
     
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  5. R29k

    R29k MDL GLaDOS

    Feb 13, 2011
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    Let me take a poke at this, it depends on how you view time.
    If you view time as linear then you won't understand it, but time isn't linear. The past, present and future all exist in the same frame. And this isn't some new age nonsense, a number of scientists have concluded the same, Einstein and Feynman to name a few.
     
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  6. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

    Oct 21, 2009
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    That's Human time, as opposed to atomic time and it was dealt with long before those guys by... errmmm... Philosophers, first and foremost... :D

    Soccy, it is essential that you journey well, even if you do not reach the end-goal... ;)
     
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  7. SOCRATE_MMXII

    SOCRATE_MMXII MDL Expert

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    Thank you. :worthy::worthy::worthy:
    I've been saying this over and over again, but I can only hope they'll get it now.
     
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  8. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

    Oct 21, 2009
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    You mean, you are discovering hot water through your... 'un-informedness'?!?
     
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  9. R29k

    R29k MDL GLaDOS

    Feb 13, 2011
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  10. ThomasMann

    ThomasMann MDL Expert

    Dec 31, 2015
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    I cannot tell... Nothing is known about these later years, maybe he never of meditation.
    Maybe he found it, and never saw a reason to write about ist?
     
  11. ThomasMann

    ThomasMann MDL Expert

    Dec 31, 2015
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    Then let me hit you with some new age nonsense.

    If "YOU view time"... is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about a state of mediatation, which has gut something to do with timelessness, and no "YOU" being there.
    If you are not into meditation, it is not a crime.

    What we usually call persons who insist on having an opinion about, or even finding it necessary to discuss something in spite of not knowing anything about is.... that word escapes me at the moment...

    If you would have experienced meditaion, you would not aks these questions, nor have that opinion.
     
  12. ThomasMann

    ThomasMann MDL Expert

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    As they say: The path is the goal....
     
  13. R29k

    R29k MDL GLaDOS

    Feb 13, 2011
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    Meditation has nothing to do with timelessness it's the placebo effect that you indulge in and meditation has everything to do with being in the present ( a frame of time). The key word here is placebo, just so you don't misquote me in your next rant.
    Also it seem apparent that you feel you're above everyone else in this thread on certain subjects. I did tai chi from 6 to 18 years old, I was a hyper personality when I was younger. And i do know about meditation first hand and I can tell you it is overrated! You can get the same benefits from proper rem sleep. The key word here is proper rem sleep.
     
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  14. SOCRATE_MMXII

    SOCRATE_MMXII MDL Expert

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    #134 SOCRATE_MMXII, Apr 16, 2016
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2016
    @R29k: placebo is the scientific term for faith. The "scientists" had to invent the term, 'cause they're kinda allergic to the word "faith". ;)

    P.S. It's called hypocrisy.
     
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  15. Yen

    Yen Admin
    Staff Member

    May 6, 2007
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    "The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon."
    Doctrines, ideologies, rules, or stories are made up of thought. They are not 'the truth' but can be used to point to it.

    To me, too! There is a misunderstanding, yes Descartes is wrong. Our human logic and the instrument we use for thinking can even grasp the top of the iceberg, actually not very much.

    I actually relate to the 'un-relate-able' for the sake of communication.

    I mean the subject not one of its appearance 'human logic'. The subject is reasoned in being, no duality. It becomes a human individual with human logic and ego and 'anything' out there.
    The subject has no location it is indistinguishable.

    Most people mean when they post 'I' not the subject, but its appearance (object).'I am' (subject) Yen (appearance, the person, describable objects..human with human logic, male, MDL admin, scientist, hobby photographer....and experiences:sitting here on a chair writing..)

    Short: I mean YOU! Not any appearance. (whatever you think of..) :)



    "Time, the bloody tyrant" is still the main topic where we have different POVs.

    OK, let us assume there is timelessness. Pure assumption. With that there comes always the same issue. When talking about (relating to it), the timeless state can only be recognized as event in the past. BUT it itself was no event since it took no time.
    We have here an issue regardless if timelessness exists or not.

    Now examples that exceed a pure assumption:

    1. In deep sleep state there is no relation. Time does not exist from THIS perspective, as there is no relation. Anyway from the perspective of the one who has slept it had duration.

    2. The speed of light is around 300000 kilometres/s. Duration from sun to earth 8 minutes. But light itself doesn't age, it is absolute. The appearance light (to the observer) takes time, light itself not. According to time-space continuum: The dimensions of space approximate 0 when reaching speed of light.

    That statement is made in relation of time by 'approximates' BUT from the perspective of timeless light there is no approximation.

    8 o clock is no time yet, 9 o clock is no time yet. BY relation of both we seemingly have duration, even more a seemingly linear process: one hour. No relation, no time (better said no duration).

    Now to the relativity of time. It appears as the fact that once an hour goes fast once it goes slowly. This can be only reasoned when one is more or less aware of the timeless now.
    IF time would be a real linear appearance a hour would be always an hour. There MUST be 'something' that lets it appear different and that can be only timeless 'states' of which one is more or less aware.

    To be more aware than less IS meditation, it is nothing special.

    By doing that since time is relative the process of perception (duration) extends.

    People who say time is our very reality do ignore its relativity which points to its illusionary character.
     
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  16. Yen

    Yen Admin
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    I agree completely with the blue bit. :)
    The 'problem' is the S/O definition.

    When you observe yourself as you seem to appear (body) then the body is the target of observation, the object but not the subject, the observer.

    If human = observer then 'where' exactly is it? Can you point on the subject (ermm brain..heart..body..whatever)..and who points then on what?
    Don’t know if you know what I mean...:)

    It's not about to have superior senses/ability to grasp the reality fully or to reach it ever in the future.
     
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  17. sid_16

    sid_16 MDL Giveaway Organiser

    Oct 15, 2011
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    Yen sir, if I understand you correctly our (humans) mental representation is based on actual information that is gathered by the senses: wavelength, pressure waves, airborne molecules, etc. Information that's neither abstract or arbitrary. Which makes the brains mental represention, if proven reliable, a valid perspective of the external World, albeit limited to a narrow band.
     
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  18. ThomasMann

    ThomasMann MDL Expert

    Dec 31, 2015
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    Lets be really precise here....

    "Indeed, in meditation, there's no time, but why is that? The answer is very simple, yet many cannot grasp it: disappearance of ego. Time is created by the ego, because ego needs time to "exist". Once the ego vanishes...time vanishes, too."

    The interesting part about this is, that the ego does not disappear.
    It never existed in the first place, so it cannot disappear... It is like a dream, no need to push it or doing anything with it... simply wake up, and it is gone. If awareness remains and no "sleep" and ego return, "they" call it enlightenment.

    Also, what I found to be a very interesting question was one I never found asked honestly: Is this desirable?
    I think not.... :p
     
  19. ThomasMann

    ThomasMann MDL Expert

    Dec 31, 2015
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    Yen,
    Statements like this are what makes it all so needlessly complicated: “OK, let us assume there is timelessness.”

    No, because the question is, whether there is time outside the human mind. Since Kant we tend to believe that it makes most sense to believe time exists only as a category of our mind. For “timelessness” to have any meaning, there is a need for time.
    But we want to know whether timeless exists and so we ought to admit that the question, or the assumption that there is, is useless. If time only exists because of human minds, then timelessness also only exists because of human minds, so it also does not exist outside us…
    So: We agree….?

    What you state in point 2 only confirms my “believe”. Our mental capability is too limited to make any sensible statement about macro- and micro- physics, which is actually not really surprising, given a little understanding of what a human being actually is.
    There are limits, even in physics, where it becomes silly for our minds to talk about anything beyond that barrier. It is what Heisenberg realized, as opposed to the morons who have the media tell us, the found the God Particle I a machine that cost several billion Dollars, while every twi seconds a child dies because of a lack of pennys to buy drink water or basic immunisations.
    Physics keeps on going on, forgetting what Feynman expressed so beautifully: If the experiment does not confirm your theory, then the theory is wrong. And what do our “scientists”? They just invent another particle and then another, because the experiment still shows the theory is wrong. So now, the highpoint of scientific intelligence, we detect that the speed of galaxies at the rim of our milky way is “wrong” and explain this by the existence of dark matter and dark energy, and the beauty of this is, that per definition these cannot be found… So, we have a theory that cannot be falsified and the clowns who consider themselves scientists take this as proof of its correctness.

    According to our mind, the speed of light is 300.000km/s, which makes it not a much more intelligent expression as the sentence that “án electron is a wave and a particle”. The simple truth would be, that we obviously use an instrument, our mind, that is too limited to deal with this kind of a problem. Again, in comes Mr W: what one cannot talk about, one should be silent about. But then, no government will pay you at the end of the month with taxpayer’s money, for making your hobby your profession…

    “To be more aware than less IS meditation, it is nothing special.”

    Sounds good, but is wrong…
    You either are aware, or you are not. I assumed you were clear about that?

    “By doing that since time is relative the process of perception (duration) extends.”

    Again sounds nice, but looking at it more closely, the connection that you consider a proof is only in your mind, it is what you believe you would see, if you actually could look at it. It may be more a more intelligent thing to say compared to what most others say, but that is has anything to do with “a reality outside us” is wishful thinking.

    Same here:

    “People who say time is our very reality do ignore its relativity which points to its illusionary character.”

    This again is only what you believe. Why would relativity point to the illusionary character of time? Did not we start out by admitting that our instrument, the mind, is not really able to give something that is called actual knowledge? Einsteins relativity of time does only talk about our perception of time. The two clock experiment simply tells us that our understanding of what time must be wrong. Time to us appears relative… if it IS relative or not, if it is an illusion or not, is nothing we are able to decide.

    It is Sunday, so treat yourself. Spend six minutes of your time truly tasting something of enlightenment

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D7rWLzloOI

    Enjoy!
     
  20. sid_16

    sid_16 MDL Giveaway Organiser

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    #140 sid_16, Apr 17, 2016
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2016
    Philosophical theories of Time- Newtonian mechanics follows naive common sense very closely, but relativity does not. Time is relative in it, just as space is. One might want to define some universal present relative to some point where one is now at, but if one started moving relative to one's earlier reference point, then that would-be universal and present would become part-past and part-future. So relativity is thus most consistent with the B theory/ eternalism / the block universe.
    A theory: Presentism: present
    A theory: Growing block universe: present, past
    B theory: Eternalism, block universe: present, past, future

    Here is the reference link related to time- http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/
    and here- http://www.iep.utm.edu/time/ , here- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-series_and_B-series , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-theory_of_time ,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_presentism , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growing_block_universe, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism_(philosophy_of_time) , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-dimensionalism and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_ether_theory . Lorentz Ether Theory posits some sort of special time coordinate where the only real parts of the Universe are those with the same value of that time coordinate as one's present. Thus, the real part of the Universe is a continually-advancing space like hyper-surface in it.
     
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