Talk:Reality

Yeah I know that this is an essay rather than an article, but it's early days, and I have written an extended version of this in another Wiki, and I want some feedback on it.--CatWatcher 11:20, 24 May 2007 (CDT)

"Reality has a liberal bias" - Stephen Colbert. Totnesmartin 07:58, 29 July 2007 (CDT)

An often used SF plotline (See: The Matrix) is that we're all in a computer simulation, I dimly remember this as early as the 1960s. If you were in a simulation then, if it were good enough, how could you tell?

There's also " if (God) created everything 30 seconds ago - even the memories in my brain & the fossils in the ground & & & ... - then how could you tell?"

You couldn't.

Keep^awake 10:55, 29 July 2007 (CDT)

The idea that we are simply in a simulation has long been considered in the philosophical field of metaphysics. Some people are prone to take a practical view of metaphysics, and presume that what they perceive as the world, is in fact, very literally the reality of what exists. This is usually sufficient for most people, because due to the inescapable prison of our senses, we could never distinguish between our sense of reality, and the true reality as it exists. Of course, there is, and must be a "true reality", however-very eloquently put by the article-we cannot perceive it outside of our senses. As noted, for some this is enough to call it reality. Others may have a conscious "knowledge" of reality, that they perceive as trumping any perceptions that they might receive, and colors all information and stimuli that are coming to them. This is now people like Andy can "ignore" reality. He's not really ignoring reality, he just has an entirely skewed sense of what it is, as he is asserting that his constructed reality is the only true reality that exists, and thus denies things and arguments that would in any way conflict with his "known" reality, or as it seems, anything that would even partly conflict with his "true" reality.

Read the rest on my talk page --Eira ^yay! 13:59, 7 January 2008 (EST)

OR

This would be called Original Research on The Other Wiki. Peterdjones (talk) 17:20, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Counter-argument

My counter argument to the second section of this article "The use of the scientific method in constructing reality", which has now been twice reverted (strangely, the second time without explanation) is basically this. The argument in the second section holds that we have different realities by stating that we have different models of reality. The basic point of my argument is is that to posit two things are different, indeed implicit in the concept of them being "different", is the assumption that there is some baseline that they are different against. Things cannot just be generically "different" they must differ in some characteristic. And that is why the argument in the second section is contradictory, it relies on the fact that there are many different models of reality to lead to its conclusion that everyone has a personal reality, while ignoring the fact that in order for models of reality to "differ" they must differ with reference to some external characteristic (i.e. external reality, I gave the example of differing with regard to interpretation of sense data).--90.221.42.106 (talk) 00:18, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Suppose I ask a room full of eight-year-old kids each to draw a picture of a catawhompus. The drawings will most likely be different. That says nothing about the existence or reality of the "underlying catawhompus." How is your argument different from that? Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 01:32, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

"If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. -- Spock ^{— Unsigned, by: 71.234.213.31 / talk / contribs} 10:14, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I never really thought about it before but.........

Who is to say what reality actually is, does the human though create reality or did human though form from evolution? Maybe humans in the future have evolved to the point where they are what people now consider Gods and went back in time to create us. No one can truly say what reality actually is. Call me a crank or a woo peddler but not one person in existence knows 100% what existence is. Hell, how did dimensions form? Do these infinite dimensions exist infinitely or did they form from the construct of though from beings we could not wrap our minds around on how they exist? Reality is subjective.--Rationalzombie94 (talk) 23:04, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Your argument was proposed (more as thought experiment) by Nick Bostrom and is called the Simulation Hypothesis, but it's unscientific at this point for no method is known how to test (falsify) the idea. Older flavours you might like are idealism, the idea that reality is rather mental, and your final assertion sound like some flavour of relativism, maybe cognitive relativism. Such positions are however questionable. ~ Aneris ✻ 23:32, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

We know time travel is paradoxial (to name one paradox out of a hundred). Also, just because no one can truly say what reality is, doesn't mean that any bullshit crank theory is worth a grain of salt. Further, science never claims to know 100%, and we don't even know that that type of Platonic "perfect" knowledge is even possible — though we doubt it would matter anyways. Also, saying reality is subjective isn't true. Assuming we skip unfalsifiable nonsense like the simulation hypothesis, the genius malignus and the likes (which we always do well to skip), reality is in fact intersubjective. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 02:22, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

I find the simulation hypothesis unproductive, and it's unfalsifiable, but it's not “nonsense”. It's just unknowable at this point. ~ Aneris ✻ 02:48, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to be so rude and inelegant as to condense the words you do agree describes it ("unproductive", "unfalsifiable" and "unknowable") into the singular term "nonsense" for the purposes of a simple talkpage post. Come at me, bro! Reverend Black Percy (talk) 16:42, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

The box

"Reality could use some help"

No kidding. Can someone make reality suck less, please? ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 19:31, 26 September 2018 (UTC)