Okay. I am leaving on vacation Friday afternoon- tomorrow. I will have little to no internet access during that time, so I'll probably not be commenting. Please feel free to continue reading and writing.
When is the last time you had a nightmare? Standing there in the dream, were you conscious that it was a dream and that you would eventually wake up? This always baffles me on Blues Clues or something when Steve tells kids that, when having a bad dream, they can remember that it's only a dream and they'll snap out of it. This makes no sense because, in a dream, you have no idea it's just a dream. You think it's real.
Wait, though. You think this is real, too.
If you think both of them are real, one must be wrong. Is this a dream, and is the thing you think a dream, reality? Or a dream within a dream?
Or consider this: "The Matrix." I'll admit, I haven't actually seen it, but I know the basic plot. A man wakes up to discover that his entire life has been a virtual reality program designed by supersentient beings. Now he wakes up and realizes that everyone he has ever known and loved was a collection of circuitry.
This, frankly, terrifies me. What if- and a big if, but it's possible- what if this life is not as I know it? What if I am from another time and world, immersed in a huge virtual reality bubble that I cannot hope to crack before I reach certain ends. Yes, how does this game end? When I die, do I see a "game over" message along with an option to restart and play again, beginning from, I don't know, my last birthday? How would I ever discover if this is true? Stab myself? And would I have enough faith in this idea to do something like that that usually makes me flinch until I remember... all the rules have changed, and now I have no idea what they are.
Or, as was touched on in Dan's blog, what about video games? What if we are indeed immersed in a giant video game, being played and controlled by other beings who may not care about us? Is my DNA binary code? Is everyone I've spoken to an inanimate character, only there to help my player in his or her quest? What if my player doesn't know I'm conscious? What if they do something crazy and I die? What happens to me then? Will it hurt?
Rather pathetic, really. I'm grappling with questions of my very existence and I wonder whether dying will hurt.
But to continue... Rene Descartes (there's an accent mark over the last e in Rene) was a Frenchman who lived from 1595 to 1650. Although also reknowned for his work in math and science, Descartes is most famed for his work in philosophy. Even though he had written several books, he still had questions about what is and isn't real. Finally, he asked himself this: if some monstrously evil demon were tricking him about everything, if he made all his thoughts wrong, would there be anything he could be certain of?
The answer was one thing, but it's extraordinarily comforting. Ready?
Cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore I am.
To have thoughts that were able to tricked, for the demon to have something to deceive, Descartes would need to think. And because he thought, he had to exist. Thoughts don't come from things that don't exist.
Thus, I know I exist. You'll understand if I don't say that you exist because the whole point of this entry is that you very well might not exist.
Here's another idea. What if I am just a consciousness floating in space? What if nothing else in the entire universe exists but me, a disembodied consciousess desperately fabricating fantastic daydreams to comfort myself? Wonderful daydreams, with lovely smells, friends to talk to, and places to see? The body I have imagined for myself has plans, hopes, and fears, but my consciousness, somewhere out in the void, has none of that. With no one to interact with and no body to maintain, that being has nothing to do except immerse itself in insane daydreams. Haven't you ever done that? Imagined yourself as a different person with a different life and fallen in deeply? It's not so hard.
This idea of being the only thing in existence is called solipsism, and there's no way of disproving this that I can think of. Even if someone would sit me down and explain ernestly that they were, in fact, real, that wouldn't be convincing. Would a figment of your imagination admit that she doesn't exist? No. Exactly. If one of you can suggest something, some way to know for sure what is real, I would be forever grateful.
I exhale finally and turn back towards the kitchen. I know every detail of it by heart, and it is comfortingly familiar, so different from these imaginary realms I probe. How could all this that I have spent my whole life on not exist? There are cookies on the counter and I reach for one, instinctively caring for this frail body that might not even be real. You know, this world is pretty detailed and self-explanatory, and my instincts are reliable and consistent. Could it be? Might it be real? I suppose I'll never know, nor do I truly want to.
What do you think? What is real... and what is not?
According to Mr. Yonko, and some philosophers, we all must exist, because we all will, oneday, die. I challenge that thought because, I have seen other "People" die, but if I am just imagining this whole thing, I, the creator, would never do so. That doesn't really make sense though because I also wouldn't make myself do bad things or kill my family. (I didn't kill them, they died of "natural" causes)
ReplyDeleteUnless that is what you call a nightmare and we really have no control over them. The show I saw about the brain implanted the idea that when we are unconscious (sleeping) we still use parts of our brain, but the current that conects parts closes. They showed a picture of the electicle pulses in a brain when applying magnetic forces to part of it. In the awake try, it stimulated action all over the brain where in the sleeping version, it stayed pretty local, but the areas close to the magnet did light up. I don't think even my subconscious would kill off my family.
BUT, a better way to know that this is not a dream, is that night after night, my dreams have no correlation to each other, and some times I don't have dreams. If this was A dream, It would be a lot of information packed in one.
You pose the quote, I think therefore I am. that has potential because as far as we know, computers only do what we tell them to, but some scientists believe that if we cannot tell the difference between a computers answer and a humans answer, then they should both have equal properties in all forms of the other. Like when scientists do simulations, like the "Dark matter simulation" the computer told them what would happen, so they didn't have to do it by hand, even though they could have, and waisted a lot of time. ALthough this seems silly to me, If there were thinking poeple in the computer, because they are smaller, they would have a quicker time than the larger beings, so even though it would have taken them the same amount of time to figure it out, the Larger being percieved it as less.
I don't think I am helping this situation on the side of we're real, so I appologize if I make anyone more uncomfortable than befoer reading this.
I never said anything about killing your family.
ReplyDeleteAbout the brain- I don't know the exact figure, but conscious humans use very little of their brains. This fits with the dream idea because in dreams, you said we use only a little of what we usually use.
You're talking like right now, we are fully ourselves, but I can't rule out the possibility that my real self is far, far away, and I am just an extra body, an avatar. (The blue kind of Avatar, not Ang and Katara.)I cannot judge what my subconscious would do because the subconscious is just that- underneath and unreachable from conscious thought.
So you're saying that smaller life forms perceive time as longer? What?
DOn't worry, I was trying to say that since family members have died, If I, even my subconcious, was controlling the world, they wouldn't have.
ReplyDeleteTo help the Avatar point, they did an expirament on the show inwhich the guy was looking behind him and actually got confused and went the wrong way. Our mind is really not permanently attached to our bodies, it just uses it as a tool to help it succede. No Idea Why that is. :(
As for the small life...
According to the theory of relativity, areas with larger mass will slow time. so if M=T then 2M=1/2T (those probably aren't the exact proportions but it should help with the concept.) That can be proven by the clocks on satelites going faster than the ones on earth. The tricky part is that we percieve our time to be correct and all the others wrong. Naturally. But I reason that if there is very small life, the individual, with a very small mass (1/2M) would have a faster time (2T) 1/2M=2T. using one of the properties we learned in Algebra, I deduced that if something was going to take a certain amount of time, the smaller mass with time going twice as fast (as we percieve it) would also get done twice as fast. SO, although it took us the same amount of time to do something the little people in the computer, according to our sence of time, got done faster, so we shouldn't bother to do anything by hand if they get done first. Using fractal geometry, I say we might be the little people in a computer. It doesn't seem likely with what we are taught, but that is what we are debating. :)
TO directly answer your question, no smaller life forms don't percieve time as longer, the times are actually different, but percieving time as longer might make more sense.
Thinking about this topic has created a war inside my head. Every time I come up with an idea another idea defeats or disproves that idea.
ReplyDeleteI think therefore I am? To me, I exist. That is for sure. Does anything else exist? It can't be "proven" so to speak, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. As much as it matters to me, this is the world that I exist in right now. Therefore, it exists to me right now.
Dream worlds technically do exist in thought. Thoughts must exist, or else we can't think, right? Therefore, thoughts must exist. In that way, dreams exist. Follow me?
The video game virtual worlds exist because if they didn't how could we have video games? Therefore they exist.
It's just that these other virtual worlds have different properties. Virtual worlds do not follow the same laws that our world does. However, they still exist.
Therefore, no matter whether we are actually in a video game or what you want to believe, we do exist in some form. Just in a form of different properties, so to speak.
Our world/universe has certain properties in its existence. Law of Conservation of Energy being one of them. Until disproved, it can be thought true. To us this law is true. Is it true in a virtual world? Depends on what you define as the energy/mass. That video game world does not have a conservation of energy the same as we do. It has a conservation of virtual information. If I am playing a game on my TV, there is a law of limitations of movement. There are boundaries to the virtual worlds for sure. These do not go on forever. The boundaries are set by us humans, but these video games do have laws that govern them created by humans. Understood?
Our world also has limitations and laws. These limitations and laws are either set by a creator or set by our world. Or as we are questioning, maybe set by you. Your brain may have created the laws and limitations of the world you live in.
My point is, we all exist, governed by specific laws of our world, whatever world that may be.
Is it a virtual world? If there is a creator, then technically yes. If not, then it is not a virtual world. It is the "real" world.
By the way Dorothea the statistic that we use very little of our brain is a myth. I forget who disproved that, but that apparently isn't true.
On Avatar, that technically could be possible if our brains work via chemical reactions and electricity. We could build a new body to connect the mind to. Oh wait, that's already happening . It's called bionic arms. People can get robotic arms/legs to use. We are not far from being able to replace someone's entire body!
In the end, I say don't question your existence. Whether you exist or not is not a good thing to spend too much time thinking about. Number one, it drives you insane, and number two, you gain nothing from thinking about it.
I exist. Whether you believe it or not.
You exist?... Then how come on the bus some mornings you say you are not there, or was that you are there for Dan? Hahaha Anyway, I don't mind questioning my existance because it gives me something to do. THat will probably stop on monday. But all the same, I know I exist, I just ponder in what form I exist in.
ReplyDeleteShannon, just because I am not there doesn't mean I can't be somewhere else! And I can obviously substitute for Dan without erasing his existence. Nonetheless I exist.
ReplyDeleteCurrently according to your picture you exist in cat form.
THat is Herman, I love him so much he represents me. I think I have him on Facebook to actually
ReplyDelete