How do we know that what we perceive is real?

Question

How do we know that we are awake and not dreaming?
Is it possible that your in a coma and hallucinating your life?
Maybe your a character in a book, like in "Sophie's World"
Could you be schizophranic and be seeing this as real but someone else is seeing different?

Answer 1

Use your faith, and take that leap to a conclusion that results in conviction. That's how you "know" what is "real".

Read it carefully, and it will make sense to you, perhaps even become real to you in time.

Answer 2

You don't know![1]
But you might as well assume you do.
This is kind of a Pascal's wager situation[2]
You have two choices: you can believe that what you perceive is real, or you can choose to believe that is not real.
If it is not real -- you have NOTHING to lose -- live or die.
But if it real and you treat as not real -- you can loose your lifem for example by jumping under a bus in which you do not belive.
So from a game-theoretical point of view it is better to just accept that the world is real.

Answer 3

I read Sophie's World and it's a great book. This is another endless discussion, but i am on vaction with nothing to do. This is like The Matrix type of questions, trippy stuff. Pinch yourself does it hurt? When you get a parking ticket does it get you mad? Do you get horny (yeah baby!!!!)? Last time i check my reality all of the above happens.

Answer 4

i shall try alright
in your supposed awakened state life and events seem to continue in a pattern of stop and start where you left off!
In a supposed dream state, events places and people seem to randomly appear and nothing makes in orderly!
and when you sleep you never think nor are reminded of jolted as when you awake from a dream to recall and relive it in memory over and over
This is how they claim to know also last but not least, THE DREAM IS DEATHS TWIN!!

Answer 5

Strictly speaking, there is no way of knowing. But does it matter? This world acts as if it were real, so why isn't it? What is the downside of acting as if it were an actual reality?

Answer 6

There's the thought that we're all floating brains in jars, which could very well be true.
We'll never know for sure, so might as well just chill out and enjoy it while it lasts...

Answer 7

What you perceive is very real, even if only to you... but only a very small part of a much larger reality.

Answer 8

You don't have to be mentally ill to perceive something totally differently than another person.

Answer 9

http://bwcastle.ytmnd.com/

Just because we're wrong s o m e t i m e s, it doesn't follow (DNF) that we're wrong all the time.

For instance, just because you can't tell whether you're dead or not, when you are in fact dead, it DNF that we cannot determine that we are alive from this vantage point. It likewise DNF that we can't tell if we are drunk when we are sober, from the fact that we cannot tell when we are inebriated.

The same applies to the dream argument, and just about every skeptical scenario.

Answer 10

Calm down. The drugs will eventually wear off.