Is it?!
This question has been driving me nuts.
"Reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one" - Einstein
2007-12-16 14:56:20 · 19 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
Did you just watch The Wizard of Oz?
2007-12-24 00:14:32 · answer #1 · answered by M O R P H E U S 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Einstein may have been influenced by Vedanta through familiarity with the work of Swami Vivekananda who was something of a celebrity at the turn of the 20th century. This is where Einstein's pithy adage about reality as illusion--and also his famous equation E=m (at least according to the cosmologist and astronomer John Dobson)--came from. Advaita Vedanta philosophy (which draws its authority primarily from interpretations of the Upanishads) posits that "God" is absolute (not relational) existence and is the true, unchanging reality (and not a person up in the sky) whereas phenomenological reality is an illusory, dreamlike superimposition upon Absolute Reality. It makes perfect sense to me, but I've been studying this stuff for more than 25 years.
A primary text on this is the Crest Jewel of Discrimination (Vivekachudamani) by Shankaracharya, dated to about the 7th or 8th century.
2007-12-16 23:13:08 · answer #2 · answered by philosophyangel 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Jaya N,
There is a story that basically says that we are the figment of another's dream.
It goes like this. A man woke up and said, Hey I dreamed about this person's life. Another man woke up and said, Hey I dreamed about a person's life (the first man's life) and this is repeated over and over. We are a dream of some other person, who is a dream of some other person and so on. The question is who is reality, the Creator who created from nothing, but where no-thing was encompassed in HIm. He created something from nothing? Einstein also recognized that the world was too complex not to have an entity controlling it.
2007-12-16 23:16:34 · answer #3 · answered by hmmmm 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Reality is persistent , because everyone sees the same things around ,like the sun,moon,trees,people etc.
We are sure we see the same things around since our discription of them are same.
Reality becomes an illusion when our attitude comes into picuture.The age old example of half glass water.
If you look at it with positive attitude it becomes half full ..
or else half empty. The things around us are persistent. But the response we get from them are illusions since we get the response according to our attitude.
2007-12-24 12:57:50 · answer #4 · answered by ocean_drop 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
An illusion is a deception of reality. And you can concede to a dream with no consequences. But, if you concede to reality, there is only hard and long consequence of suffering before reality and illusion will exist no more.
2007-12-16 23:07:34 · answer #5 · answered by h_caines 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
OMG! I've so been wondering this before I've even heard this saying by Einstein Lol. Weird...
Anyways... I dunno. Is it possible to have illusions in other illusions? I really wouldn't think so, but that's all part of the illusion!
Whoa.. I just confused the crap out of me...
Ya, it very well could all be one long dream. Maybe when you die, it goes over and over again and you can change things about it to make the dream different? Who knows? I think only God knows that one. But if it's a long dream, does God even exsist? Whoa I am really confusing myself!
2007-12-16 23:04:08 · answer #6 · answered by Kat V 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Interesting that you asked this question. Have you ever read anything from A Course in Miracles? Its main premise is that this life IS a dream and that we will eventually awaken from it. Another book that might help you to understand its contents is a book called The Disappearance of the Universe by Gary Renard. I recommend them both.
2007-12-16 23:40:27 · answer #7 · answered by Rikki 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes of course it is. You've known that since you were a child and found you could truly identify with the song "Row row row your boat gently down the stream, merrily merrily merrily merrily life is but a dream." Or the first time you heard Sting's "spirits in the material world." Haven't there been many times when you've awoken from a dream, just to ponder that you were still immersed in the fabric of another, more elaborate dream?
2007-12-16 23:00:21 · answer #8 · answered by Sister Lourdes 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
There are as many realities as there are perspectives. And there are as many perspectives as there are people. And each of our own is as real to us as any others are to them. So our realities are basically our own custom illusions, and yeah...they're persistent and mostly hard to change.
2007-12-16 23:11:32 · answer #9 · answered by lawolifer 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Can't really say!!!! are you real? am I? do u believe ur mind could be playing games with u and that everything u have is just a figure of ur imagination or that ur a puppet being controled by the simple twisting and turning of strings
OR COULD IT BE UR ACTUALLY SANE AND DONT BELIEVE IN SCIENCE FICTION STATEMENTS SUCH AS THOSE!
-whatever your mind has set to believe is what will become-
2007-12-16 23:09:16 · answer #10 · answered by Jazzy 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If it were, you wouldn't ever learn anything new. In your dreams, every person and everything that happens is a part of yourself. If you talk to someone, you are really talking to yourself. So, for some people, yes, this is just a long dream.
2007-12-16 23:53:41 · answer #11 · answered by Azuma 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋