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How do I know if I (or anyone else) exists outside my mind?

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09 Aug 2012, 4:25 pm

TallyMan wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
TallyMan wrote:
We don't exist outside of your mind. You were born into a virtual reality matrix and everyone you know are merely simulations. :P

(Thread moved from Random to PPR for a fuller philosophical treatment)


Simulations of WHAT?

If there is no reality then what are they simulating?


How can you know for sure that this is not the 25th century and you are just a brain in a jar with various inputs connected to your brain simulating your existence here in the 21st century? While such a scenario seems highly unlikely how would you know the difference anyway?


It's a fascinating idea and I agree that it is not falsifiable.

If I could only determine all of the inputs....Oh yeah, Baby!! !! :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:



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09 Aug 2012, 5:04 pm

AceOfSpades wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
Lord_Gareth wrote:
Wasn't it decided, like, ages ago that Plato's Cave was an inherently unprovable concept?

The Cave analogy holds true to an extent, we genuinely can't empirically experience "true reality". Our eyes can't see all electromagnetic wave lengths, or anything too small. Our ears can't hear all sounds. We can only feel to a certain precision. We can use logic (theoretical physics) to deduce things about the world that we can't perceive, and we can attempt to verify them using carefully design experiments, but we can never directly perceive what is truly there, only an imitation of it.

The Theory of Forms is unprovable, yes.
Exactly. There's this strange assumption that we see reality as it is. No, we interpret reality and make sense out of it. It's better to think of reality as a language than as a big elephant in the room.


Agreed.
Science has proven that we SENSE very little compared to the data that exists and then our brain perceives the Universe based on that sensory info. with many complex filters and frames of reference applied.