people say that you cant be 100% sure that life is actualy real. but how do you explain this.....?

Question

1) how is it not real if you perceive? in order to perceive you would have to have a mechaniism physical or no in order to perceive.

2) if only you exist you would be god. but then how did the self come into existence?

3) your thoughts are formulated by language, and language is based on prefeixes to suurrounding in the illusion and roots of words pertaining to an illusion. so then that would mean that your thoughts are false because the meanings to them cant exist. and any idea cannot make sense.

4) one can not even conceive of an illusion without having prior reference to things. it like trying to think up of a new color.

5) its impossible to come up with a private language let alone a universal language. wittgensteins private language arguement

so how is it that the beleif of life being an illusion be irrefutable? how is there any basis of a possiblity in which you can beleive that life is in fact an illusion?

Answer 1

Well, I don't know about the all the stuff between the opening question and the end statement, but one thing has held true for me during my entire management career:

"Perception is reality."

Which means, whatever someone perceives is what they believe to be real.
Therefore, if life is not real, then what possibly could be driving us all as life-forms, to believe that it is?

Answer 2

1) That which perceives is real, but what it perceives is another story. If someone is sense deprived with a suit, tank, etc. they will eventually hallucinate, making their own perceptions. It isn't necessarily that life is not real, it is that life is not as you think it is because there is bias, and bias skews perception.
2) Perhaps the nature of existing is to have always existed and to always exist. If there is one thing life teaches us, it is change. Death is change, but it is not the end for your actions, and their repercussions, nor is it then end for your physical particles. Their world lines will continue and cause countless causes and effects over aeons. Likewise, there are causes and conditions that have lead up to this point, however improbable. The Buddhist argument on the occurrence of the self would simply be "All is Mind" and the nature of existing is Mind.

3) You are correct when you say thoughts are illusory, any meaning instilled upon them is subjective. But to say all thought is language is a bit misleading. Obviously mosquitoes can think, albeit in a very acute form. They have no language facilities as we would recognize them, though it may have a precursor to language. A linguist friend of mind said that all language is essentially lying and that it all stems from analogy of the body and self, though at varying degrees of abstraction.

4) But the mind is creative! Color blind color-grapheme synesthetics will sometimes perceive colors they call "martian colors", colors they don't see normally in life.

5) Wittgenstein's argument is flawed. He approaches the idea by saying one cannot develop a language because meaning cannot be properly assigned. Since you won't know what to call a new thing, lest you name it arbitrarily, you cannot refer to the object outside of immediate contextual contact. If however a language rule set was layed out in a manner as Stephen Wolframs "A New Kind Of Science" where extremely simple rules are laid out and the basic elements interact and evolve to form complexity quickly. If you are not familiar with this, think cellular automata. Also, Wittgenstein also doesn't venture into shortcuts that could be used in a personal language, such as using imagery in place of a sound or grapheme. With modern computers, a collage-like personal language could easily be developed and reinforced with a computer-user interaction to speed up GUI usage (this is a long running pet idea of mine).

Just always keep in mind that you have a bias filter in which you understand the world, and there are many other perspectives like your own. How real is life? That is something the answers forum cannot answer and only looking inward will give you answers. My 2 cents anyway ;)

Answer 3

That is an opinion.
You cannot prove that. Life is your opinion and you live it how you want it. Let's put it this way: someone with schizophrenia sees things, feels things, and talks with things. Are these real to him? Yes. That person may see ogres, angels, and even a god of any religion... is it real to that person? Yes. This is not real to us though. How can we be sure he is not right? How can we be sure that person does not have a so called sixth sense? Everything than we can't understand why, we either deny it or say that person is crazy. They have an abnormally in the brain but that makes them crazy? Maybe those are like glasses and they can see things better. Everyone sees life different. Maybe some more generalized and common or some others more complex and rare. Is that an illusion? No, is your truth.

Answer 4

The feeling it has. Each level has it's own feeling to it.
You can tell how real something is by how it generally feels.
You can also tell how real something is by the complexity and logic that surrounds it.
the different levels:
1. Reality - Euclidian Geometry, 5 Senses, Laws of Physics
2. Dreams - Non-Euclidian, 5 Senses (Confused), No Laws
3. Day-Dreams - 4 Senses
4. Imagination - 3 Senses
5. Visualisation - 2 Senses
6. Idea - Complex, Sort of Focused
7. Thought - Random, Simple

then again you could always take into consideration 6 Dimensional Quantum physics. On that level Everything is Reality.

How do you know that you don't transfer to another reality when you fall asleep. maybe your "dreams" are actually the deteriating memories of that reality. maybe after spending 16 hours in this reality our soul goes through the gate in our heart and we inhabit another body in another reality for the 8 hours that we sleep in this one. my dreams have a city that I visit often and it has actual streets and everything. it's completely different from any place on this planet. there is nothing in my dreams that match this reality.

Answer 5

1) How do you know you're not imagining? Just a ripple in reality, huh?

2) Being the only being in existence doesn't automatically make you omnipotent/powerful.

3) Not everyone thinks in words. Truly intelligent people don't think in words, but that's the only way to communicate with others who think.

4) Try dreaming sometime. Or try forgetting.

5) Nothing is impossible.

No one can prove anything. No one can disprove anything.
I do think that *something* exists.
Just maybe not reality.
Or being conscious of it.

Answer 6

Well, what about the whole "brain in a jar" idea? What if all life is a dream and you are in a jar of a magician or an alien race?

I don't believe it, but how can you disprove it?