Prove to me reality is real

"Hello, God here. This is your reality speaking"

and one might ask the question then... what is reality?

there is no litmus test for reality.

The matrix has a great scene that talks about reality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgBViHeiSKM

"what is real? how do you define real? if you are talking about what you can feel,smell, taste & see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain."

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arpgfan wrote:

First off, people claim that anything that can be proven with facts and evidence is true or real.

Let's apply this to reality.

What evidence is there that everything we "know" to be real is real? The only thing we really have, besides other peoples' (people whose existence can easily be questioned as well) word that things are real, is our senses. Our senses, taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing ALL interact with our brain.

With that said, not only could our brain be lying to us or malfunctioning, but it might not even exist if reality itself isn't even real.

I suggest taking some introduction to philosophy courses if you'd really like to explore this. What you present is a hyper-skeptical position which in all honestly cannot be argued against. Just like - you cannot prove the universe sprung into existence 4 minutes ago complete with everyone and everything including a belief in a shared 'past' that we all hold concerning ourselves and world events - you cannot absolutely prove that the world didn't just spring into being.

However, as fun as these things are to discuss, the more pertinent question is "so what?" would any of your actions really change if you knew you were just a bodiless brain in a vat somewhere or that we were all in the 'Matrix'? You still feel pain, you still have emotional connections, you still have wants and desires, you still have a very strong self-preservation instinct. So if 'fake' reality behaves just like 'real' reality - what's the difference?

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reboticon wrote:

If Descartes couldn't do it I sort of doubt the forum can.

Descartes did do it, so long as you accept the existence of an omnipotent God who is morally perfect and as such wouldn't purposefully or through inaction allow Its creation to be fooled into believing that the world exists or that their sensations are illusory. :)

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arpgfan wrote:

Spoiler

First off, people claim that anything that can be proven with facts and evidence is true or real.

Let's apply this to reality.

What evidence is there that everything we "know" to be real is real? The only thing we really have, besides other peoples' (people whose existence can easily be questioned as well) word that things are real, is our senses. Our senses, taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing ALL interact with our brain.

With that said, not only could our brain be lying to us or malfunctioning, but it might not even exist if reality itself isn't even real.

I cannot prove to you that reality is real; the task is impossible. However, I firmly believe that it exists, and I aim to persuade you, using the truth as I see it. Furthermore, I believe that I can prove that I can't prove it.

There are two classifications for all things which are irrefutably true:
1) Laws of deductive reasoning and mathematics. For example, 1+1=2, and TRUE AND FALSE is FALSE. Different people may have different words for these concepts, but the definitions of these concepts themselves allow one to form things one knows to be true by their definitions themselves.
2) Perception. I'm not using the weak form of this word (meaning "opinion"), but the harsh literal form, meaning input from the five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell. We might not understand why we perceived something — and I'm not saying that phenomena such as hallucinations do not exist — but one we perceive something, it is futile to deny that we perceived it; we know we did, at least until we choose to forget about it.

If one relies exclusively on deductive reasoning, this is as far as one goes. However, humans do not rely exclusively on that; we also use inductive reasoning, through the scientific method. Well, perhaps not the formalized version of the scientific method, but the core is still the same: observe, hypothesize, test, test some more, and keep on testing. Unlike deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning (and thus the scientific method) never proves anything; repeated trials either support the hypothesis, or disprove it. As Einstein said, "no amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."

Thus belief in reality is not of a deductive origin; it is of an inductive origin. You can witness this in the behavior of a newborn infant, until they're a few months old. When we're born, all we have is our consciousness and our ability to perceive, and babies are perception experimenters, slowly testing the core hypothesis which we adults have all come to rely on: that reality is real.

Why should you believe that reality is real? Not because I can prove it, but because it's the single most scientifically tested, peer-reviewed theory in all of human science, and has much more evidentiary support than any competing theory on whether reality exists or not.

I would like to propose a simple experiment to prove that if it feels real then it must be.

Step 1 - I punch you directly in the face.

Step 2 - I ask you if that feels real.

Based on your response, we can deduce whether or not that felt real to you.

You could possibly base a thesis on it. Go around to random people and get them all to punch you in the face. I for one would be truly interested in your findings.

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Hardlicker wrote:

I would like to propose a simple experiment to prove that if it feels real then it must be.

Step 1 - I punch you directly in the face.

Step 2 - I ask you if that feels real.

Based on your response, we can deduce whether or not that felt real to you.

You could possibly base a thesis on it. Go around to random people and get them all to punch you in the face. I for one would be truly interested in your findings.

Step 3 - I punch you back and knock you the fk out bitch now what

I have always accepted reality for what it is...you get old and die.

That's the little held secret. If you wish to exist beyond that point then good luck to you.