Even the thought that I could never know if the reality I'm in is real or not isn't any comfort. If it were true that this reality is "unreal" and at the end of it I go back to "reality", I cannot know if that one is real. I would only be able to know that the previous one was not real. Of course this would be a cycle that repeats forever, with no certainty. Then the fear comes back of putting any sort of stake on this current reality or doing anything at all, lest it all just evaporate up in smoke and never having existed at all. Worrying about that isn't an anxiety disorder, but a rather rational option to one to really understands the uncertainty that they find themselves in.
As for the cake, it can be argued that there is no point to eating it just like there is no point to making it. It's assuming life has an inherent value by living it when it really does not. It simply is. Living it does not give it value, it's merely acting according to biology. Eating the cake doesn't give it value either, the very act of consumption does not give value. Whether it goes bad or remains stale, it still has no value.
Any value you believe to be given is given by you alone. Nothing else GIVES it value. Not the experiences, not the taste, but you. Those other factors simply are. They are little more than sensory data taken in by you, and you determine whether they have value to you.
So NO. The value of life is what you assign to it and nothing else.
So in that case, the experience of eating the cake is, in essence, a projection of the value one is applying to it. Which means that there's some form of value from ones perceptions throughout life. But how does this tie in to this thread, you might ask?
Have you seen the movie Groundhog Day, with Bill Murray? In it, Murray plays a character who starts repeating the same day over and over. Spoilers follow...
Near the end of the movie, he gets out of the loop after a day of being nice, selfless, and gaining happiness without sacrificing the happiness of others (he gets the girl in the end while he's at it).
The repetition in the movie is not unlike life as an illusion. And deciding to live one's life for the purpose of increasing the mentioned value one perceives is then inherently worth it. A do-nothing option (to the degree it exists) is not a rational one even if worrying that reality might not exist is not wholly irrational. After all, if the reality is an illusion, so is the effort. If it's all a dream, like you seem to be implying, then any effort has no consequence. And if it does have consequence, there's no inherent implication that it would be a negative consequence. In fact, from a probabilistic point of view or from the thought that this reality would at least be theoretically similar to whatever actual reality there would be out there, a non-negative consequence is more likely than a negative one. And maybe this reality is completely different. But then there's zero implication that there would be a negative consequence.
That said, a null action is still an action. It's still a choice. And the concept of "wasted effort" cannot even be applied without some sense of existent reality. Effort is a real-world concept. Heck, the concept of solipsism in general doesn't come into play without some sense of existent reality. In that vein, what value is there to discussion of solipsism? Given that there is no method of verification, any change in one's behavior due to considering the world from a solipsistic point of view is inherently hypocritical. If there's no value in actions, then there's no value in the action of changing actions. And if there's negative value in certain actions, then there inherently exists comparatively positive value in other actions, at which point there is purpose to life, through increasing said value.
None of that addresses my question at all. Effort from what I see isn't just a real world concept, it exists in unreality as well. It's just wasted there. Like any effort you exert in your dreams is wasted, but you believe it otherwise because you are unaware that it is a dream. You can realize this fact in the middle of the dream or after the fact. Wasted effort still applies even without having access to an eternal reality. One must merely question whether what they are experiencing is real and external to themselves, and by doing so they question whether their efforts are wasted or not.
Not to mention thy movie has nothing to do with my situation or question (it as after all a movie written a certain way with a certain outcome, it's not applicable to reality).
The concept of solipsism can exist without a sense of existent reality. It questions whether or not you can know if such a thing ever truly exists. You can go forever and never have a sense of a true existing reality, and just believe it's all unreal.
I wish people stayed on topic and not go on tangents that don't answer the question. Especially pulling something unrelated from a completely different thread.
Why exactly is effort wasted in a dream? If it is because you aren't working towards a goal does the same hold true to effort in reality that isn't towards a tangible goal? What if the goal you were working towards becomes invalidated? Also if you never realize that it is a dream and thus wasted effort does this have an effect on whether the effort is actually wasted? Is it only wasted if you realize that it doesn't matter? I'm trying to nail down why you think there is a significant difference between reality and dreams if you can't tell the difference.
It doesn't matter if the reality you are experiencing is in fact false, if you are incapable of leaving it or experiencing the "true" reality "above" it. If the only reality you can experience is this one, it doesn't matter whether it's real or not. You're stuck here, forced to exist within the rules of this reality and forced to live with the consequences of your actions within it. At that point, there is no functional difference between the "false" reality you're experiencing and what it would be like to live in the "true" reality.
Hard solipsism does not have a solution, and likely cannot have a solution. But that doesn't mean you should spend time worrying about the things you are incapable of experiencing. React to the only reality you can react to, and the rest of us promise to do the same around you. Together, we will experience a self-referentially consistent universe that may or may not be real, for the rest of our respective lives.
But if you have zero evidence that the reality you're experiencing isn't real, why would you worry about it not being real?
Precisely.
As has been repeated over and over again, AzureDuality, you have absolutely zero reason to think this is the case. You have, by your own admission, absolutely no basis for believing this to be the case. Why would you fear something that you have absolutely no reason to be the case?
Are you afraid of monsters under your bed at night, or do you recognize that there's no reason for you to be afraid of this because there's no reason to believe that they're real? You have no more reason to believe in this fear.
How could one possibly feel anything at all for an illusory figure.
Ask the people who get upset when fictional characters on TV shows die. It's pretty well established that it's possible to care about fictional characters. That's how basically all fiction works in the first place.
Living life in a sense becomes a waste of time, since everything is imaginary then any sort of achievement you would have done is null and void since you technically did not "do" anything.
I like playing card games. I get an experience of joy from playing card games. I like this experience. I won't get this experience if I'm dead (unless perhaps I'm sent to the shadow realm). Doesn't seem like a waste to me. Extrapolate this point to all other enjoyable experiences in life. I enjoy the experience of a card game despite it being a completely artificial construct. I don't need to really kill a dragon to enjoy playing a card game, and even if all life is a simulation it's a much more convincing one than MTG.
I won't get this experience if I'm dead (unless perhaps I'm sent to the shadow realm).
The Shadow Realm is just 4Kids censoring "death". Even then, it's depicted as a place of eternal suffering -- essentially Hell. I don't think you'd get to play card games there.
The closest thing in the original manga was the World of Darkness, which is described as a "void of eternal darkness", although one character got to escape in much the same fashion as Daxos managed to get out of Theros' Underworld.
I won't get this experience if I'm dead (unless perhaps I'm sent to the shadow realm).
The Shadow Realm is just 4Kids censoring "death". Even then, it's depicted as a place of eternal suffering -- essentially Hell. I don't think you'd get to play card games there.
The closest thing in the original manga was the World of Darkness, which is described as a "void of eternal darkness", although one character got to escape in much the same fashion as Daxos managed to get out of Theros' Underworld.
1) I know this.
2) I'm baffled you chose to nitpick this.
3) Some classical interpretations of eternal suffering indicate that you do little *but* play card games there. Heck, some communities banned MTG as satanic.
I know I have no evidence at all for believing that this isn't real. But for some reason that is small comfort for me. I think of dreams and how real they can seem. I can touch and feel like it's real and that gets me thinking. I also worry that it isn't real because as I said before I would be all alone with a bunch of "people" that don't exist.
And yet telling myself that I have no evidence for that isn't a comfort, because I also have no evidence that it's real either.
I know I have no evidence at all for believing that this isn't real. But for some reason that is small comfort for me. I think of dreams and how real they can seem. I can touch and feel like it's real and that gets me thinking. I also worry that it isn't real because as I said before I would be all alone with a bunch of "people" that don't exist.
And yet telling myself that I have no evidence for that isn't a comfort, because I also have no evidence that it's real either.
So if I'm someone who has never had a dream that felt real, does that make me less of a real person?
Here's a question that's been nagging me for a while in regards to your arguments in this thread: If everything doesn't exist, why not just live life to the fullest, aiming for the most enjoyment you can in the dream? Even if the effort is theoretically wasted, you're still gaining enjoyment out of it. And that enjoyment is as real as the effort.
I know I have no evidence at all for believing that this isn't real. But for some reason that is small comfort for me.
You should really look into what that reason is.
Because this is the thing that's getting me about this whole conversation: you're not talking about how someone would react under the revelation that all of reality were unreal.
You're talking about reacting with absolute existential dread under the fact that we cannot prove a negative with regards to the possibility of reality being unreal.
And that's not logical.
As I've said, you have not a reason to think that reality isn't real. And while the fact that we cannot prove that what we're seeing is real is an interesting philosophical topic to muse over, you're doing much more than that. You're asking how someone cannot be crippled from doing anything in life merely by the fact that we cannot conclusively disprove that reality isn't real.
Again, NOT that we have any reason whatsoever to think it isn't, but the fact that we cannot disprove it isn't.
Once again, I ask, are you afraid of going to bed at night for fear of the possibility of monsters underneath your bed? You have legitimately the same reason to think that reality isn't real as there are monsters under your bed, because you can't prove that negative either. Indeed, it is very difficult to prove a negative for really ANYTHING.
So if you indeed find yourself legitimately crippled by this thought - actually unable or unwilling to do anything in your life based purely on the fact that you cannot prove a negative for a hypothetical scenario that you have no reason to believe in - then I don't think it's unjustified to say that you are going out of your way to feel existential dread. I don't think this has inspired existential dread in you, I think you are looking for an excuse to feel or justify already existing feelings of existential dread, and this is one you have found.
I know I have no evidence at all for believing that this isn't real. But for some reason that is small comfort for me. I think of dreams and how real they can seem. I can touch and feel like it's real and that gets me thinking. I also worry that it isn't real because as I said before I would be all alone with a bunch of "people" that don't exist.
And yet telling myself that I have no evidence for that isn't a comfort, because I also have no evidence that it's real either.
So if I'm someone who has never had a dream that felt real, does that make me less of a real person?
Here's a question that's been nagging me for a while in regards to your arguments in this thread: If everything doesn't exist, why not just live life to the fullest, aiming for the most enjoyment you can in the dream? Even if the effort is theoretically wasted, you're still gaining enjoyment out of it. And that enjoyment is as real as the effort.
No I would not, because if it is true that the world is "fake", then nothing I has value and therefor no enjoyment. It's all an illusion. It's sort of how living to the fullest in a dream is empty in the end.
I know I have no evidence at all for believing that this isn't real. But for some reason that is small comfort for me.
You should really look into what that reason is.
Because this is the thing that's getting me about this whole conversation: you're not talking about how someone would react under the revelation that all of reality were unreal.
You're talking about reacting with absolute existential dread under the fact that we cannot prove a negative with regards to the possibility of reality being unreal.
And that's not logical.
As I've said, you have not a reason to think that reality isn't real. And while the fact that we cannot prove that what we're seeing is real is an interesting philosophical topic to muse over, you're doing much more than that. You're asking how someone cannot be crippled from doing anything in life merely by the fact that we cannot conclusively disprove that reality isn't real.
Again, NOT that we have any reason whatsoever to think it isn't, but the fact that we cannot disprove it isn't.
Once again, I ask, are you afraid of going to bed at night for fear of the possibility of monsters underneath your bed? You have legitimately the same reason to think that reality isn't real as there are monsters under your bed, because you can't prove that negative either. Indeed, it is very difficult to prove a negative for really ANYTHING.
So if you indeed find yourself legitimately crippled by this thought - actually unable or unwilling to do anything in your life based purely on the fact that you cannot prove a negative for a hypothetical scenario that you have no reason to believe in - then I don't think it's unjustified to say that you are going out of your way to feel existential dread. I don't think this has inspired existential dread in you, I think you are looking for an excuse to feel or justify already existing feelings of existential dread, and this is one you have found.
I am not deliberately going out of my way to feel dread here. But as I have said before, dreams are reason enough to doubt the belief that what we see and experience is not real.
The monster under the bed claim is not in the same league as this. For one we know it's nonsense for there to be monsters under the bed (and I don't mean monster as in some person out to kill you). Plus we can prove that there are no such things as a monster under the bed. Whether things and people exist can't be definitively proven is a far greater issue, and one that cannot be tested.
I would also love to hear how it is not logical to succumb to dread at the thought that the entire basis of your worldview and knowledge might not even exist at all. Seems rather illogical not to succumb at that prospect, to know that the foundation of what you know isn't solid at all.
I am not deliberately going out of my way to feel dread here.
Really? Because virtually every response has been, "Why don't you just go on with your life?" and you've obstinately refused this answer each time. For no reason, by your own admission.
So yes, I'd say, "going out of your way" is accurate.
The monster under the bed claim is not in the same league as this. For one we know it's nonsense for there to be monsters under the bed
Really? Can you disprove that there is a monster under your bed?
I would also love to hear how it is not logical to succumb to dread at the thought that the entire basis of your worldview and knowledge might not even exist at all. Seems rather illogical not to succumb at that prospect, to know that the foundation of what you know isn't solid at all.
Ok, I'm going to highlight for emphasis:
"I would also love to hear how it is not logical to succumb to dread at the thought that the entire basis of your worldview and knowledge might not even exist at all. Seems rather illogical not to succumb at that prospect, to know that the foundation of what you know isn't solid at all."
Notice the difference.
You don't know that everything you believe is unreal. You have, by your own admission, absolutely no reason for thinking this.
Be honest, you googled some variation of "prove a negative" and then proceeded to link this article without actually reading it, didn't you? (Hint: it says exactly the opposite of what you think it does.)
No I would not, because if it is true that the world is "fake", then nothing I has value and therefor no enjoyment. It's all an illusion. It's sort of how living to the fullest in a dream is empty in the end.
That's very defeatist, though. Why? I mean, I see no reason to believe that enjoyment is any less conceptual in any other world. And
Doing nothing is choosing reality as real and doing your best to not enjoy any of it.
So if the choice is live in reality, why add the addendum of "always be miserable?"
Why remove options for ourselves by not doing anything? That is a choice. And I see no appearance that it is a positive choice, even if the world is an illusion.
Heck, if I feel some form of what appears to be enjoyment in the dream, and wake up, I think "That was a nice dream" and go about my day. I see no reason not to do that. And this happens even if I put in effort in the dream. And I don't feel negatively just from putting in effort while in the dream. That would be ridiculous.
Besides, if I'm going to consider everyone else potentially not existing, why shouldn't I also consider the idea that I don't exist with equal merit? And if everyone doesn't exist, then there's so many people that why should I put in the effort to change my behavior by removing myself from the picture?
The monster under the bed claim is not in the same league as this. For one we know it's nonsense for there to be monsters under the bed (and I don't mean monster as in some person out to kill you). Plus we can prove that there are no such things as a monster under the bed.
We can? I thought we could only prove that there are no monsters that we can observe under the bed, and only at the time that we attempt to observe them. That seems more logical than "We know it's nonsense." EDIT WHILE WRITING: Oops, Highroller beat me to the punch on this one.
Can you develop your argument and respond fully to the questions and that people have brought up? So far, there's been a lot of repetition, much less response, and a bunch of "this doesn't address my question." If you think it's not related, explain why you think it's not related! We got your point, now explain! I liked your latest response to Highroller. To put this more explicitly:
Don't belabor the same point over and over again
Repetitive posts and “stonewalling”. Sometimes you want to +1 yourself, restating your position because the other guys obviously just didn’t get it the first time. Because we recognize that repeating an idea in new words often can assist understanding, we don’t necessarily consider this spam. However, we will infract repetition that we deem obnoxious; generally, this means reasserting your position multiple times in much the same way without taking into account the responses of others.
and
don't post positions without reasons.
Positions without reasons. This isn’t the place to share your opinions. It’s the place to discuss them. If all you post is something like “I think Mike Huckabee is the best presidential candidate”, we don’t have much to discuss. Every one of your posts that states a position should also state the reasons you have for taking that position. If it doesn’t, it’s spam.
First of all, when I wake up from a realistic feeling dream, I generally think something in the lines of "whoa, that was cool/crazy/weird" and not "meh, so much effort wasted - should have sat in a corner and waited for waking up", but people are just different, I guess.
What I really don't get in this line of thought is why you insist that there can't be any gains if the reality turns out to be... well, not reality, but you constantly weight it with real effort. In my book, if nothing is real and there can't be any actual gain, likewise there can't be actual effort either. So, how can you end up investing disproportionate effort for your gains, if both equal to zero?
So, from a purely logical point of view, let's compare possible outcomes:
- 1. Everyting is just as real as it feels:
a) live your best possible life: I think we can agree this is the most desirable outcome.
b) succumb to dread and do nothing: you just wasted every opportunity you ever had to do something worthwhile.
- 2. We're all just living in a daydream of the flying spaghetti monster or whatever:
a) live your best possible life: no (real) effort, no (real) gain - just doesn't really matter.
b) succumb to dread and do nothing: same as above, no effort, no gain - just doesn't really matter.
So how you act only makes a difference in the first case and there it is the clearly superior choice to just try to make the best of your life. That makes it pretty non-debatable how to best go on, if you ask me...
However, despite you talking in terms of logic and cost-benefit equations, your problem here seems to be mostly emotional and arguing logic might not be the right way to work it out...
Besides, if I'm going to consider everyone else potentially not existing, why shouldn't I also consider the idea that I don't exist with equal merit?
While it may be that I am not what I think I am, there exists something in some reality that is doing the thinking that comprises "me". Therefore, "I" exist in some form, although I cannot prove what that form is.
Besides, if I'm going to consider everyone else potentially not existing, why shouldn't I also consider the idea that I don't exist with equal merit?
While it may be that I am not what I think I am, there exists something in some reality that is doing the thinking that comprises "me". Therefore, "I" exist in some form, although I cannot prove what that form is.
Or, more pithily, cogito ergo sum.
But even that makes the assumption that there is some reality.
But even that makes the assumption that there is some reality.
If there is no reality, then what is having the experiences?
Even if what I am seeing is not real, I am experiencing seeing an object. Regardless of whether or not the object is real, or if I can even see at all, I am still having the subjective experience of seeing an object.
And if those subjective experiences are happening to me, there must be a 'me' that is having these experiences. I am experiencing having thoughts right now. Therefore, I must exist in some capacity.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
So in that case, the experience of eating the cake is, in essence, a projection of the value one is applying to it. Which means that there's some form of value from ones perceptions throughout life. But how does this tie in to this thread, you might ask?
Have you seen the movie Groundhog Day, with Bill Murray? In it, Murray plays a character who starts repeating the same day over and over. Spoilers follow...
The repetition in the movie is not unlike life as an illusion. And deciding to live one's life for the purpose of increasing the mentioned value one perceives is then inherently worth it. A do-nothing option (to the degree it exists) is not a rational one even if worrying that reality might not exist is not wholly irrational. After all, if the reality is an illusion, so is the effort. If it's all a dream, like you seem to be implying, then any effort has no consequence. And if it does have consequence, there's no inherent implication that it would be a negative consequence. In fact, from a probabilistic point of view or from the thought that this reality would at least be theoretically similar to whatever actual reality there would be out there, a non-negative consequence is more likely than a negative one. And maybe this reality is completely different. But then there's zero implication that there would be a negative consequence.
That said, a null action is still an action. It's still a choice. And the concept of "wasted effort" cannot even be applied without some sense of existent reality. Effort is a real-world concept. Heck, the concept of solipsism in general doesn't come into play without some sense of existent reality. In that vein, what value is there to discussion of solipsism? Given that there is no method of verification, any change in one's behavior due to considering the world from a solipsistic point of view is inherently hypocritical. If there's no value in actions, then there's no value in the action of changing actions. And if there's negative value in certain actions, then there inherently exists comparatively positive value in other actions, at which point there is purpose to life, through increasing said value.
Not to mention thy movie has nothing to do with my situation or question (it as after all a movie written a certain way with a certain outcome, it's not applicable to reality).
The concept of solipsism can exist without a sense of existent reality. It questions whether or not you can know if such a thing ever truly exists. You can go forever and never have a sense of a true existing reality, and just believe it's all unreal.
I wish people stayed on topic and not go on tangents that don't answer the question. Especially pulling something unrelated from a completely different thread.
Hard solipsism does not have a solution, and likely cannot have a solution. But that doesn't mean you should spend time worrying about the things you are incapable of experiencing. React to the only reality you can react to, and the rest of us promise to do the same around you. Together, we will experience a self-referentially consistent universe that may or may not be real, for the rest of our respective lives.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
As has been repeated over and over again, AzureDuality, you have absolutely zero reason to think this is the case. You have, by your own admission, absolutely no basis for believing this to be the case. Why would you fear something that you have absolutely no reason to be the case?
Are you afraid of monsters under your bed at night, or do you recognize that there's no reason for you to be afraid of this because there's no reason to believe that they're real? You have no more reason to believe in this fear.
Ask the people who get upset when fictional characters on TV shows die. It's pretty well established that it's possible to care about fictional characters. That's how basically all fiction works in the first place.
I like playing card games. I get an experience of joy from playing card games. I like this experience. I won't get this experience if I'm dead (unless perhaps I'm sent to the shadow realm). Doesn't seem like a waste to me. Extrapolate this point to all other enjoyable experiences in life. I enjoy the experience of a card game despite it being a completely artificial construct. I don't need to really kill a dragon to enjoy playing a card game, and even if all life is a simulation it's a much more convincing one than MTG.
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
The closest thing in the original manga was the World of Darkness, which is described as a "void of eternal darkness", although one character got to escape in much the same fashion as Daxos managed to get out of Theros' Underworld.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
1) I know this.
2) I'm baffled you chose to nitpick this.
3) Some classical interpretations of eternal suffering indicate that you do little *but* play card games there. Heck, some communities banned MTG as satanic.
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
And yet telling myself that I have no evidence for that isn't a comfort, because I also have no evidence that it's real either.
So if I'm someone who has never had a dream that felt real, does that make me less of a real person?
Here's a question that's been nagging me for a while in regards to your arguments in this thread: If everything doesn't exist, why not just live life to the fullest, aiming for the most enjoyment you can in the dream? Even if the effort is theoretically wasted, you're still gaining enjoyment out of it. And that enjoyment is as real as the effort.
Because this is the thing that's getting me about this whole conversation: you're not talking about how someone would react under the revelation that all of reality were unreal.
You're talking about reacting with absolute existential dread under the fact that we cannot prove a negative with regards to the possibility of reality being unreal.
And that's not logical.
As I've said, you have not a reason to think that reality isn't real. And while the fact that we cannot prove that what we're seeing is real is an interesting philosophical topic to muse over, you're doing much more than that. You're asking how someone cannot be crippled from doing anything in life merely by the fact that we cannot conclusively disprove that reality isn't real.
Again, NOT that we have any reason whatsoever to think it isn't, but the fact that we cannot disprove it isn't.
Once again, I ask, are you afraid of going to bed at night for fear of the possibility of monsters underneath your bed? You have legitimately the same reason to think that reality isn't real as there are monsters under your bed, because you can't prove that negative either. Indeed, it is very difficult to prove a negative for really ANYTHING.
So if you indeed find yourself legitimately crippled by this thought - actually unable or unwilling to do anything in your life based purely on the fact that you cannot prove a negative for a hypothetical scenario that you have no reason to believe in - then I don't think it's unjustified to say that you are going out of your way to feel existential dread. I don't think this has inspired existential dread in you, I think you are looking for an excuse to feel or justify already existing feelings of existential dread, and this is one you have found.
No I would not, because if it is true that the world is "fake", then nothing I has value and therefor no enjoyment. It's all an illusion. It's sort of how living to the fullest in a dream is empty in the end.
I am not deliberately going out of my way to feel dread here. But as I have said before, dreams are reason enough to doubt the belief that what we see and experience is not real.
The monster under the bed claim is not in the same league as this. For one we know it's nonsense for there to be monsters under the bed (and I don't mean monster as in some person out to kill you). Plus we can prove that there are no such things as a monster under the bed. Whether things and people exist can't be definitively proven is a far greater issue, and one that cannot be tested.
I would also love to hear how it is not logical to succumb to dread at the thought that the entire basis of your worldview and knowledge might not even exist at all. Seems rather illogical not to succumb at that prospect, to know that the foundation of what you know isn't solid at all.
And there's something about proving a negative:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/believing-bull/201109/you-can-prove-negative
https://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales/articlepdf/proveanegative.pdf
So yes, I'd say, "going out of your way" is accurate.
Really? Can you disprove that there is a monster under your bed?
Ok, I'm going to highlight for emphasis:
"I would also love to hear how it is not logical to succumb to dread at the thought that the entire basis of your worldview and knowledge might not even exist at all. Seems rather illogical not to succumb at that prospect, to know that the foundation of what you know isn't solid at all."
Notice the difference.
You don't know that everything you believe is unreal. You have, by your own admission, absolutely no reason for thinking this.
Be honest, you googled some variation of "prove a negative" and then proceeded to link this article without actually reading it, didn't you? (Hint: it says exactly the opposite of what you think it does.)
That's very defeatist, though. Why? I mean, I see no reason to believe that enjoyment is any less conceptual in any other world. And
Why remove options for ourselves by not doing anything? That is a choice. And I see no appearance that it is a positive choice, even if the world is an illusion.
Heck, if I feel some form of what appears to be enjoyment in the dream, and wake up, I think "That was a nice dream" and go about my day. I see no reason not to do that. And this happens even if I put in effort in the dream. And I don't feel negatively just from putting in effort while in the dream. That would be ridiculous.
Besides, if I'm going to consider everyone else potentially not existing, why shouldn't I also consider the idea that I don't exist with equal merit? And if everyone doesn't exist, then there's so many people that why should I put in the effort to change my behavior by removing myself from the picture?
We can? I thought we could only prove that there are no monsters that we can observe under the bed, and only at the time that we attempt to observe them. That seems more logical than "We know it's nonsense." EDIT WHILE WRITING: Oops, Highroller beat me to the punch on this one.
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Can you develop your argument and respond fully to the questions and that people have brought up? So far, there's been a lot of repetition, much less response, and a bunch of "this doesn't address my question." If you think it's not related, explain why you think it's not related! We got your point, now explain! I liked your latest response to Highroller. To put this more explicitly:
Don't belabor the same point over and over again
and
don't post positions without reasons.
What I really don't get in this line of thought is why you insist that there can't be any gains if the reality turns out to be... well, not reality, but you constantly weight it with real effort. In my book, if nothing is real and there can't be any actual gain, likewise there can't be actual effort either. So, how can you end up investing disproportionate effort for your gains, if both equal to zero?
So, from a purely logical point of view, let's compare possible outcomes:
- 1. Everyting is just as real as it feels:
a) live your best possible life: I think we can agree this is the most desirable outcome.
b) succumb to dread and do nothing: you just wasted every opportunity you ever had to do something worthwhile.
- 2. We're all just living in a daydream of the flying spaghetti monster or whatever:
a) live your best possible life: no (real) effort, no (real) gain - just doesn't really matter.
b) succumb to dread and do nothing: same as above, no effort, no gain - just doesn't really matter.
So how you act only makes a difference in the first case and there it is the clearly superior choice to just try to make the best of your life. That makes it pretty non-debatable how to best go on, if you ask me...
However, despite you talking in terms of logic and cost-benefit equations, your problem here seems to be mostly emotional and arguing logic might not be the right way to work it out...
W(W/U)U Ephara - Flash & Taxes W(W/U)U || B(B/G)G Meren - Circle of Life B(B/G)G
RGW Marath - Ever shifting Wilds RGW || (U/R)C(W/B) Breya - Artificial Dominion (U/R)C(W/B)
UBR Becket Brass - take what you can, give nothing back UBR
Or, more pithily, cogito ergo sum.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
But even that makes the assumption that there is some reality.
Even if what I am seeing is not real, I am experiencing seeing an object. Regardless of whether or not the object is real, or if I can even see at all, I am still having the subjective experience of seeing an object.
And if those subjective experiences are happening to me, there must be a 'me' that is having these experiences. I am experiencing having thoughts right now. Therefore, I must exist in some capacity.