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Just finished Silent Hill 2 (No, this is not the first time I've played or beaten it) it had a very interesting Metaphysical question to it.

For those who haven't played Silent Hill the story is this: You play a guy named James who smothered his wife died 3 years ago. He gets a letter from his wife leading him to a town where he meets people and fights monsters. It's discovered late in the story that all the characters from the people to the monsters are of James' own creation and avatars of his psychiatric condition.

So the question: Is everything around us just figments of our own imagination?

No. For starters my imagination is way packed full of boobies, and there's not nearly enough of them out there in the real world.

Secondly, just about anyone can differentiate between the real world and even the most well constructed imaginary state. For sane people, that'd be dreams, and the level of coherency in dreams is always much lower than in real life. Insane people who have bouts of sanity will be struck at how the world suddenly seem to have 'laws'.

Of course, my epistemology teacher, when we discussed the 'brain in a vat imagining the world' scenario, refused this as a knockdown argument, but then he was a dick, so there's that. His reply was ''maybe your imagination is perfectly coherent?''. Then it's stupid to talk about imagination. If we are in an inescapable state preventing us for perceiving the world for what it truly is, but are entirely functionnal otherwise, in a perfectly predictable illusion, then this is not 'imagination'. I have power over what I imagine. Otherwise it's just another layer of the metaphysical world to be peeled back by experimentation. If it cannot be peeled back, then it's an integral part of reality.

Yes, the whole world revolves around me and you are just figments of my imagination. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

If the world was generated by my psyche, then it would be a hell lot more interesting.
More harems, for one thing.

None of you exist.

Prove it.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

Secondly, just about anyone can differentiate between the real world and even the most well constructed imaginary state.

There was a period in my life, when I was under a great deal of stress, in which I would have dreams about feasible real-world events. Things like talking to a friend on the phone, writing a paper, or eating dinner. The memories of these dreams were sufficiently vivid to make it difficult to parse what I had done in the past, and what I had dreamed about doing*.

This, of course, isn't the same as creating our own reality, but it does point to the rather thin line between our memory of actual events, and the events that take place in dreams.



*It was even worse when I had been drunk the night before.

 broodstar wrote:
So the question: Is everything around us just figments of our own imagination?

It could be, but since we can not alter it beyond normal means, why does it even matter if it is?

nope, cos if it was I would have a social life.

Nom

Depends what you mean.

A physical, objective reality, no, that chair in the corner exists whether you're their or not.

But the subjective reality is individually created. For example the glass half full/ half empty analogy.

 dogma wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

Secondly, just about anyone can differentiate between the real world and even the most well constructed imaginary state.

There was a period in my life, when I was under a great deal of stress, in which I would have dreams about feasible real-world events. Things like talking to a friend on the phone, writing a paper, or eating dinner. The memories of these dreams were sufficiently vivid to make it difficult to parse what I had done in the past, and what I had dreamed about doing*.

This, of course, isn't the same as creating our own reality, but it does point to the rather thin line between our memory of actual events, and the events that take place in dreams.



*It was even worse when I had been drunk the night before.

The main difference would then come from dream control asserted through dream awareness. I too have had horrible vivid dreams, especially lately, since I'm trying to cut on some bad habits which were repressing my dreams. I think nightmares are especially good when it comes to dream awereness, since you've got a strong urge to escape whatever is threatening you.

More normally, dreams will lack certain components from the awaken experience, often for me it's the actual sensation. The vivid nightmares I've had pretty much included everything except pain. Which is good since I'm usually getting hacked apart in most of them.

Vivid dreams about writing papers must sucks, tho.

 fire4effekt wrote:
None of you exist.

Prove it.

Cogito ergo sum - I think, therefore I am.

 Castiel wrote:

 fire4effekt wrote:
None of you exist.

Prove it.

Cogito ergo sum - I think, therefore I am.

Flawed argument. Great deceiver.

 Fafnir wrote:

 Castiel wrote:

 fire4effekt wrote:
None of you exist.

Prove it.

Cogito ergo sum - I think, therefore I am.

Flawed argument. Great deceiver.

How do you figure?

Once the idea of the great deceiver is established, you can't be certain of anything. Even something as simple as "I think, I am."

 broodstar wrote:
So the question: Is everything around us just figments of our own imagination?

Yes and No.

Yes because they do exist.

But no, because how they actually are, might differ due to how we perceive them.

Using example with .... Silent Hill 2.

James: How did you manage to survive with all those monsters out there.
Laura: ? They look like monsters to you?

Applying that to real life, it works the same way.

Personally, I am of the existentialist point of view. Universal "meh."

My brother and I have been arguing existentialism, and I think I have a good argument against it.

If everything around us is imagined by us, then why have sensory organs. Sensory organs would mean the object came first and organisms evolved a way to sense it.

 Mr Nobody wrote:
My brother and I have been arguing existentialism, and I think I have a good argument against it.

If everything around us is imagined by us, then why have sensory organs. Sensory organs would mean the object came first and organisms evolved a way to sense it.

Because, everyone's brain decipher such "information" differently. It leads to different tastes and opinions and preferences.

 Fafnir wrote:
Once the idea of the great deceiver is established, you can't be certain of anything. Even something as simple as "I think, I am."

How can you give an illusion the illusion of individuality without making it an individual?

There's also other epistemological tests to warrant the cogito. Let's say you can evaluate the value of a beleif by asking yourself ''Would I bet x % of what I own that y is true'', y being the beleif in question, and x being the likelyhood that such a beleif is true. In epistemology, this test serve to show how dangerous dogmatic truth are. The Cogito being often held as a dogmatic truth, that test should show how unreasonnable it would be to bet 100% of what you have on the fact that you exist. But it doesn't, simply because if I am wrong, then ''I'' couldn't have owned anything from the start. ''I'', thus, have lost nothing.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

The main difference would then come from dream control asserted through dream awareness. I too have had horrible vivid dreams, especially lately, since I'm trying to cut on some bad habits which were repressing my dreams. I think nightmares are especially good when it comes to dream awereness, since you've got a strong urge to escape whatever is threatening you.

More normally, dreams will lack certain components from the awaken experience, often for me it's the actual sensation. The vivid nightmares I've had pretty much included everything except pain. Which is good since I'm usually getting hacked apart in most of them.

Vivid dreams about writing papers must sucks, tho.

See, but that's the thing, I didn't know I was dreaming; it wasn't lucid. I would wake up, remember doing something, and then discover in conversation that I had never done it. It felt just like the type of vague memory you get when try and recall where you put your keys, or if X was due tomorrow.

One really good example: I love hockey, and at the time I had been trying to get my girlfriend to go to a game with me. She wasn't the sports type, but she had also never been exposed so I figured it would be something cool to at least mutually snark about. She refused often, but I had been wearing her down with promises of the upper level wine bar. Then I called her one night and she finally agreed...except she didn't, the call never took place, it was in a dream that was so closely connected to my then present life that I couldn't determine it from a normal memory. It felt real, but it wasn't lucid.

I think I should also say that the dreams weren't horrible, not in themselves. They were more confusing, in the sense that I couldn't separate them from reality without effort: they didn't feel like dreams*. Like dreaming about writing the paper. It wasn't bad, it just made me feel like I had already written it, when in fact I had written nothing and it was due in 10 hours; which is bad in its own way.

I guess another point might be that I don't have nightmares, not in the normal sense. I've definitely experienced being threatened in dreams, but they've always been lucid and I've always sort of just "observed."




*Note: This only happened because they were grounded in reality. I've had my fair share of crazy ass dreams that are very easy to discern.

That's pretty insane! I guess with something as personal as dreams I shouldn't generalize simply from my experiences. I've never had such a dream, but then again, I haven't dreamed for the past 7 years, with very few exceptions that were all pretty much nightmares. I've had one or two dreams that were very convincing because they were very emotional events, like my dad dying, and I'd wake up in tears, but it was never to the point were it would become confusing.

I know you can take certain drugs in order to make dreams more vivid, I wonder if there's also something, or some trick in order to become lucid more often?

Apparently yes ; http://www.wikihow.com/Lucid-Dream. #4 and #5 might be the way for me, I often wake during nightmares, and then become lucid when I fall back asleep again.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
Once the idea of the great deceiver is established, you can't be certain of anything. Even something as simple as "I think, I am."

How can you give an illusion the illusion of individuality without making it an individual?

Would the idea of the great deceiver transcend not even that? Perhaps beyond our comprehension, but would that not be irrelevant?

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
That's pretty insane! I guess with something as personal as dreams I shouldn't generalize simply from my experiences. I've never had such a dream, but then again, I haven't dreamed for the past 7 years, with very few exceptions that were all pretty much nightmares. I've had one or two dreams that were very convincing because they were very emotional events, like my dad dying, and I'd wake up in tears, but it was never to the point were it would become confusing.

I know you can take certain drugs in order to make dreams more vivid, I wonder if there's also something, or some trick in order to become lucid more often?

Apparently yes ; http://www.wikihow.com/Lucid-Dream. #4 and #5 might be the way for me, I often wake during nightmares, and then become lucid when I fall back asleep again.

I often get lucid dreams when Im extremely bored during my sleep. Its usually shooting aliens ( banana head from movies ) in the mall.

There are twice that I actually died in my dream then I was like Ok thats enough time to wake up.

I died once in a dream. It was a weird ass dream. Ever since then, I've had an entirely too rational fear of red-headed mormons.

 Fafnir wrote:
I died once in a dream. It was a weird ass dream. Ever since then, I've had an entirely too rational fear of red-headed mormons.

In my case I always die with alien's 2ndary jaws ramming into my eye socket.

Too much FPS and too much Aliens xD Thinking about it, Im sure its because I play AVP and L4D2 on steam often,
I sort of combined the 2 together

We can only make our own reality in relation to our facticity. We are stuck with the contingencies of who we are and the world we are a part of. We can transcend our current selves towards future projects. Success towards building a more authentic self is met with bad faith when we do not acknowledge our facticity and can lead to failure and despair. Standing on the reef of solipsism is a sure way to experience despair and nausea. The for-itself and the in-itself, the sticky slimey, the hole to be filled.

Death comes to us all even though we have never experienced it ourselves, it is everpresent. We wish to be free in the mean time.

 Castiel wrote:

 fire4effekt wrote:
None of you exist.

Prove it.

Cogito ergo sum - I think, therefore I am.

I made you think that.

After reading this thread, i believe you may all be real. You're using words ive never even attempted to say let alone spell.

 Fafnir wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
Once the idea of the great deceiver is established, you can't be certain of anything. Even something as simple as "I think, I am."

How can you give an illusion the illusion of individuality without making it an individual?

Would the idea of the great deceiver transcend not even that? Perhaps beyond our comprehension, but would that not be irrelevant?

I guess those set on demonstrating the Cogito as non-foundational would say it does transcend that, but I'd say like you, that it's then something we cannot conceive, simply state without it having any real meaning. The idea of an illusion owning thoughts pretty much makes no sense at all.

I died once in a dream. It was a weird ass dream. Ever since then, I've had an entirely too rational fear of red-headed mormons.

Weird. I remember a scene from a movie. A gangster enters a room, shoots a guy in the leg, unpack a bunch of knives, then goes to boost the volume of a gramophone. He comes back, and ask the guy on the floor if he's ready. The guy answers yes, and then the camera switches tohis point of view. Then slowly the camera blacks out and comes back, more and more blurry each time, until it blacked out comlpetely. I couldn't watch more than that, had other plans, so I never learned the name of the movie. Anyone recognize the scene?

Really freaked me at the time.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
Once the idea of the great deceiver is established, you can't be certain of anything. Even something as simple as "I think, I am."

How can you give an illusion the illusion of individuality without making it an individual?

Would the idea of the great deceiver transcend not even that? Perhaps beyond our comprehension, but would that not be irrelevant?

I guess those set on demonstrating the Cogito as non-foundational would say it does transcend that, but I'd say like you, that it's then something we cannot conceive, simply state without it having any real meaning. The idea of an illusion owning thoughts pretty much makes no sense at all.

Which is fine. I simply meant to bring up the point of uncertainty.

To the OP:

No. We do not. And if we do, I'm still right.