Every kid has had the thought..."What if this is all a dream?" Even kids know about dreams, that strange other world that seems so real but isn't, and they soon realize that they have no way of proving that the "real" world is not a dream too. Even as mature, sophisticated and scientifically aware 21st century adults, we are also aware that the world revealed to us by physics, the world of atoms and magnetic fields and light, reality, does not really resemble the world of everyday experience that is perceived through our senses.
We also see that others perceive the world differently than we do, that they emphasise and interpret and believe differently. And what about the mentally ill, who seem to function consistently in a reality no one else can see or accept at all? Think of some of the posters in the Zone! They clearly inhabit an alternative reality.
It appears the only thing we have in common, the only thing we can agree on, the only thing we know for certain exists without question, is our own personal consciousness. Even the personalities of others might be part of some dream too. And our consciousness vanishes when we sleep...
Off Topic » in reply to ponderings of kindergartener
Out of the mouths of babes
The whole thread (49 posts)
- Delayed synchronicity
- ponderings of kindergartener
- Kurzweil's interview on C-SPAN2 Book TV now online
- I read a short story with that premise LONG ago...
- "Construction Shack", Clifford D Simak, Short Story, DAW books '74 (n/t)
- Of all man's atifacts, the Universe most resembles a computer model.
- Think of this...
- In languages like C
- re: Think of this...
- Scientific Anomalies and other Provocative Phenomena
- In Buddhist Metaphysics
- "Consciousness seems to be somehow connected to physics, as if consciousness plays some sort of role in the cosmos"
- Maybe psychic phenomenon does have a footing in science.
- Think of this...