The infinite onion.

[Never]

I'm certain this topic will plummet quickly (that's it, what a way to interest a crowd) but I've been thinking about the nature of reality (that should send them toward the exits in droves) and how a logical analysis often brings me to a paradox when I try to understand what exactly I ought to think. (If I write vaguely, people will think that I'm simply more intelligent than they)

A philosopher sits in front of a stove. He wonders how he knows that stove exists. How does he know anything he sees or hears exists? It could be a dream or a demon could be tricking him. He concludes though that he is thinking, or at lest he thinks he's thinking, and as he thinks therefore he is.

That's all well and good but as I sit here in front of my computer I have to wonder if it is real, if anyone of you are real and if reality exists. (Why do I have to? Obsessive Personality) I think, I think I think at least, I don't know if it is me thinking. It's quite possible that my thoughts are the dreams of another or that I am character in a story, the program of some masterful computer designed to create a reality out of syntax and silicone.

I don't know if I exist. Can you imagine?

Something must exist though, right? If this is an illusion there must be a reality, much like a shadow or a reflection depends on a real object than even if I am a dream or a character there must be a reality even if it is not this reality.

I suppose I should take comfort in this but it's not working. I have to ask, is it possible for me to exist even if I don't? If I am a dream, can I exist still? Is a shadow a thing in itself dependent on something 'real' - or is it only a suggestion of reality? What I'm getting to is, I cannot be nothing, can I? I must be something, which is created by something else - even if I am not the original existence I exist in a fashion. To exist as a trick of light is better than to not exist at all.

Likewise, the things I touch, the people I know, exist as much (or as little) as I do. Given the limited range of the senses it's possible that much of what I think is real is simply an illusion of my level of reality. (Do shadows cast reflections?) Still, the majority of it is real.

In that way reality is like an infinite onion, I can know I exist on one of the layers but I do not know which layer it is.

Does that make sense?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Starfish]

I like the infinite onion idea.

I would say, yes. That makes sence.

Illusions are only illusive if someone knows the difference.

 

[Mensa]

Somebody needs a nap

My inclination is to reply that, no, that doesn't make sense. Are you asking in a philosophical or a scientific sense? When you consider that everything, and I do mean everything, is made up in it's basic form of energy, then you run in to a conundrum. If everything that exists is energy, and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, merely changed into an alternate form of energy. Then everything that has ever existed or will ever exist, exists now. The determining factor as to what form it takes is the fourth dimension, the dimension of time.

This is beginning to sound like an episode of "The Twilight Zone"


So, theoretically, if you could alter time or travel through time then you could see everything that ever existed or will ever exist.

Man, this is getting convoluted!!

Here's something else to consider next time you're thirsty. All the water on the earth that has ever been, is still here! It just keeps getting recycled over and over again. So the next glass of water you drink could be the recycled piss of King Henry VIII or Rasputin the Mad Monk. Just something to think about!

CHEERS!!!

 

[lavender]

Re: Somebody needs a nap

 

[DevilMayCare]

I'm probably silly enough to engage you on this subject, though I can't help but wonder whether you're wandering around in such musings all the time or whether something prompted this particular episode of introspection.

I don't have difficulty with simply being in the world without such questions arising. However, I've been drawn at times to the study of Buddhism and I know their philosophical speculations put Western philosophy to shame. They argue that experience with reality comes from first hand knowing, not mental speculation. For them spiritual practice built around meditation and utilizing visualizations, repetitive sounds (mantra) and movement (mudra) all create conditions in which a person may experience directly what this human existence thing is all about. Then, proceeding from that experience they create a multi-layered and detailed description of what they've discovered in their inward journeys. I generally give up when it comes to a list of forty aspects of one element of reality.

That you question is perhaps not typical, but on the other hand I find it perfectly normal. This life thing is quite remarkable, and when you add intimacy in all its forms it becomes even more complex.

So you got one response to your post, though one that clearly offers not much in the way of enlightenment. I'll end, however, with a favorite quote from a very famous Tibetan Buddhist master from the thirteenth century that speaks to our experience trying to come to terms with our world. You might appreciate it.

Since everything is but an apparition, perfect in being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well burst out in laughter.

Long Chen Pa
The Natural Freedom of Mind


DMC

 

[MinkSoul]

I've been drawn at times to the study of Buddhism and I know their philosophical speculations put Western philosophy to shame.[/i]


[/B]

i don't know if you meant it this way but, the above statement kind of sounds like "My philosophy can beat up your philosophy with one hand tied behind it's back"

isn't the test of a philosophy wheather or not it works for you?

 

[cactiphile]

Odd I have very similar thoughts a lot of the time.
Eg is this reality or could it just be someone else
playing a computer game of my life (now that would be a boring game!)
In fact my wife had me convinced for about an hour that
I was a holographic simulation on board DS9, spouses can
be cruel sometimes :-(

Anyway wasn't it CS Lewis, in teh last book of the Narnian
Cronicles who said life is like an Onion, when you die you strip away another layer to get to a new reality?

Or I read somewhere else that the answer to life the universe and everything is.
'Overall there is the smell of fried onions'

And while we're on obssessive philosophic musings,
does anyone else but me worry about the end of the Universe,
another big bang and start over, or empty nothingness.

I need help.

Cactiphile

 

[MinkSoul]

And while we're on obssessive philosophic musings,
does anyone else but me worry about the end of the Universe,
another big bang and start over, or empty nothingness.

I need help.

Cactiphile

um.... the way i see it.... eventualy everything in the universe will end up in a supermassive black hole...



which, by definition means, it's all been pulled out of the universe (anything that goes beyond the event horizon of a black hole is stuck in that black hole for ever so it is considered 'unavailable to this universe' hence outside of it)


so, everything in this universe will eventualy be outside of it...

and inside this universe...
what a minute.... if there's nothing in the universe, how do you know it exists?

but theres a supergiant black hole in it...
but you just said that black holes are outside the universe

yea... i did say that, didn't i.... um.....the super.... uh... the universe....




can i get back to you on that?

 

[Ally C]

At least you live in a layer [or layers] where you have the capacity to ponder such philosophical questions. Lots of people don't have any food, never mind the luxury of such profound food for thought, and would welcome the discovery of an infinite onion. It would go some way to solving more tangible and pressing needs regarding the human condition. The Enlightenment has been and gone. So has its classical foundations. By all means ponder such things (I do), but don't cry when peeling the onion, as there is a limited appeal in such an endeavour given how short life is.

 

[cactiphile]

But in the supermassive blackonion, there will
be so much energy that one field of thought
thinks it will explode again as a new big bang.
On the other hand the laws of physics might alter
under the mass of such a huge mass, and it could
start leaking else where.

Also would it be feasiable to get far enough away
from the universal center in time to escape the hold
the big onion, given that gravity decreases on a
distance squared law rather than directly?

Cactiphile

 

[Dillinger]

Cogito ergo cogito sum... I think therefore I think I am.

*smile*

You can approach this in a scientific manner as well as a philosophical manner - in fact science is coming to sound more and more like philosophy these days... and why not? Are we not all the product(s) of the same beginnings? Why shouldn't the quantum realm not only affect "matter" but mind as well? I've always believed that it does...

Is light a particle or a wave? It is both. The act of measuring decides. In fact - the act of measuring cannot help but affect whatever it is that you're measuring.

Therefore - does not the act of thinking affect what you're thinking about? And if you're thinking about your own realityt - or thinking about thinking... the very act affects that "reality"...

Therefore...

Cogito ergo cogito sum...

 

[Siren]

Something to think about next time I am drinking a glass of aqua

 

[Ask For More]

Try stabbing yourself. Then tell me whether you exist or not

 

[Siren]

AFM....what is with that face?

 

[Ask For More]

Re: AFM....what is with that face?

You got no nose and almost no mouth.

Looks like you are all eyes and pointy chin...

Cheeky so-an-so!
It's my confused face....if I go back to normal my mouth and nose will reappear trust me!
Anyway that's rich coming from someone with no legs

 

[Siren]

HAHAHA AFM

 

[Ask For More]

Re: HAHAHA AFM

I got legs...they are tucked inside the tail.

And you dont have a lower body.
you look like a Japanese Speed Racer cartoon

Freakazoid!

They couldn't fit all of my lower body in because of the size of my *ahem*


So there!

 

[Siren]

AFM

 

[Ask For More]

damn you Siren, now i'm gonna have to demonstrate to you the size of my sword!

It's been changed....

 

[Siren]

Nice Sword

 

[Siren]

And this sweet NEVER

 

[Ask For More]

hehe
People exist!
And that the bottom line, cos AFM and Siren said so!

Now I can change my icon back to something I prefer too

 

[Svedish_Chef]

I don't care...

My darling Never has returned