Does the world exist?

[brockw69]

1. Just wondering if the world, as we think we see it, actually exists or is it all just a sum total illusion created in our brains as a result of all the neuron; chemical messenger; synapse etc... in other words, the general working of a brain and what we are told and [most of us] learn throughout life?

2. Is it 'healthy' to think that everything is simply an illusion shared by the majority and created by the brains of that majority and to reduce reality to a sequence of neuron firing etc...?

I have attempted to rephrase the above, yet, that's about as simple as I can put it.

[iNow]

While our experience of the world exists only within our brains, the world itself certainly exists outside of them. This is easier to comprehend when you realize others also have an experience of the world and can perceive the same things as you and I. Those things are consistent across observers, and hence are clearly not restricted to the observer mind.

 

On your other question, healthy is a relative term, but I'd have to say, no. It's not healthy to think everything is an illusion, but that's just my opinion. You're basically talking about the philosophical idea of solipsism, and it's a bit absurd AFAIC.

[petrushka.googol]

I'd have to say that since quantum mechanical effects at the macro level are insignificant the difference between perception and reality of our "World" is very thin indeed. However you should appreciate that if you and your friend for example are viewing an object (say a mountain) from its origin and at a distance of 3 km away by using binoculars then your view of that object (here the mountain) would differ as the viewer through the binoculars would view the object 1/100 th of a millisecond older than the viewer at the origin. This is because light travels at 300000 km/sec and would take that much time to reach the viewer with the binoculars. While this is insignificant for the average viewer this is significant when you consider phenomena that could transpire in that time interval. So as you see perspective changes from person to person (not to mention that the average person sees only what his mind tells him to see). He ignores subtleties and prefers niceties. But then that is a human weakness.

PS . Not everyone sees Mona Lisa smile

[Function]

What a most interesting subject.

iNow, thanks for mentioning 'solipsism', a new term to me. Learned something new there

 

Yet I'm afraid no-one will ever be able to give you a plausible, acceptable consensus on this subject. Is solipsism the case here? Are we all just parasites, bacteria, microbes, molecules, atoms, quarks of the earth, an organ of the universe, the organism of the universe of all universa, whereas what we see as molecules and atoms are, in comparison, even undiscovered things? Perhaps they are a universe, a planet on their own, with their own living beings, just like earth is to the universe? Perhaps our very universe is but an atom from another molecule, the brick of something that's very small to something/someone which/who lives outside this universe? Following this theorem, perhaps the Big Bang with the universe it created is just like the apparition of so-called "virtual particles" and is time as we know it actually very slow (perhaps trillions of years (lifetime of the universe) in comparison to about 10^(-22) seconds (average lifetime of a virtual particle)) and incomprehensible!

 

You see where I'm going? Don't sweat it. Don't f*ck up your mind like I did, thinking about such things. Let it be as it is and enjoy your time.

Edited February 20, 2014 by Function