Trusting our senses

Originally posted by Superman
Have you seen the movie "MATRIX"?

Reality is the interpretation of what our senses can feel. And even deeper, reality is the interpretation from our brain of what our senses have trasnmited as electromagnetic pulses.

This measn that our brain has no other choice but to trust our senses, cause he has no other means to relate with the world.

I almost wrote about the matrix here, but I thought better of it. It seems a little cliched, so to speak.

Originally posted by whodey
Does intuition count?

Intuition, as in the ability to have a gut feeling? My thoughts really are that intuition is merely the brain relating current events to previous, not entirely similar, ones.

"I was afraid that by observing objects with my eyes and trying to comprehend them with each of my other senses I might blind my soul altogether."

-Socrates.

It's well known that senses aren't 100% reliable. Optical illusions are a very obvious example.

But pretty much all we have to go on is (a) current sensory input and (b) PREVIOUS sensory input to compare it to. You 'trust your senses' on the basis of whether the current sensory input is consistent with the rules you have developed based on past experience.

One could argue that an awful lot of the conflict in the spirituality forum, in particular, is on the basis of people having developed different rules.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
I almost wrote about the matrix here, but I thought better of it. It seems a little cliched, so to speak.

Pointing at the movie its just as a reference for an explination of the topic.

It is true that cientificaly there is no way for you to know if you are inside a computer program or not, since electromagnetic impulses can be recreated quite easily, of course, it is not easy to recreate them in the way the senses do, but with a little bit more tecnology it will be.

All the diferent things in the world, the ramdomnes, nature itself, the fact that every species wants to survive, at any cost, the nuclear dissasters, all the good things, love, emotions................ and so on.

Thouse things I think can only be expirienced in real life, and not by a software generating them, because its imperfection is so perfectly done, that no human could have programed it.

That is why I trust my senses.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
I almost wrote about the matrix here, but I thought better of it. It seems a little cliched, so to speak.

The Matrix is nothing compared to full-blown radical doubt. Why did Neo think he was finally in the "real world"? He might simply have been a brain in a vat throughout.

This paper deals with the topic of simulation: http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

Originally posted by orfeo
But pretty much all we have to go on is (a) current sensory input and (b) PREVIOUS sensory input to compare it to.

Are you denying rationalism?

I'll step out of the way of the bus, thank you very much.

Originally posted by Superman
Pointing at the movie its just as a reference for an explination of the topic.

It is true that cientificaly there is no way for you to know if you are inside a computer program or not, since electromagnetic impulses can be recreated quite easily, of course, it is not easy to recreate them in the way the senses do, but with a little bit more tecnology it ...[text shortened]... n is so perfectly done, that no human could have programed it.

That is why I trust my senses.

Nothing to do with any sort of computer manipulation I think, my friend. I'm just thinking the entire she-bang is simply imaginary.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Nothing to do with any sort of computer manipulation I think, my friend. I'm just thinking the entire she-bang is simply imaginary.

“Don’t try to bend the matrix; that’s impossible. Just try to realize the truth.”

“What truth?”

“There is no matrix...”

“That’s just what Satan wants you to believe!”

Originally posted by scottishinnz
KellyJay has inadvertantly brought up an issue that I was thinking about this morning. In a nutshell, it boils down to this "what is the difference between reality and an internally consistant halucination?"

Two points.

(1) You are standing on a road. You look behind you, and see a bus. A few seconds later you look back again. The bus is clos ...[text shortened]... that happens to everyone else, but not you, because it's your halucination.

Thoughts?

Does it have to be a hallucination? You can look at a table and see
the game scrabble open with parts everywhere, does that mean that
people "were playing" or that someone just dumped the parts on
the table to be played with later? Maybe we don't have enough
information to say, so we look at the table a little closer. On the
board we see letters on the squares of the scrabble board, but the
letters form words *information* and next to the words there is
a piece of paper with column titled "Me, You" with numbers that
line up with the way the words are placed. The fact that we see
information does that mean that people didn't just dump the game
on the table and walk off, but were playing and left?

How about if there is a candle burning on the table, a 50 hour candle
and it is half way burned down, can we know how long that candle was
burning from the time it was last lit by knowing the rate of the burn
and seeing how much of the candle is left? Are we left with not
knowing how long it was burning since it was last lit simply because
we do not have enough information?

Seeing may be believing for some, but it does not mean we will be
drawing the lines properly to connect our dots correctly. Having
made assumptions about how the dots are to be connected is good
while one does it right, but as soon as bad assumptions are made
the whole thing could be way off.
Kelly

Originally posted by thesonofsaul
I really should read the classic philosophers one of these days. That way I could just quote them and could do away with all this wearisome thinking. It all seems to be thought up already, anyhow.

It may of been thought up already, the answers have not been found
by the thinking. People are still having the debates.
Kelly

Originally posted by vistesd
“Don’t try to bend the matrix; that’s impossible. Just try to realize the truth.”

“What truth?”

“There is no matrix...”

“That’s just what Satan wants you to believe!”

It was not, do not try to bend the matrix, but the spoon.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
It was not, do not try to bend the matrix, but the spoon.
Kelly

Yes, I know. I deliberately changed it for the sake of irony vis-a-vis Stott's comment about the imaginary shebang. I should have tried to be less subtle. 😳