I was just thinking of the idea of “the world is an illusion”, the “webs of maya”, etc. – the general idea that the world as we know it is false, and the real world is beyond this somehow, someway. Then I was thinking of the digital world, were in the background, everything is a series of ones and zeroes, but we can experience it processed through various media as sights and sound, music and video, and it can even operate machinery. So is this similar to our world of illusion – where in the background, on some cosmic hard drive, it may just be ones and zeroes, but as we actually experience it though our senses, it’s the material world, and we ourselves are just digital constructs, like on second life? But just because it is constructed in a different way than we perceive it, is the way we perceive it any less real than the ones and zeroes?
From physics, we know that what we perceive as a solid concrete wall is mostly made up of empty space with millions of minute particles spinning rapidly around – but try to walk through it, it’s a dead, solid wall! So what is more real, the solid wall we perceive, or the molecular structure that is the physical basis? They are both real – it depends on what you’re focusing on, what kind of instruments you’re using.
Back in the modem days, if picked up your phone when the computer was connected, you heard weird squeaks and high pitched noises – this was the digital information being translated into the physical world, and then being translated back to digital – and though it was being translated into physical sounds, it was still different from the way we processed the data though the screen and speaker outputs. So maybe some of the weird experiences we have in altered states of mind are like picking up that phone and hearing different levels communicating with each other. It doesn’t make our daily world any less real, we just get a glimpse of the roots lying under the ground, which from just looking at the leaves and branches above ground, we may not have realized were there.
From physics, we know that what we perceive as a solid concrete wall is mostly made up of empty space with millions of minute particles spinning rapidly around – but try to walk through it, it’s a dead, solid wall! So what is more real, the solid wall we perceive, or the molecular structure that is the physical basis? They are both real – it depends on what you’re focusing on, what kind of instruments you’re using.
Back in the modem days, if picked up your phone when the computer was connected, you heard weird squeaks and high pitched noises – this was the digital information being translated into the physical world, and then being translated back to digital – and though it was being translated into physical sounds, it was still different from the way we processed the data though the screen and speaker outputs. So maybe some of the weird experiences we have in altered states of mind are like picking up that phone and hearing different levels communicating with each other. It doesn’t make our daily world any less real, we just get a glimpse of the roots lying under the ground, which from just looking at the leaves and branches above ground, we may not have realized were there.
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North Carolina
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Re: Is the world an illusion?
Sat, February 3, 2007 - 3:27 PMEinstein supposedly wrote that
"Reality is an Illusion, just a very persistent one."
a bit of a dodge, but humorous. -
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Re: Is the world an illusion?
Tue, February 13, 2007 - 6:38 PMWe have 5 main senses that we percieve the world through. some might argue that we have more. (I believe this to be true, but for the sake of discussion, leave it at 5)
Imagine being born blind. How different would your perception of this world be? Especially if there were not people around you that could see describing things to you.
If you were the only person on the planet, and you were blind, sight just would not exist. Your perception of reality would be completely different.
Imagine being a dolphin with the power of echo-location. How different would your world be? It would change your perception of everything.
So yes, I believe the world is an illusion. It is the illusion that we have defined for ourselves through the senses we possess and have gained through the process of evolution. -
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Re: Is the world an illusion?
Wed, February 14, 2007 - 12:54 PMThink FILTERS!
Some neurologically prescribed, others socially imposed/sanctioned.
Consider Blake -
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
(For more search Google : Blake A Universe in a grain of sand)
Most people seem to be "innocent" of that beautiful insight!
Also take a look at Huxley's Doors of Perception and any studies of Mystical/Entheogenic field reports.
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Re: Is the world an illusion?
Wed, February 14, 2007 - 2:24 PMI blogged about this a few days ago, before I saw this post. So I'm just going to c/p part of it here.
We cannot seem to get past our subjective perceptions far enough to view others around us objectively - therefore, any beliefs we have of one another are purely illusions created by our own minds.
Just like this reality is an illusion. We create *our own world* with will and intent.
Not the World - but our own bubble within the World which is Our world.
...
People argue over shared perception - "we all know this is a table, that it's such and such color, we know if you step in front of a bus you die." (I've had this discussion with many others before.)
Yet I have to say, I don't know if the green I'm seeing is the green you're seeing. Maybe you're a master of color theory and see 5 different shades of color within that green, where all I see is green. It's all about subjective perspective and realizing that trying to force others to see exactly the same way as you is impossible, completely and utterly. We don't have the right communication skills to properly convey our individual worlds, I don't think even being able to read each other's minds would be the answer. For we'd still have to sift the information through our own mental filters - turning their picture into one which makes the most sense to us. Death is the same thing, it's a perception merely.
It doesn't mean we should stop sharing or trying - that's half the fun and the world is not complete in just a couple of shades, sometimes our entire picture can change just by one sweep of another's crayon.
I have to say, since no one person sees the world exactly the same as any other person - it is indeed an illusion. -
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Re: Is the world an illusion?
Wed, February 14, 2007 - 3:16 PMPeople may not see things exactally the same, but they see them more or less the same. Otherwise we wouldn't have the common conseusual world we live in, eveyone would be in their own world. We perceive the way we do for physical survival, and that is no illusion. Just because there are differences in perception, and different perceptions, that does not make our perceptions an illusion. It just means there are other ways of looking at things. Like a concrete wall - is it a dead solid mass or made up of mostly empty space with billions of tiny particles spinning around? It is both, neither are an illusion, they are different perceptions. It is a matter of depth of focus. -
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Re: Is the world an illusion?
Wed, February 14, 2007 - 5:45 PMI disagree completely. :) (And please know this is meant as a light-hearted yet serious discussion, not as a hard-nosed, angry argument.)
I do not see the same things you do, nor in any way that you do. We try to tell each other we do in order to maintain some sort of "normalcy" within our world, fearing either insanity or that everything will cease to exist.
However, we actually DO live in completely individual worlds, which are interlinked by symbols only.
Even those are argued about and can be confusing.
To say that anything is as we say it is, well, IMHO it's lying to ourselves - which we've seemed to do rather well in this current paradigm.
Most people refuse to let go of the ideas of time/space out of fear, whether it is conscious or not.
Linear time is an illusion.
Space/distance is an illusion.
Thinking we share the same world is an illusion.
You'd think we would get that by now, for goodness sake, Aristotle talked about this how long ago?
We play like we understand, when we have no clue.
Even these words, they are just a fallacy - they do not convey all of my thoughts, feelings, images, research, experiences, input from senses, dreams, etc. They are a horrible way of communicating, but it's the closest thing we've got and since we do not want to be alone in our individual worlds - we try to reach out and use them to touch other beings.
The sooner we realize how much we take for granted as fact is actually a man-made illusion, they sooner we will be able to find the harmony we seek. It's interesting that so many strive to be different from everyone else and yet at the same time insist that the world is exactly the same for everyone. It's almost like we instinctively try to live the universe paradox of 01(binary) and yet, we get it all backwards.
That these illusions were created in our formative years as a species does not make them any less of an illusion.
(I've been having this discussion with philosophy friends of mine for about 12 years...so forgive me if I come on strong, I've had time and practice to figure out what I believe in all of this and why I do. I also believe you have every right to your own opinion and do not seek to change your view in any way. I am simply sharing mine as concisely as possible. ;-) -
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Re: Is the world an illusion?
Wed, February 14, 2007 - 11:49 PMI would say yes and no to this question.
It has been proven that when we look at the everyday objects around us, that we do in fact construct in our minds the "feeling" of the object or place. If it is something that is seen daily, the interest we have in understanding it lessens. Our brain processes almost everything around us, but our concious mind is only aware of something like 8 bits of information every second. The things we DO see, smell, hear can and will be altered in order of importance by our perception and our wants.
So, if at any time part of what we see is constructed, aren't we living in this grand illusion? I would agree that the physical world exists here in front of us, but also believe that it changes ever so slightly from our point of view.
This is where it gets tricky because if things can be rendered differently at any time could they be all the time?
It is true that hallucinations can appear to be as real as anything. Our eyes are the simple part of the "looking" function. I feel the power driving the eyes and the center that processes what they see is the real importance.
They say that lsd affects the part of the brain that sensors out the senses. Kinda filters them. At times during scans subjects showed a complete cease in filtering in this part of the brain. The scariest part of all is that this part of the scan the subjects also claimed to have witnessed gruesomely violent and/or disturbing images. All this while little stimulation to the sub-conscience mind happened from the lsd. Could it be that we all are viewing a slightly skewed world? Are we not viewing or living for that matter at full potential? These questions poke fun at my brain all the time...and I doubt we will ever fully understand that which we try to understand with.
Corey -
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Re: Is the world an illusion? (ODE TO DiMITRI)
Thu, February 15, 2007 - 2:46 PMI have no problems with lurking strangers.
The fractalescent machine elves present the dangers.
They seduce me with their brilliant glow
Then disappear to where I don't know.
The visible world crackles like celephane.
Any one near would call me insane.
So tell me dear which is illusion?
Is my waking life merely delusion?
I sense something precious lying just below
the threshold of conciousness dragged in tow.
The doors of perception flung open wide.
It's inside me.... DEEP inside.
Crawling to the gateway seeking expression
Trapped outside of words or time its sublime lesson. -
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Re: Is the world an illusion? (ODE TO DiMITRI)
Thu, February 15, 2007 - 9:08 PMWow man very good. I look forward to so many more wonderful people coming in and making themselves at home. Everyone respect Trance!!
THanks, COrey
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Re: Is the world an illusion?
Sun, February 18, 2007 - 7:05 AMthe colors lay down their burden to think
and think or cry out and stay to feed
on delicate fruits hovering like the smoke
that thinks of the warmth spun by the word
around its center the dream called ourselves
-- Tristan Tzara
If the world as we perceive and know it is an illusion, causing us to be unhappy, what is this "harmony we seek" that you speak of?
Here's an interesting article about illusion: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion
"these illusions were created in our formative years as a species" may indeed be illusions, but they were an adaptation to the physical world. So while they may not be completely or perfectly in tune to what actual reality is, they're in line enough to allow humans to continue living in this illusionary world. -
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Re: Is the world an illusion?
Sun, February 18, 2007 - 12:03 PMIt's the harmony within the self - harmony we seek, it's not external, it's not with each other, in the end we seek harmony within ourselves.
Do not tell me that the Gregorian calendar = real time, it's far from it. don't tell me that the 24 hour day is real time, it's nothing of the sort. We made these terms up and then built on them until we convinced ourselves that they are hard fact. Just like we used to think the Earth is flat and there are still some out there who continue to believe it is, that the whole sphere thing is a big Hollywood hoax. We can postulate that it is spherical, that it has a wobble, sits at an angle and has an elliptical orbit - we can take it from the scientists and astronomers that this is so, but have you been off of the Earth to verify? (That was a total devil's advocate question there.)
We know nothing, we are children playing in the cosmos and can't stand it, so like children we throw fits, we say we know everything and that our toys will show us the way. Science is not the answer, it's a gigantic erector set. Religion is not the answer, it's the world's safety blanket. Philosophy only asks more and more and more questions. The answers are within us, within our composition, within our evolution, within the maps of our brains, within this thing we call sentience. Searching for answers outside of it can help us to figure out the pieces to the internal puzzle, but really that's all it is.
We are a young species, as far as we know, only a few 100,000 years have we been evolved to this level of consciousness. We are ego-centric, racially-centric, culturally-centric and cosmically-centric, yet when one says the things I have said, the general masses, the scientists, the philosophers, the theologists all get angry and say that's too internal, too centric. LOL What is too centric to the most self-absorbed species we know? We just happen to like to play universal Indian Jones - A Lot.
The need to hold onto the illusion is in our genetic make-up, we are slowly evolving out of it. We don't follow the physical manifestation of the world anymore, unless you're aboriginal and have little to no contact with the outside world. We are so far away from following the cycles of this planet and solar system it's no wonder we all feel out of balance. Many are feeling this estrangement and are seeking to return to it, seeking to leave the illusion which "civilization" has wrapped around us and return to roots. Whatever roots they think they have, it doesn't matter which ones.
RR - what I've been trying to get across is that when we stop trying to force change in the world and people around us, but instead work on changing our internal worlds to match what we want to see in the external world, then the external world will adjust to fit that paradigm. It's quantum physics man. We create our reality, we can change it, manipulate it, design it however we want - because it is our personal reality, in which there is no one else. No one else has your exact same perceptions, no one else's senses pick up things the same way, no one else's filters categorize input in the same filing system. They may be similar, yes, but they are not the same.
We create the illusion of a cohesive world because we were told it is needed to stave off insanity. (Maybe not exactly in those terms but close enough and with the same effects. We have a problem with needing to fit in and be like all the others, never realizing that we are all so uniquely individual that there is no way we can be like anyone else.) We are told that to not believe in the cohesion is madness, that it will lead to ultimate chaos and eventually the end of our species, maybe even world. It's just not so. There may be a state of confusion for a while, a period of adjustment, but nothing like they say it would be. We won't all go internal and never come back out, we won't all forget that this world exists and end up starving to death. (Though, if it's all an illusion - where are we really? What is death? What is life? We hold on to an idea that it will all end if we give up to the illusion, but what is there to give up? Really?)
By the way, I am a certified crazy person by my government, I have gone completely insane and come back out. I have said many things, but my views on the world are already skewed, I see much of it very differently than even your slightly-off average joe. If this is what crazy looks like, I'm happy to be in the ranks. ;) -
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Re: Is the world an illusion?
Sun, February 18, 2007 - 2:00 PMVery good moon...
First though I don't think we are evolving out of it. like you said earlier on its part of the map of our brains. I think it is "the plan" but don't think its constructed by any super power god. I feel it is way too complex to slap a sticker called religion on it, as you may agree. Its like generalizing all that we do not know into the category of unknowns, or religion. We have always had a need to fill in the blanks. We couldn't. We started down the rabbit hole and noticed it was far too deep. We peeled back out scalps and saw our brain was far too elaborate to ever fully understand.
We got scared I think. This could be some of the negative "emotions" we feel. I mean before when it was more basic there just WAS NOT as many emotions. We think we are fine tuning, we are just nit picking. We don't know shit and like I said that scares the hell out of us. Especially some Americans who have the "I control MY life" dimeanor. Someone above is making all the decisions we feel so we call it "fate" or "luck." We know we don't control our lives, but we don't want to know it and we are constantly showing that through individuality and seperation.
I know it has changed alot since the first. Got a little more hairy I guess you could say. But one thing is for sure, division is happening, into groups, like it always has. There is more evolution to come and we would all see it so clearly if we weren't so ego-centric.
I agree with you that the answers are inside of us, inside of our makeup, but I DO NOT feel we can ever understand or contemplate them. I think that certain things require knowledge that we can only recieve from "the end" and I truly don't believe ANYONE has ever brought back true information. Even if someone has a near death experience, their filtering center full of all of their biases and things will mirror the experience into a feable one. It is the only way. We are not enlightened souls, and full enlightenment might be a reach to ever attain.
We are in a circle of love and death and birth, we don't know why, and we truly don't know what we are being pushed into.
And I believe with you Moon, that the illusion we live in meant to keep "insanity" out. But in all honesty wouldn't living in a world so sugar coated and illusory be insane? It is a program because we make it one. It doesn't have much to do with computers either. Forming a "life we need to live" campaign on anyone is true waste. We all have individual tastes that get watered down by our governing system.
Would we all agree that the illusion we live in isn't quite the one proposed from the beginning of this topic but merely the result of actual life and the world put through a strainer of our emotion and past experience (along with our biases)?
From wiki:
A bias is a prejudice in a general or specific sense, usually in the sense for having a preference to one particular point of view or ideological perspective. However, one is generally only said to be biased if one's powers of judgment are influenced by the biases one holds, to the extent that one's views could not be taken as being neutral or objective, but instead as subjective. A bias could, for example, lead one to accept or deny the truth of a claim, not on the basis of the strength of the arguments in support of the claim themselves, but because of the extent of the claim's correspondence with one's own preconceived ideas. This is called confirmation bias.
A systematic bias is a bias resulting from a flaw integral to the system within which the bias arises (for example, an incorrectly calibrated thermostat may consistently read – that is 'be biased' – several degrees hotter or colder than actual temperature). As a consequence, systematic bias commonly leads to systematic errors, as opposed to random errors, which tend to cancel one another out.
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So in a sense we live this illusion because we create it. It is the result of the lack of feelings of safety, true knowledge, even the lack of confusion. It is skewed no matter how you look at it and I would argue that fact forever. We are not truly learning if we set ourselves up.
HOW MUCH OBSERVATION ARE WE TRULY DOING. OBVIOUSLY WE CANT FULLY OBSERVE AND TAKE IN BECAUSE PART OF OUR PIE IS CONSUMED BY INNACURATE PERCEPTION. ANY TIME WE TRY TO DECIDE FOR OURSELVES SOMETHING WE DONT KNOW WE ARE MAKING A MISTAKE. ITS LIKE GUESSING ON A TEST IF WE DONT KNOW THE ANSWER.
OUR INABILITY TO JUST "LIVE" HAS HINDERED US FOREVER. WE ARE NOT LEARNING FROM THE MISTAKES OF CIVILIZATION'S PAST. SOON THERE WILL BE A BRAND NEW WE, AND THE UNIMPORTANCE WE FEEL TOWARDS SHARING THE KNOWLEDGE OF GENERATIONS TO THE NEXT SEALS US TIGHT IN THE LITTLE ZIPLOCK BAGGIES OF OUR LIVES.
TRUE KNOWLEDGE IS TO SHARE IT, IT IS NO GOOD SITTING IN YOUR HEADS! :)
THANKS ALL AND MOON ESPECIALLY!!!
corey
Corey -
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Re: Is the world an illusion?
Sun, February 18, 2007 - 2:26 PMAlso check this out:
people.tribe.net/afd6e362-...8090ea52b3
Its a friends blog entry about a similar idea and the fix for it :)
Corey
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Re: Is the world an illusion?
Wed, February 21, 2007 - 8:46 AM"I do not see the same things you do, nor in any way that you do. We try to tell each other we do in order to maintain some sort of "normalcy" within our world, fearing either insanity or that everything will cease to exist."
Yes, everyone sees things through their own filters or "reality tunnels" (aka R.A.W.), but there is PLENTY of overlap and commonality. Take the colors we see. If you take a thousand people (who can see) and show them the primary colors (red, yellow, blue), except for the color blind people, everyone will be able to pick out the color "red" if you ask them to, etc.
That said, this says little about what the actual experience of "seeing red" is *like* to anyone else but yourself, and I think this is what you are getting at Moon. This is the much debated "qualia" problem of philosophy of mind:
plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia
So, while much of the interlink is via "symbols only", there is also interlink in the way we are physiologically hard-wired, as well as due to the nature of the physical world (that the color "red" is a specific frequency of light, etc).
So, my overall point is that to say that all reality is *mere* illusion makes the meaning of the word "reality" as well as "illusion" fairly meaningless. There has to be some grounding, some basis for discussion, or else we just slip into solipsism, making any real discussion of the nature of things pointless other than for mental masturbation purposes (which can be great fun of its own accord! LOL)
-beb
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Re: Is the world an illusion?
Wed, February 21, 2007 - 1:08 PMSo, my overall point is that to say that all reality is *mere* illusion makes the meaning of the word "reality" as well as "illusion" fairly meaningless.
But they are meaningless. :)
I think it's all mental masturbation - All of it. But who says you can't get something good from masturbating? LOL
And these are all only my opinions, in the end how much do they matter to anyone but me? Really?
I don't quote authorities to validate my points, other than a half-assed references to a classic (like the one about Aristotle), because these are *my* opinions and *my* theories from many years of gathering information and putting together my own puzzle. Whether it's right or wrong, I prefer it to be so on it's own than to completely misinterpret someone else's ideas and try to fit them into my own logic structures.
I believe the words "reality" and "illusion" fit hand in hand with "faeries" and "unicorns" - that's my universe. LOL
If you want grounding, you find people who think along similar lines as you and validate each other. There are many out there who would think this discussion is utter madness to begin with or wouldn't be able to wrap a single brain cell around the concepts we are bringing up. They would find no grounding no matter how we termed these things. So they go where they can find that grouping. You won't find me in any forum talking about sports, that's madness to me.
We are hard-wired to believe we have to find a place to fit in - it's survival of the fittest, you go where you can not only survive, but hopefully thrive and come out on top.
(Sorry Corey, I promised but I couldn't help it...I'm feeling kind of Loki-ish today...blame it on the hang over. ;) -
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Re: Is the world an illusion?
Sat, February 24, 2007 - 10:33 PM"But they are meaningless. :)"
Well, then I guess we disagree on this. I see where you are coming from, and in many ways reality IS an illusion, in that "reality" as we experience doesn't exist outside of our cognitive filters (aka "reality tunnels", "psychic grids", "glosses"). And perhaps the problem is the dichotomy of "reality" vs. "illusion" that is the sticking point here. Perhaps a better dichotomy is "illusion" vs. "non-illusion". An example might help explain what I am getting at:
Say there was a person (a guy named "Joe") who claimed they saw a huge meteor heading right for earth. This news causes some panic at first, but quickly many others scan the skies with radio and optical telescopes, and see no such meteor where Joe claims he sees it. Now Joe comes back and says, LOOK THERE IT IS!! Yet no one else can see it. At this point, one would conclude that Joe is either lying, playing a joke, or delusional. Some might worry about the meteor anyway as it MIGHT still somehow be real, but on further investigation it turns out Joe is a known schizophrenic and has had many other delusions about similar end-of-world scenarios like meteors crashing into the earth, etc. So at this point, it is pretty safe to say that the meteor was mere illusion (unless you want to pose that Joe somehow saw some meteor-like thing that was in another dimension, that cannot be detected by others or scientific measurement, but that opens a whole other can O' worms).
But, let's say on the other hand, when others looked, they SAW THE METEOR. It was real! Joe was right, and it is heading for earth. It ends up smashing into the Atlantic ocean and causing tsunamis that kill 200 million people. Then it is quite safe to say the meteor is NOT just a mere illusion!!
A weird example perhaps, but I am feeling weird today. =8^)
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To say that any experience, no matter what, can't be differentiated as being "real" (or tending towards "more real") as opposed to "illusion" (or tending towards "more illusory"), seems to be at best solipsism, and at worst would make it pointless to discuss anything of this nature at all, other than for mental masturbation (which can be great fun, I agree!).
To discount "it all" seems to discount thousands of years of science, philosophy, metaphysics, theology, etc, etc. as *all* being mere mental masturbation, and this seems to me to be a great disservice to the collective knowledge and experience of humankind.
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Re: Is the world an illusion?
Sun, February 25, 2007 - 1:41 AMI believe, reality or illusion or what have you, that it is all bullshit.
95 percent of people I feel are living in an illusion in their minds. Life is an illusion if it is not as it seems. I work alot with sleight of hand and illusion. I know that something can "look" normal to people when really there is something else going on. Crazy enough some of the hardest things to do in magic is making things look NORMAL.
We are all living in this times adjusted age when I dont think we need to adjust for time. I wish we could live as though we did before, long ago. Technology is part of our lives. Many people feel that is seperate or bad but it has all come from nature + our brains. It is part of a whole. I wish we could not change our lives and our thinking because of money and organization but in all honesty that is who people become. They are all flooding into a generic gene pool. People are being run by machines. But not robots, just your checking account, your cell phone, even this computer screen your looking at.
It is all just part of living and living is what we need to be doing much, much better.
Have a good day/night.
Corey
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