Posted: 5/10/2008 7:15:34 PM EDT
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What is reality? Chemically or electronically the human senses can be altered. If it were possible today to be placed in a total immersion program, how would you know the difference? |
IBMRPDTRTBR(In Before Multiple Religious People Declaring Their Religion To Be Right) 
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Had a psych professor ask the same question on the first day of class. Validate where or not our brain was or was not connected to a computer that just sent electrical impulses to the right nerves, ect. Lots of intersting answers but everything we experience is really just an electrical imput. I said that we could kill ourself. he switched subjects after acknowledging it was probably the only way he could think of too..
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Interesting point. Color, sense of smell, taste, are all subjective. Our sense of reality comes from what our senses tell us. Our senses CAN be manipulated. We see and hear within very tightly defined spectral bandwidths/frequencies of light / sound. Some animals are capable of seeing and hearing things we cannot. Sometimes I wonder if my cat can see critters that I cannot. Think "dark matter". |
There's a fascinating book called "Descarte's Error" (which is a very readable short books by a neuroscientist), which is really interesting, because it suggests that human being are far less cognitive (and rely far more on emotion) that we traditionally believed. An ever more fascinating book is called "the illusion of conscious will" (by Wegner) and makes a very compelling argument that our feeling/perception of having conscious will is largely an illusion (i.e. a self-deception), and that we really aren't as conscious or a willful in our behavior as we think. It's very well-written book, and captures the overlap between hard science and philosophy. |
My cat does, he will stare at the wall, the ceiling or just react like amouse ran across the room but I cant see shit. He has supernatural abilities.. |
| There has been a crap load of study on the effects to sensory deprivation tanks. The results will blow your mind. There is or was a place in Chicago called the "Float Experience" around 1990 that had a few deprivation tanks. A friend of mine paid the money to go into one for a hour and for him it felt like he was in it for a day with hallunications. For him it was a positive/self learning experience but it seems a tad way out there. |
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Reality is completely subjective to the beholder. If a delusion is powerful enough to you, it is real. But for the most part, reality is a comparative consensus. We swap notes on our perception and the majority who share similar perceptions define reality. Take religion. Half the planet 'believes' God is real, and cannot be dissuaded. Thus, he is real whether the other half agrees or not. There is sufficient consensus to validate that reality. The same argument applies to the half that doesn't believe. Like God, what's real and what isn't can't really be proven or dis proven. Just a big enough group that agree is needed. It's really all just a giant swarm of charged particles and energy forming temporary patterns anyway. 
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[ Again, first impression is some individuals have more conscious will than others, be it innate ability or a combination of that and early development/environment. For example, some might react without thinking more than others and be guilty of poor impulse control, to put a label on it. Just first impressions without knowing more of their arguments and don't mean to over simplify. ] |
That's not at all what I am talking about. What this neurological research is starting to demonstrate is systemic ways in which the brain work - which indicate that our brains may simply function in a way that makes conscious will far less likely that we tend to convince ourselves, and that emotion is much more central to our decision making and rational thought that we tended to believe. It's not an individual difference thing - but research into how human beings function in general. There is already a large volume of research in experimental psychology and social psychology that indicatedes that humans in general have a tendency to over-attribute volition and conscious will to things that may not have involved much deliberate action. These books are much more interesting however, because they start to explore specific mechanisms and neurology. It's fascinating research - I highly recommend the books. There's also more technical work on this (obviously), but I wouldn't recommend it to the layperson. |
Yes, I see what you are saying. What are the implications? Maybe the DUers can now be properly diagnosed and treated.  Even so, from my own studies and experimenting, the individual can still develop their own abilities to control emotions, but this is something different than the systemic model in question. Interesting in any case.
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Into the tin foil space pod we go!|
Everything that we perceive is filtered through our senses. Reality is simply one's indivudal perception of the world via their senses. There is no "one" reality for every person. A person with color blindness or a blind person perceives reality differently than somebody else. Now, Plato theorized that there are basic "forms" of reality which are universally perceived. Who knows if this is true. The bottom line is that reality is whatever you say that it is based upon your actual perception. You can't "make up" reality, but you can alter it by altering your perceptions. Those altered perceptions are just as valid as unaltered perceptions since the human perception of reality is totally governed by how our brain and senses interpret things. In other words, there could be a ghost sitting right next to me at this moment, but it is meaningless to me because I don't perceive it. If something allows me to perceive it, then it is as real as the chair that I'm sitting in...at least to me. |
It's 230 am but..... ones reality is formed from their belief system. The belief system can be subjective or objective, accurate or inaccurate, and can be consciously changed. Knowing the difference is more difficult for some people than others. Just believing one knows the difference does not make ones reality accurate. There is an objective reality in most cases. And there is a difference between knowing and knowing when one knows. |
