- #1
RAD4921
- 347
- 1
Is reality created in the mind or is there an objective reality outside of the mind? It almost seems like an absurd question and most people would say the latter but some philosophers are skeptical.
If you have a candy bar in front of you, you assume that it exist because you can see it. The light from the candy bar reaches the eyes and the electromagnetic signals are sent to the brain where an IMAGE of the candy bar is created. So as far as we know the candy bar only exists in the mind. If you reach out and touch the candy bar the nerves in your fingers send information to the brain and the feeling of the candy bar is created in the brain. Once again the candy bar appears to be only created in the mind. You can taste the candy bar but once again the taste buds on the tongue sends signals to the brain where the taste of the candy bar in interpreted. You can drop the candy bar on the table and it makes a sound which is vibrating air molecules that vibrate the eardrum and the signals that go to the brain are interpreted there. Once again the sound of the candy bar is created in the mind. When you smell the candy bar the same thing happens. The smell is created in the mind. All the information we gather about the “outside” world comes through the senses and gets processed in the brain. There is no way to step outside of you and see if there is really a world “out there”. We have to trust our sense and they do not always provide us with valid information. There are hallucinations, mirages, optical illusions and bias beliefs of the person’s thoughts that can created false truths and even delusions We dream every night and while dreaming we believe these dreams to be reality only to find that when we wake up they were fantasies created by the subconscious. How do we know that our waking state is some sort of dream? We can ask other people about their reality but they too are interpreting the world through the senses and the mind, which cannot be trusted. To take skepticism to an extreme, you cannot even be sure that other people exist.
I have thought about philosophical skepticism to some extent and my theory is that there is PROBABLY a world independent of the mind. We are pretty sure that the universe is billions of years old and it has existed for billions of years before there were any observers in it so I have come to the conclusion that there probably is an outside world but no matter how hard we try, we can never prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is the case.
There is also the issue of the limitation of the senses. White light is a tiny sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum so what we see is not all that is out there. Rattlesnakes see in infrared and butterflies and bees see in the ultraviolet. What would the world look like if our eyes could see this part of the spectrum? What if we had x-ray vision? Elephants hear in ultra-low frequencies. Dogs can hear high frequencies. What does the world really sound like? Hound dogs have a very acute sense of smell. What does the world really smell like? Fish have lateral lines in their bodies where they can feel the outer world. What does the world really feel like? We really don’t know all that is out there due to the limitations of our senses and the abilities (or lack of) of the mind. Will we ever know the truth of reality?
RAD
If you have a candy bar in front of you, you assume that it exist because you can see it. The light from the candy bar reaches the eyes and the electromagnetic signals are sent to the brain where an IMAGE of the candy bar is created. So as far as we know the candy bar only exists in the mind. If you reach out and touch the candy bar the nerves in your fingers send information to the brain and the feeling of the candy bar is created in the brain. Once again the candy bar appears to be only created in the mind. You can taste the candy bar but once again the taste buds on the tongue sends signals to the brain where the taste of the candy bar in interpreted. You can drop the candy bar on the table and it makes a sound which is vibrating air molecules that vibrate the eardrum and the signals that go to the brain are interpreted there. Once again the sound of the candy bar is created in the mind. When you smell the candy bar the same thing happens. The smell is created in the mind. All the information we gather about the “outside” world comes through the senses and gets processed in the brain. There is no way to step outside of you and see if there is really a world “out there”. We have to trust our sense and they do not always provide us with valid information. There are hallucinations, mirages, optical illusions and bias beliefs of the person’s thoughts that can created false truths and even delusions We dream every night and while dreaming we believe these dreams to be reality only to find that when we wake up they were fantasies created by the subconscious. How do we know that our waking state is some sort of dream? We can ask other people about their reality but they too are interpreting the world through the senses and the mind, which cannot be trusted. To take skepticism to an extreme, you cannot even be sure that other people exist.
I have thought about philosophical skepticism to some extent and my theory is that there is PROBABLY a world independent of the mind. We are pretty sure that the universe is billions of years old and it has existed for billions of years before there were any observers in it so I have come to the conclusion that there probably is an outside world but no matter how hard we try, we can never prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is the case.
There is also the issue of the limitation of the senses. White light is a tiny sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum so what we see is not all that is out there. Rattlesnakes see in infrared and butterflies and bees see in the ultraviolet. What would the world look like if our eyes could see this part of the spectrum? What if we had x-ray vision? Elephants hear in ultra-low frequencies. Dogs can hear high frequencies. What does the world really sound like? Hound dogs have a very acute sense of smell. What does the world really smell like? Fish have lateral lines in their bodies where they can feel the outer world. What does the world really feel like? We really don’t know all that is out there due to the limitations of our senses and the abilities (or lack of) of the mind. Will we ever know the truth of reality?
RAD