POLL: How often are you worried about the true nature of reality?

  • All the time
  • Often
  • Occasionally
  • Hardly ever
  • Never

0 voters

It comes and goes. Im very worried sometimes. Its fine to speculate, but ultimately whats known is whats known, based on the knowledge we have of it. See it for yourself. The blind man may have something to offer too.

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Are these worries part of your delusions?

When im too deep, and in over my current stamina to handle it.

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I know we live in a simulation. Time will tell (again) and prove me right. There are a few caveats. Who created it? God or aliens? Is it really a simulation or just isomorphic to one?

I believe and want to believe its god. Its the cause of my spirituality and insanity. Bothā€¦

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Part of me ā€˜knowsā€™ I live in a simulation and that everyone else is just a ghostly echo of my ā€˜dialogueā€™ with the demiurge. If you think about it the simulation theory constitutes an update on the ontological argument.

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I guess for szs being worried about the true nature of reality is not a philosophical practice but something we have to do when we are facing symptoms. The true nature of reality is the world without the delusions. It seems for some people speculating on the true nature of reality can create some delusionsā€¦

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knowing myself provides a little comfort about nature, but yeah there are some worries.

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I sae a video that might be very interesting to you and help you with your worries about reality.

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Given that meds are altering my brain chemistry I feel my reality is no longer natural, itā€™s artificial. Itā€™s not bad, Iā€™m not currently suffering, but its not natural.

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Thanks, I really appreciate it. As long as weā€™re discussing ideas and not giving each other medical advice - an inevitable feature on a health forum - Iā€™m always happy and OK with people arguing against my position (which Iā€™m always willing to change anyway)

About Tysonā€™s argument Iā€™d argue itā€™s a very rushed example of the use of the Ockhamā€™s razor.

1.The idea that there is something inherently fishy about us being conceivably the last simulated world in a potentially near infinite chain of simulated worlds, and still struggling to create a simulated world of our own, is not a particularly robust one except as a description of a cognitive bias. You might as well call this argument the ā€˜anti-anthropic principleā€™. But even as a purely psychological argument it can be easily counteracted by a little anthropic principle of our own (and please donā€™t take this too seriously). The idea that only in an universe where weā€™ve failed to create a simulation of our own would we question on precisely those grounds the probability of us living in a simulation.

  1. Even if we accept Tysonā€™s argument, itā€™s plain that all we have established is that probably weā€™re not living in a simulation, but weā€™ve not disproven at all the existence or even prevalence of simulated worlds, so itā€™s not clear what is gained.

  2. Why assume simulated are capable of creating simulated worlds of its own? The suspicious insistence on the inevitability of a single simulation spawning an infinite chain of simulations - which at the same time is presented as being self-defeating - is a formulation that reenacts classical epistemological conundrums. Even If only real real worlds can create simulated ones the chances of us living in a simulation are still very high.

  3. The Fun Argument. If we were to assume that real worlds are in the habit of creating simulated ones, and that these simulated worlds are unable - due to limits in the simulation or simply through the will of the people running the simulation-to create simulated worlds of their own, it would follow that our inability to create simulations practically proves that we live in one. :stuck_out_tongue:

There are plenty of other arguments but ultimately my own version of the simulation is based on a so called solipsistic and religious delusion, and therefore not easily amenable to a rational refutacion.

If it is any consolation there is no ā€˜naturalā€™ reality so youā€™re probably not missing much. :slightly_smiling_face:

Do you think a fictional character in a novel can become aware that he is just a character in a novel?

I often wonder if we are embedded in some type of system like the one in The Matrix. I donā€™t think their premise of using humans to get energy was all that brilliant, but what if they have ensnared all our consciousnesses to make one giant supercomputer? Oh well, itā€™s too improbable to be worth worrying about.

It depends on how good the novel is. I admit the idea of Hercules Poirot becoming self-aware is a terrifying prospect. Still, do you take this self awareness business seriously? How important wil this almost mystical self awareness be to some future artificial super intelligence? We could conceive of an AI that chooses not to be self aware except on Sundays.

I totally agree about the energy bit in The Matrix being embarrassing. I canā€™t get that silly image of the duracell battery out of my head.

Iā€™m deeply rooted in the physical world. Itā€™s only when I have an anxiety attack I feel everything is unreal.

I mentioned this before, but I think tactility, the physical senses, are difficult to explain as a simulation.

There is something very mundane about going to the bathroom or eating a hamburger.

Not to mention physical intercourse vs. erotic dreams. The first is a deeply physical thing, the second an abstract thing with a different phenomenological quality.

Wow. Reality, what a concept.

My point is that when such a character claims to be a character in a novel he is not making a truth claim like we do when we say he is.

I worry more about the Grinch stealing Christmas than I do about stuff like ā€œThe Matrixā€.