What are the chances that what you see as reality is in fact the true reality and is actually there?

Answer 1

We can't offer any empirical evidence for this. Any sensory evidence we can offer presupposes what it wants to prove. If the world is illusory, all our senses deliver to us are illusions.

We can't offer our mind to prove this as Descartes did. "I think therefore I am" is hogwash. When I play Halo, the AI is programmed to be able to analyze certain problems in its world and respond a certain way. None of its world is real, and its "mind" is just a program with no real reality either. It doesn't have any existence at all, but it "thinks." Our minds could also be some sort of program, and thus, could have no more reality whatsoever than the computer programs.

I deal with this by making a couple of observations. First, the world around me is rational and consistent. If it's an illusion, the one making it is a smart cookie.

Secondly, the world doesn't appear to have developed from my own mind. Objects develop without my thinking about them. It's possible that they could do so "subconsciously," but it still doesn't occur with my "conscious" mind.

So, I have a rational world, whether it be illusory or not. This means that history will be consistent in some fashion. I came to believe in Christ on the basis of this history, and with it, that Christ is God. Since God would create this world, illusory or not, He is really the defining truth for all things. If he took on a body from this, not an imaginary one, but a real body, then He has corroborated an objective existence to the world.

The only way I can be certain of my own existence is via a Christocentric belief system. Jesus Christ is God, and He became one of us.

Answer 2

The chances are good enough that if I treat things that appear real as if they were real, things occur in a roughly predictable and generally pleasent manner.

Now, if I were to stumble through an airport telling myself "this isn't really here, it's all just an illusion," I might have a bad day in a small office with some Homeland Security folks.

Answer 3

To a useful first approximation? Very good.
To exact correspndence? Nil.

The chances of my sensations/memory/thought etc.being a consistent illusion or artificial construct? Much less likely.
(It would just require so much more effort or complexity *somewhere* in the system.)

I recently "drove my car to Cambridge". I'm not sure I could prove the existence of my car, roads, or indeed Cambridge.
But the crude description and associated hypothesis appeared to work. Cambridge even appeared as I expected, bar a couple of new buildings, which in the illusion or computer simulation scenario, someone or something else would have had to "think of" before I "saw" them.

Answer 4

We never will know what "reality" is.
We'll never know whats real and what isn't.
It's just how our minds are developed.
The frame of our minds will only let us judge and guess until what we see as "reality" may be nothing more then someones elaborate idea and theory.
To be honest there is no real way of distinguishing reality from fiction and/or ideas.

Answer 5

Chances? 1 in 2. Since there is no way to verify this question, it can be equated to a simple Yes No answer. It either Is or Is not, 50% either way.

Answer 6

Not a chance. I look at the wall, and see a clock. You know what? Clocks aren't real...they're concepts. There's no such thing as two of anything. Life is imaginary. My brain creates a reality full of false concepts, and that ain't real at all.

Answer 7

It's only reality if it's confirmed by Wikipedia.

Answer 8

Fairly good,I would say-although I have known people who
were followers of Zen and said otherwise.

Answer 9

You mean my room is really a mess. I have to go and find my bed and lay down in it. If it can be found.

Answer 10

Nil.