I wonder about the universe....?

Question

I wonder....is our universe real? I mean, what if it all an illusion?
What if this is all a simulation of some sort? If not, is our world an alternate version of another universe or world? Perhaps its a smaller version of something bigger...
Your opinion please.

Answer 1

Oh sheesh...all philosophical BS aside, anyone who can't figure out if the universe is real or not does not deserve to exist.

Answer 2

Descartes puzzled similarly.

He reasoned that our senses can be deceived. Therefore, rather than be fooled by deception, he threw the baby out with the bathwater, and discarded any sensory data. Eventually he go to the point where he reasoned that nothing was guaranteed real. But he noted that there was some kind of thinking going on. And he reasoned that for that thinking to be going on, there had to be something there to think. So he figured that he must exist.

But there's a Zen... that a man went to sleep and dreamed he was a butterfly. Then he awoke and found that he was, in fact, a man... or perhaps a butterfly dreaming he was a man...

Perhaps it was not Descartes who was thinking he was thinking at all...

People have been hypothesizing about parallel universes, or super-universes of which ours might be merely an atom. There are also theories about extra dimensional universes of which ours is merely a subset.

Imagine a two-dimensional universe. Want to lock a guy up, draw a circle around him. Now, if a person in a three-dimensional universe happens upon this 2-D place, he can observe all the little 2-D critters moving about. He has the power to erase the circle around the guy because it takes a 3-D eraser to do so. If the 3-D guy speaks, the 2-D critters can probably hear it, but can't figure where it's coming from. Imagine what would happen if the the 3-D guy shines a light into the 2-D universe. Certainly the 2-D critters can see it. It'll probably look like a bright solid object moving around their universe. If the 3-D guy casts a shadow on into the 2-D universe... can you imagine what a stir that would cause? A visitor from someplace just appeared. It would be quite large compared to them. When they saw it approaching, the would likely scurry away. There's no telling what would happen if a 2-D image of a 3-D critter encountered a 2-D critter. But the 3-D guy would know it's only a shadow and, having no being, no substance, would be--like the light, harmless. But to the 2-D critters, the existence of a 3-D critter would be incomprehensible. It could appear and disappear at will. It could damage part or all of their universe at will. There could be infinite 2-D universes in 3-space. What would they look like? Would they be necessarily flat? Almost certainly at least some of them would intersect occasionally. What would those intersections look like? Would a 3-D critter be able to simply walk through them... perhaps without even knowing it? What if a 3-D planet passed through one? Would it rupture their space-time continuum and destroy their universe?

Can a 3-D critter pick up a 2-D critter and take it into his 3-D world? What would it look like to the 2-D critter?

Now, picture a 3-D universe. It would have the same inability to comprehend a 4-D critter... and of what it might be capable. And the 4-D critter would have the same problems with a 5-D.

When I was learning Latin, a lady with whom I spoke once said, "Big bugs have little bugs upon their backs to bite 'em. And little bugs have lesser bugs... and so on ad infinitum."

But that's all just mental gymnastics... and you still don't have my opinion... ;-)

Answer 3

It is your choice of words that answers your question.
The Universe, by definition, includes everything that exists.
Alternate, simulation, illusion, smaller part of some thing bigger, If they exist then they are part of the universe.

A starting point in your thinking could be:
No thing comes from nothing and No thing goes to nothing.
From here the rest of the Universe can be understood.
Have fun, Gravity was the hardest to figure out. My name is mark henne. If you put an underline between my name and add yahoo dot com you can reach me. I am retired and have been considering these questions for the past 3 years. I am looking for young computer animators to help make a movie of how the universe works, If you know any please have them contact me.

Answer 4

The problem is that we will never really know the answers.
All we can go on is what we can observe, theorize, and extrapolate based on available evidence and logic.
I believe the universe is real, simply because that's what I believe. I have no proof, because anything I could point to and say "there is the proof" can be argued that the proof is only real to me and not intrinsically real.

But all this doesn't matter in our lives (whether they are real or not) since we all act and function as though it was all real.

And since we can't know, but we can function, then that's enough for me.

Answer 5

It's possible. Some scientists theorize about a "multi-verse". Others believe that in other "worlds" the color of a tree might be pink. We'll probably never know. This universe is vast enough so to even include other universes is boggling. If you think about it, it's kind of frightening, but just accept this world or you perception of it. We might be living in something other than what our minds think of it.

Answer 6

I've decided that reality is relative to the observer. To humans, our reality is our perceptions of our sensory inputs.

Say you went insane, and suddenly everyone was a demon, with horns and sharp teeth, and flames, and belching black bile and all the horrible things you can imagine. If they grab you, you feel their claws. When they talk to you, they bellow in the most horrible voices, and their hot breath singes your skin and you cringe in pain.....

Of course, you're insane and the demons are really the hospital orderlies trying to restrain you from harming yourself.... But for all intents and purposes, the demons are real to you, and the orderlies are not. It doesn't matter if nobody else can see Harvy the rabbit standing beside you. If you can, then it's pretty much real in your perspective.

Answer 7

Hi there. The Universe is whatever you want it to be.Your mind is being stimulated all the time.And if you concentrate very hard and say to yourself what is this i am experiencing and if you do it intensely it can become very frightening and you have to snap out of it and try to get your mind off thinking about it.This is what i do sometimes.It's a bit like putting yourself into a hypnotic trans. Have you ever done this or do you know what i am trying to say?

Answer 8

Dude, you just managed to mix two movies together and came up with a great question that there is no answer to.

As much as id love to say that every pixel in my monitor is a new universe. Its just not something we will know in our life time.

When you have kids ask them and make them keep asking till the answer is found.

Answer 9

Our universe is just God's favorite video-game.

Answer 10

you should read Rene Descartes' "Discourse on the Method" and "Principles of Philosophy"

you should also read plato's allegory of the cave and the "brain in the vat" argument (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat)

lastly google solipsism.