»what IS real?«

i want to use the matrix at a metaphor for a philosophical viewpoint. i dont know what else to call it, so i'll call it sensualism(as in sensation, not in sex). the basic premise is that what we think of as reality is only perception, or sensation. this perception has no relation to the source of the perception. it is secondary, and cannot be used for making conclusions or ideas abt the source of perception itself, or reality, as we call it. as far as a sentient being is concerned, there are only two things - perception, or sensation, and the self(= that which perceives, anything more complex would be without evidence). this is not solipsism, as i consider sensation as having a source distinct from the self.

in simpler terms, you think that there is a house in which you live. there is no such thing, it is only a concept u use to explain ur perceptions. maybe it has a counterpart in the source of perception(reality) but since it will be vastly different from ur conception of it, ur conception is false, there is no house. this also applies to every concept of science, but people misunderstand science. i have heard people say(on this forum), "everything is energy, and the different forms of energy or frequencies, hence we are all energy" and so on. this has no meaning, as energy is only a concept we use to describe our sensation, and has no objective reality. in fact there is no such thing as objective reality, as far as our conceptions of it are concerned. we conceive of, we fully beleive in, a 3 dimensional changing universe(i said changing, so i dont have to make it 4d) which has a spacial location. there is no such thing, it is only a idea we use to explain our sensations. we can never make any assumptions abt the 'true' nature of reality, since we can only do it based upon secondary, perceived models, which are grossly(maybe not grossly, we dont know the degree to which it differs) innacurate. we say that we think using our brain, and that our intellectual capacity is limited by our cranial capacity, and so on, but there is no such thing as a brain, and our minds have no spacial location, whether in a brain or not, because brain is only a concept used to describe certain sensations that the mind has. even space is only a concept - it has no objective reality. whatever conclusions or assumptions we make, it can only be abt our perceptions, and not abt objective reality. many of us forget that there is a distinction between objective reality and perceived reality, and many of our concepts are formed without keeping this distinction in mind. a few examples -
1. the communist philosophy based on everything being matter - there is no such things as matter.
2. the dualism between matter and spirit - matter itself is only conjecture, spirit is even worse. but if u reinterpret this as sensation and mind, it has more meaning.
3. the very crude, but common ideas that go - since everything is simply the interaction between atoms, electrons etc everything is predictable, based on causality etc. - there are no such things as atoms, and there is no reason to beleive that we are made of atoms or anything else.
4. the fashionable practice of using the quantum theory to support various things and draw ridiculous conclusions, etc.

the connection to the matrix is obvious. neo thinks that the light he sees is caused by EM radiation striking his retina, when in reality they are caused by electrical impulses. the implication is that there may not be any relation between perceptions and reality. what do u think of this? it takes a bit of effort to let go of the idea of a 'real world' and replace it with 'perceptions'. excuse me if i dont make sense, i am very new to philosophy. i actually wrote this thread as a reaction to various posts on this forum, so i wouldnt have to repeat my arguments over and over again. what do u think of this? do u think that it is impossible to make conclusions abt the reality, and that we shouldnt?

Did you base this on Berkeley's idealism or did you reach that by accident?

If you haven't already done so, read Berkeley's "principles of human knowledge". The three dialogues are classic pieces of philosophical genius. I think you will find he has a very similar opinion. What we would call permanent possibilities of perception he would call ideas whose persisting existence is upheld by God. But apart from his unfortunate god of the gaps, his ideas are very clever and work very well.

i have never heard of berkeley(i told u, i'm a beginner). i looked him up in britannica and it says something abt empiricism. is this empiricism? i dont think so.

if he thinks these come from god then i agree with him there. i wanted to include that too, but it would have been to much. what does berkeley call this philosophy?

but i wouldnt want to call them ideas, if that is in the platonic sense. mayb it is because my thinking is quite unrefined, but it seems to me that there is a distinction between perceptions and ideas.

Hi, ralph_angelus, Fatpie42 and all,

I am glad somebody brings up the Matrix metaphors with the philosophy of "what is real". I am going to reply by largely copying from my previous post in this forum, under "Kant and matrix: reality vs appearance".

I will necessarily have to recast the philosophy of Kant into *MY OWN* interepretation and my own Modern English (without his terms).

Is the world-as-it-is the same as the world-as-it-appears?

That would be one big discussion, so I want to open this up. I need to specify appears to whom? Prior to Kant, philosophers would think, like Morpheus seems to suggest to Neo, that what is reality but a projection in my mind. My mind is a movie projector. What I see is what I get. This apple is red. Is it real? It is, because my mind tells me the apple is red. So an apple is red because the electronic signals in my brain are telling me the apple is red. Thus reality is SUBJECTIVE. It is what my mind tells me.

The other side, would argue, wait a minute. This apple is red, regardless of whether you mind tells you what color is it. Even if you do not exist, this apple is red, there is an OBJECTIVE reality. The apple is red, it does not matter what you think. If you think the apple is not red, then your mind has misguided you.

Kant then comes along and say, "you are both wrong". For who is the "I" or what is "my mind"? Kant says Descartes and all those who follow him are wrong, because nobody specifies what is the mind, and who is "I"?

Kant, by my one interpretation, is saying that "I" represent not just a single human being, but any CONSCIOUS being. A conscious being is any being, human or not, who can ask the question: "Is the world-as-it-is the same as the world-as-it-appears?" Anyone who can ask such a question is a concscious being. Thus "the mind" is not just any human brain, but any mind who is capable of asking such a question.

Now, this is a big leap from the other philosophers. But what Kant is saying is that the fact that we can question the world around us, the fact that Morpheus and Neo can enter into any kind of philosophical discussion, means that the mind is not just a movie projector, but it must pocess some special properties. The mind is not a blank slate as Locke thinks. But the mind is also not free to just project anything it wants, as Berkeley might think. Rather, the mind must be equipped at least, to be capable of asking such questions. For example, the mind must be able to know cause-and-effect, the mind must be able to recognize space-and-time.

Alright, that is enough for Kant, I am going to stop here.

ralph_angelus and Fatpie 42 et al, any thoughts?

Quote:

This apple is red.

does red mean light of wavelength .7 micron, or the word in the english language? both need not be the same. for example, some of the greeks did not have a distinction between green and blue. so if we find a culture without a distinction between red and orange, and if they say that orange is red, using what criteria will we say that they are wrong?

Quote:

So an apple is red because the electronic signals in my brain are telling me the apple is red.

a scientist can use this explanation to explain observations, but is there any such thing as electronic in the real world? or brain? no more than an apple, or red. lets call these things human constructs. do these human constructs have a referent in the real world, or do they have a referent only in the sensations which the 'real world' produces?

i agree with kant when he says that we can change our perspective through conscious analysis. but there are some things we cannot change, for eg. the way i perceive red and the way our fictitious culture perceives red. our language also dictates the way in which we understand the world, to an extent. these and other fundamental' concepts cannot be changed.

Quote:

mind must be able to recognize space-and-time

i think time is an illusion rather than something which must be recognised, because the concept of time is based on the assumption that changes occur in discrete steps. this is not so in the real world, where changes actually occur in a fully continuous manner, and not infinitesimaly discrete steps as we would like to beleive. but for science to work, we must divide these continuous changes into discrete steps. somebody please try to define time.