The strange dance of perception and reality

Is most of our life just an illusion we dance with?

I have enjoyed the dance. My reality has been to find joy in the moment, to be amazed at little things and try to see the world from different perspective besides my own. After 68 years of trying, I still find women to be a mystery but there are some that think the same of me.
We do not know much for certain. So let it be whatever makes your life interesting without harm to another. My reality is JOY.
 

There is a huge difference between factual reality and the reality we actually experience.
I think it's how you view reality. If you're deaf, you can't hear reality. If you're blind you can't see reality. So, if you're human, you only see reality through the mind and senses of a human. What becomes reality to us, is our impression of reality. But while we may not know, or understand the complexities of reality, our interpretation of reality enables us to manipulate it to our advantage.
 
bobcat48 said:
There is a huge difference between factual reality and the reality we actually experience. The earth is spinning at about 1000 mph, and we are moving at about 67,000 miles per hour around the sun, not to mention how fast our solar system and galaxy are moving through space. But everything feels stable.

Likewise, our bodies consist entirely of atoms, which are 99.9999999% empty space (With the exception of energy and quantum fields), which would seem to make us energy beings, but our experiential existence tells a different story.

Objects don't really have color, they just reflect some of the light spectrum, but not others, so we see them as having color. Perception is so different from reality, and I won't even touch on quantum physics, which, as they say, "If it doesn't blow your mind, then you don't understand it".

Is most of our life just an illusion we dance with?

Do we even have free will, or is that an illusion too?
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Everyone's reality is different. Whenever I read a book or watch a movie, I am living an illusion, but a part of my mind doesn't know that (the frontal cortex does); it thinks it's reality. I think we move in and out of reality and illusion, like a dance. Now free will is another topic.
 
chic said:
Yes, it is all an illusion. And why not get into quantum physics and parallel realities and all the possibilities that creates? It would be fun.
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Well, I'm clearly in over my head, but from what I understand of Quantum Reality, is that different possibilities don't collapse into a reality until an observer view them. This seems crazy to me.
If I left something on my counter (Let's say a Yoyo), and left my house, then told you to go there and tell me what's on the counter, and you had no idea what it was before you got there, I'm quite certain that you would find a Yoyo.
So does that mean that the reality of the Yoyo was collapsed by my mind, and therefore would always remain that, and if so, then what happens if two people encounter something at the same time. Whose mind collapses the possibilities, and with 8 billion people in the world it would seem that reality can't just be generated from each individual mind. It just doesn't seem possible that it could work that way. But then again, it's way over my pay grade.
 
Most of us use Quantum Physics in our everyday life. However, most of us have nor perception of what it even is. From cell phones to using GPS, somehow or other, we have in some way used quantum physics.

I learned physics in 7th grade while playing baseball, but never understood it or why it's important. Today, I understand why it's important, but no longer care. I had a school teacher ask me in front of the class "Johnny, explain to the class what physics is." I thought about it for a moment because I wanted to come up with an answer that everyone could understand. Finally, I said, "Nothing can change direction without first coming to a stop." The teacher said, "That's correct."

If you don't believe me, put your arm straight out in front of you with fist closed and begin to spin it, then make it spin the other way. It doesn't matter how faster you spin your arm, you will always have to stop it before you change the direction. That's the law of physics.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
There is a huge difference between factual reality and the reality we actually experience.
I think it's how you view reality. If you're deaf, you can't hear reality. If you're blind you can't see reality. So, if you're human, you only see reality through the mind and senses of a human. What becomes reality to us, is our impression of reality. But while we may not know, or understand the complexities of reality, our interpretation of reality enables us to manipulate it to our advantage.
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I am glad you have brought this up, especially as I’m currently eating one of the pickles from @Balzac jar.

An animal that has no sight can’t comprehend what realities sight may bring. That animal has one less sense we have, and can’t comprehend that there might be a sense they are missing.

It’s said that we humans of 5 senses. 5 senses is all we have ever had, and like an animal that only has 4 senses we can’t comprehend or imagine that there might be a 6th, or even a 7th sense. What might we all see if we had this unimaginable sense, a 6th sense. How significantly different might our experienced reality be?

Hand me another pickle!
 
If we place our hands in front of us and say place them down on a computer desk, we can feel the desk. But what is the reality of what we are feeling?

Consider the atoms in our hands and the atoms in the desk. In reality, not one of the atoms in our hands is touching the atoms in the desk, so why does the perceived reality of our senses make it seem as though we are touching the desk?

If we then bring our hands towards us, but still with our hands placed on the desk, we will feel our hands dragging along the desk. Yet as mentioned, not one atom in our hands is touching the atoms of the desk.

Could it then be said that our interpretation of our own senses is just simply that, an interpretation? What exactly might we trust from our senses? What can we trust in our own perception? Perceptions that might not involve any of our senses?
 
How easily might we be fooled by our initial perception of reality? How much might we allow ourselves to be fooled? At what point might we see our own perception as something that is kidding us?

 
Wow well I am impressed - very impressed - there are a lot of apparently wise thinking??? - intelligent thinking??? opened minded people around here - hum?? I wonder what a weekend camp with you all in a forest say - where when trees fall alone they don't make a sound would be like - a sorta silent w/end with sight only - wow that would be fun heh - and then remove the ability to smell too?? - oh and no touching - we'd need a few loony docs and attendants perhaps if they could handle it at all. Then I am reminded :

This was apparently written by Moses but with heavenly guidance:

Then God said :let us make man in our image in our likeness ................So God created main in his own image in the image of God he created him ; male and female he created them .................. Genesis 1 v 26 /27 this is another [scientific ] hard one to comprehend heh - but regardless of our ability to understand this concept completely - some of us value it and recieve guidance and sustenance from it ?? It gets even more and more wonderful if you read the rest of the following verses - don't try to understand necessarily - just wallow in its divinity and grace and comfort!

A professor in a London University once explained to me " that chair you are sitting on is not as solid as you may imagine - it is made up of many atoms which are connected to each other but there are spaces in between - cute idea heh ? - but then I couldn't imagine it - now imagery science makes it more understandable and viewable - and heh it looks cute and I can accept it now - atoms ;protons ; neutrons etc but are they stationary or moving about ?

ps: bobcat48 - thanks a million - this should go on for ever!!
 
Magna-Carta said:
If we place our hands in front of us and say place them down on a computer desk, we can feel the desk. But what is the reality of what we are feeling?

Consider the atoms in our hands and the atoms in the desk. In reality, not one of the atoms in our hands is touching the atoms in the desk, so why does the perceived reality of our senses make it seem as though we are touching the desk?

If we then bring our hands towards us, but still with our hands placed on the desk, we will feel our hands dragging along the desk. Yet as mentioned, not one atom in our hands is touching the atoms of the desk.

Could it then be said that our interpretation of our own senses is just simply that, an interpretation? What exactly might we trust from our senses? What can we trust in our own perception? Perceptions that might not involve any of our senses?
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Absolutely. All our senses have to be interpreted. I think we compare the new sensory experience with the vast library that is stored in memory, and we interpret it based on how it compares. It's weird too how something like virtual reality experience seem so real that our mind processes them as real. Magicians as well capitalize on perception as they fool us into accepting something that didn't happen.
 
You make some intersting points.

bobcat48 said:
Absolutely. All our senses have to be interpreted. I think we compare the new sensory experience with the vast library that is stored in memory, and we interpret it based on how it compares.
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The 'Library' of memories and experiences perhaps being the 'books' in our mind? Some books are yet to be delivered to the library in our minds. Some books yet to be written with new information and new insights? What might they add to our understanding of our reality, I wonder? How might that then turn our understandings on its head?

bobcat48 said:
It's weird too how something like virtual reality experience seem so real that our mind processes them as real. Magicians as well capitalize on perception as they fool us into accepting something that didn't happen.
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I suppose a magician will manipulate what we see, or what we think we see. Get us to place our gaze somewhere else in order to fool us. Perhaps we are our own magicians. We can fool ourselves, placing our own gase on the wrong thing. We can distort our own sense of reality!

I think I need another Gin. It's only Gin; I have nothing else with me. :)

Never really thought of Virtual Reality. Do you mean as in those electronic devices that are placed over someone's eyes. I've never used one. But I now think back to some years ago, playing a computer game on a reasonably large desktop monitor, in the dark. Having no sense of what was around me, only seeing what was on a screen.

The character I was playing and moving then accidentally fell off a cliff. I felt as though I was tumbling, and my adrenalin started pumping. My mind became disoriented, yet the true reality was that I was sitting still in a chair.
 
Magna-Carta said:
You make some intersting points.


The 'Library' of memories and experiences perhaps being the 'books' in our mind? Some books are yet to be delivered to the library in our minds. Some books yet to be written with new information and new insights? What might they add to our understanding of our reality, I wonder? How might that then turn our understandings on its head?



I suppose a magician will manipulate what we see, or what we think we see. Get us to place our gaze somewhere else in order to fool us. Perhaps we are our own magicians. We can fool ourselves, placing our own gase on the wrong thing. We can distort our own sense of reality!

I think I need another Gin. It's only Gin; I have nothing else with me. :)

Never really thought of Virtual Reality. Do you mean as in those electronic devices that are placed over someone's eyes. I've never used one. But I now think back to some years ago, playing a computer game on a reasonably large desktop monitor, in the dark. Having no sense of what was around me, only seeing what was on a screen.

The character I was playing and moving then accidentally fell off a cliff. I felt as though I was tumbling, and my adrenalin started pumping. My mind became disoriented, yet the true reality was that I was sitting still in a chair.
Click to expand...
Yes, VR (The headsets) are making their way into many areas of life as well as Augmented Reality. Ther is even Sim City where you become a character in another made up world and set up a life there (Business, family, home, money, and the whole nine yards). I imagine the day will come when we can link our minds up to computers (Man won't hackers love that).
 
bobcat48 said:
Yes, VR (The headsets) are making their way into many areas of life as well as Augmented Reality. Ther is even Sim City where you become a character in another made up world and set up a life there (Business, family, home, money, and the whole nine yards).
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I have enough to contend with in real life. Not sure I want a made up one as well. I can imagine that some might have even more difficult separating fact from fiction.

bobcat48 said:
I imagine the day will come when we can link our minds up to computers (Man won't hackers love that).
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Sounds a bit scary.
 
we are puny creatures really ; with puny minds and puny lives and puny dreams - surely that is the baseline and we haven't moved off it much at all?
 

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