I Need Help On Reality
I need help.
What is real?
I feel lost, blind and don’t feel like I belong. I keep referring to the idea that my perception is only relevant to me and that I create my own truth from experience. My definitions of normal, perfect, good and bad are just based on my ideals, none of which are actually true, because these are all defined by humanity and the agenda above. We all have a right to define our own lives and give it purpose.
Is mathematics a given or just something humanity made up to help better interpret information?
Everything feels like a gimmick from what we’re ‘allegedly’ told.
I’m not religious as I feel to believe in something is to not ‘know’ sufficient enough information. I would rather start a sentence with “I know...” rather than “I believe...”. Unfortunately nothing can be proven.
24 years old and I feel like I’m living for the sake of it, I feel stripped of any aspiration/motivation and only have unanswered questions.
What is real?
I feel lost, blind and don’t feel like I belong. I keep referring to the idea that my perception is only relevant to me and that I create my own truth from experience. My definitions of normal, perfect, good and bad are just based on my ideals, none of which are actually true, because these are all defined by humanity and the agenda above. We all have a right to define our own lives and give it purpose.
Is mathematics a given or just something humanity made up to help better interpret information?
Everything feels like a gimmick from what we’re ‘allegedly’ told.
I’m not religious as I feel to believe in something is to not ‘know’ sufficient enough information. I would rather start a sentence with “I know...” rather than “I believe...”. Unfortunately nothing can be proven.
24 years old and I feel like I’m living for the sake of it, I feel stripped of any aspiration/motivation and only have unanswered questions.
Comments (52)
To the extent that beliefs and opinions are affecting, or about reality, then they must either work towards the aims, or results they claim to, or describe, and represent in the ways they purport to.
That's why observation, study, trial and error are all so powerful. Sure, everything is tentative, and provisional, but far from equally valid.
No one seems to tell you this, but everything turns to shit in your twenties. Playtime ends, and we begin to crave meaning, and significance. We can't just waste our time doing things that don't "matter" anymore, as it all becomes empty. Time to go insane, and believe, and move towards things that you feel matter.
Maybe you should try reading Heidegger. I think you might have a taste for it, it's a completely different way of thinking about things/the world.
This cannot be real. You are motivated to question, and aspire to answers. Congratulations!
The real is that from which you cannot awaken, that to which you belong whether you like it or not. What we know is that we need help, and that ideals - love, justice, whatever, are not real, except to the extent that we realise them by living them. Welcome to the circle of wakeful dreamers.
After growing up with a strong desire to learn from and become like Jesus, ghandi, Buddha, etc, I plummeted deep into despair when I first grasped the possibility that all of my beliefs were concepts that were only as real as I believed them to be. For a few years I was up and down depressed and bipolar, with an ever decreasing motivation for anything other than searching for truth, always grasping onto new revelations but soon after seeing how limited that revelation was.
It sounds to me like you are in a similar boat that I was; with a mind constantly seeking truth but unable to find any in the world around you. keep going! In plato's allegory of the cave (check it out if you haven't read it), you have just realized that you have been living in a dark cave watching a projection of reality constructed onto a screen. You've turned away from the screen in search of something real, but all you can see is darkness around you. But if you keep walking, you'll start to see there is light at an opening, and one day you'll make it out and see the world for yourself. That day is inevitable, just keep going! A mentor of mine stresses that the most difficult and important thing as a truth seeker is to have a "tolerance for ambiguity."
Right now, it might seem depressing to think that you perceive only your own truths, but eventually you will see that truth is not a single idea of concept to hold onto. That is a lie we are trained to depend on that keeps us and mentally immature as a child! Truth is not an idea to lock down but insight revealed moment by moment. When you can tap into this, the sun comes out, and it shines brighter than ever.
This is the truth I currently stand on, which is what transformed me from being stuck in a cycle of despair all around me to seeing it trailing far behind.
Some of My significant influences contributing to my journey were Alan watts, Chuang tzu, zen.
Safe travels!
Quoting Crane
I find it really hard to focus/fixate myself toward anything without questioning its worth, refusing to participate in the everyday distraction. It's almost as if the life we (think we) 'know' was designed to be that way. A distraction from the answers we should all be searching for. Instead we're all mad at each other.
It's nice to talk with someone who speaks the same language. All day everyday my mind tunes into what people say and do, and how things work around me, why they exist and what function they serve...and like you say, usually the thoughts I have are that most of what people do is a distraction that keeps everyone's minds boxed in. For a while I hated that I did this because it ostracized me from society, yet without giving a better alternative. But now it's like that constant thought process and self awareness is what grounds me in reality and gives me life - living with my inner and outer eyes open.
If you would die for Sophia, come and defeat me. I also accept gifts, wagers, exchanges, and pawns if the conditions are to my taste. If you need a pay day loan I can do that also.
For only $29.90, my Self-Authoring Program will help you to plan for a better life. Statistics show how effective it is. If you don't know where you are, how will you be able to plan where you want to go?
Come at me bro. You know you want my gold and girls and truth and power and fusion core. Everything has its price.
Pretty sure that he's the one copying me. I didn't even know he existed until someone else that was copying me (which I'm positive of, because I figured out who they were on here, and confronted them and they admitted that it was them.) brought them to my attention. Also, his motivation seems to be (now that I've absorbed him), is that he had recurrent nightmares of nuclear Armageddon since he was a teen, the terror of those dreams has led him to attempt to figure out what could make something like that occur, and is attempting to prevent it. He also was on antidepressants for like a decade or longer until recently. My fears and motivations greatly differ.
Though, stop attempting to trigger me bro.
Pull the trigger bro. Punch a Draconic Metaphor much? It ain't like punching Nazis. Bruce Lee has nothing on me.
Just don't bug me. eh. You're no where near seeing through me.
It fascinates me, I find comfort it evaluating other peoples 'perspectives' although often concluding more questions. I try relax to music/sounds and let my imagination take me away from all these questions but I can't escape. You ever feel like your mind is restricted? Is it possible to erase memory?
Music wise, check out Joseph Jacobs on YouTube, its great music for imagining. Also, I think you'll like this song and associated music. Nujabes - Yes ft. Pase Rock (2011)
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=2MPfx_Aa94o
Get him to read The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula LeGuin, one of my favouritest bookses.
This is also why science works in reverse: they don't try to prove things, they try to disprove them. You posit a hypothesis, and then try to blow holes in it. Put simply, if you can disprove it, then it's likely wrong; if not, then it's likely correct to the degree you understand it. In math they can prove things because math is absolute. 2+2 is always 4. And math is indeed something we came up with, but so far it seems to works quite flawlessly (to the best of my knowledge). Well, philosophically, 2+2 might be 22, or a pepin, but mathematically it's really always 4.
Con artists, advertisers, politicians, and many other people take advantage of our perception of reality in some way. Some in dishonest ways, some even unknowingly. The best you can do is investigate for yourself, and try to corroborate information, or find people who know more about the subject to do that for you (I rely on some youtubers) and give you back their assessment of it, and learn to detect whether they're being coherent or not (learn about fallacies, get a bit of an understanding of the scientific method and compare to pseudoscience (a synonym of fraud, if you ask me). There are probably other useful things to know, but I could only think of those).
Not many things can be proven to an absolute degree (though facts are facts), but everything that isn't real can be disproved to the point at which anyone defending it will only be stubbornly clinging to fallacies (the Argument From Ignorance, for example). Most stuff that is real or true can be easily backed up by at least an objective argument, or at least one piece of evidence. The only obstacle to how easy it is, is usually people who profit from, or have some vested interest in muddying the waters (and they usually resort to fallacies or sophisms all the way).
Some perhaps useful links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
If he's paying attention, then maybe he will! Are his dreams of the coming revolution prophet? We'll have to wait and see.
Quoting Sephi
How do I access the 'just is reality'?..
Hush. You just is, already.
One can correctly say that one's experiences are real, but there are many uses of the word real, and because it seems so vague, it may seem like one doesn't have a grasp of reality. Maybe you're just trying to be precise where there is no precision. Many words are like this, that's just the way language is.
Well, don't we all.
Quoting Reece
You are suffering from late onset Holden Caulfield Syndrome. Everybody is a phony and everything is a gimmick. You get hung up on semantics. Nothing can be proven. You are experiencing ennui, anomie, alienation, depersonalization. Life has become one big headache.
You feel bad. What can be done about it?
My suggestion is that you immediately embark on a program of acting like life is meaningful and entirely worth living and that what you do with you life in the near future matters.
You will probably say, "your advice is just one more gimmick" and you would be partially right. But as gimmicks go, it has some advantages over wallowing in the slough of despond.
William James, an American psychologist (the first Professor of Psychology at Harvard) observed that there is a clear relationship between how we behave, act, feel and think. If the kind of thoughts we have are not helping us, then we need to act. . So, if you want to feel alive and engaged in a meaningful life, then you need to begin living AS IF you were engaged in a meaningful life.
I don't know anything about you, except that you are human (presumably not a bot) and that your psychology is pretty much like everybody else's. So go find yourself something to do that you suspect might be a meaningful, socially useful, and interesting gimmick. Then stick with it. Find several socially useful, interesting, and personally meaningful gimmicks to keep your mind occupied by positive things instead of negative crap. But the important thing is ACT LIKE YOU WANT TO FEEL.
The only thing I can think of is to try imagine there is 'greater good' at work, because in the end we're all slaves to our own society. You know it's an issue when the basic necessities for survival come at a cost.
We don't have the freedom of choice. We all have to go to school, we all have to work or contribute in someway. Where's the 'wild' aspect in our 'civilized' way of life? There isn't one.
Not at all. What I am suggesting is that you make a real commitment to something--a cause, a project, a reading program (whatever you like to read), politics, a job, serving others--anything, really that you can find an interest in, and pursue it.
Why do such a thing? Commitment, involvement, energetic work (even if mental work) is healthy, and it helps "stuff" fall into place--to some degree, anyway.
Quoting Reece
"Who put us here and why" is a pressing question that has bothered people for a long time. There are religious answers to this question; perhaps you would find them satisfying -- billions of people have found them so. Myself -- I think there is evidence we did evolve--that all life evolved--but that doesn't solve the problem of who put us here and why. Many people think that god put us here through the process of evolution, and the 4 billion year story of life on earth is the story of creation told in minute detail.
Quoting Reece
Whether we were created or evolved, we belong here. We are natural to the planet, and we are natural in ourselves. Now, "humans" tend to be rather hard on the rest of creation -- careless, exploitative, wasteful, etc. -- but that's just us. We are a very mixed bag of good and bad characteristics. Some people are a bit nicer than others, and on the whole we behave reasonably well towards each other, except when we don't.
Quoting Reece
That's fine, but in order to discriminate between knowledge that does, and does not lead anywhere, you yourself have to be extremely knowledgeable. You might want to focus on getting more knowledge.
Quoting Reece
Sorry, but that's a non-sequitur. If the only thing you can imagine is that there is a greater good at work, then it simply doesn't follow we are slaves to our own society. We aren't slaves, we are participants. Humans are social beings, and we can't exist apart from society. Someone has to feed us and change our diapers when we are infants, and as we grow older we need to be reared to learn how to take care of ourselves and each other.
Focus on the idea of the greater good.
Quoting Reece
Of course the basic necessities come at a cost. Birds can not raise their young without a cost to insects and worms. Whales can not exist without a cost to fish. Our existence comes at a cost too. There is a absurdly complex web of costs and benefits that is too complicated for any one person to grasp.
Quoting Reece
If you think going to school limits your free choice, try never going to school, never learning how to read and write, and never learning how to exist as a 'civilized' person if you think you have no freedom of choice. The more resources you can bring to the concerns of the day, the more freedom of choice you have.
I hated some of the jobs I worked at, over the 40-odd years of my work life. I really felt like if I had to do such and such a job for the rest of my life, I'd rather be dead. But... bad jobs or not, having money of your own (even if not a lot) gives you much more freedom than not having any money at all of your own.
And some of the jobs I had were good jobs that I really enjoyed doing, and I got paid to boot. But don't expect fulfillment to come from most of the jobs you might have. It would be nice if that's what happened, but don't hold your breath. But... having an income is a very good thing, and it generally takes having a job to produce an income.
Right, there's not much wildness in one's ordinary life -- but you can resist, if you want to. People do find ways to step out of the more or less controlled aspects of life, to experience some "wildness".
Great post, Sam.
I don't know you, but I gather you've had a realization about language (esp. philosophical language) that I've also had. The word "real" is maybe the ideal choice for trying to express this realization to others.
In my experience, this realization is hard to communicate, perhaps because there is a strong itch in philosophical types to do math with words. As I understand it, this "realization" is a direct threat to the game of word-math. It's an image of that game's futility and even ridiculousness.
Isn't the problem with nature rather than civilization? You or I could decide to just be homeless. But we have to feed ourselves, right? Just as we did, our parents found themselves "thrown" into this world. They did this or that to survive until they could reproduce. Others never made it that far. We are at the ass end of generations upon generations of compromise and conquest. It's in our genes and jeans to play along, do what has to be done. There's another "freedom" or "negativity" involved so that some of us will opt out and die before they must. But most will continue the game. The casino usually wins.
My main point is that there's a tendency to blame "society" when the real horror or problem is deeper than that. We are just about too smart to embrace our roles as needy, mortal animals. Language offers a hint of immortality. I think it was Feuerbach who pointed out that God has the qualities of human reason (language with its collision of ideality and materiality.) If I can say something meaningful in language, this ideality or meaning also reveals my death to me, or the distance of my dying body from an infinitely repeatable idea. In short, we are the haunted space between dogs and gods.
This is good advice for all.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I have a few commitments to helping disabled people and looking after animals but no matter what it all leads to more questions. It infuriates me how disrespectful humans are to one-another, how ‘we’ treat animals, what gives us the right to breed for slaughter no matter how ‘humane’?. Did ‘God’ give us the right? The answer is neither right or wrong and totally subjective.
Quoting Bitter Crank
All religion is distorted symbolism and all eventually cross paths to a similar idea. It probably wasn’t referred to as ‘religion’ many years ago, they had the one truth/story. Now we have multiple. If I had access to technology humans did not, would I be called a God?.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I’ve found more evidence to support we’re not natural than we are. So I’m convinced. We’re not physically adapted to this planet. Our skin does not let us go into most ecosystems except in the primo niches. Again, good and bad are relevant to you if you deem it so. We’re just energy, something science can’t dissolve.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I only discriminate ‘knowledge’ from sources unable to provide evidence or something tangible. And what quantifies as ‘extremely knowledgeable’? How much do you think I need to know in order to ‘discriminate’?
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yeah ‘participants’ seems more appropriate. We’ve become to ‘civilized’. What are our natural instincts? They’ve become obscured.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I should be able to live wild and free but no thanks to previous generations I’m forced to live a certain way with expectations to adhere to. Rules/Laws set on moral boundaries.
Quoting Bitter Crank
By learning how to read and write, how to be civilized, participate in school is doing everything we’re expected to abide by which isn’t really freedom is it? Having money doesn’t give you freedom lol Not having money and being able to live the way you want is freedom. Your idea of ‘freedom’ will differ to mine as everybody else.
The point is I shouldn't need an income to survive. I shouldn't be forced to live by the common agenda.
No, Nature is wild and free to a degree. Civilization binds us to an expectation of how to live...
You wrote:
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Different philosophies proposed by different people drastically differ, regarding what’s real and what isn’t.
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I don’t think that “real” even has a universally-accepted definition.
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In philosophy, “Reality” is usually or always used to mean the totality of all that is. But even that isn’t entirely clear, because does “is” only refer to elements of metaphysics? I don’t think that metaphysics is or describes all. As I use “Reality”, it includes all, and not just what’s covered by metaphysics.
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I sometimes say that metaphysics is to Reality, as a book on how a car-engine works is to actually taking a drive in the countryside.
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But there are things that we all agree on. We all agree that our physical universe is at least locally real. Real in its own context. Real to its inhabitants. Some people use “actual” to mean “in, of, or referring to, our physical universe.”
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What’s wrong with that? It seems to me that experience, and the experiencer, are metaphysically primary. Everything that anyone knows about our physical world comes to them via their experience. …their direct experience, or else the experience of someone reporting something to them.
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I wouldn’t say that you create your own truth, but I say that the individual experiencer is the primary, central, and essential component of his/her life-experience possibility-story. A life-experience possibility-story needs an experiencer, a protagonist.
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I suggest that the reason why you’re in a life is because there’s a life-experience possibility story that’s about and for you.
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Though I’ve already posted it in other discussion-threads at this website, let me describe the metaphysics that I propose:
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I suggest that a person’s life is a life-experience possibility-story. That story’s setting, secondary and metaphysically posterior to that story, is the possibility-world in which you live and in which your life-experience possibility-story is set.
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I suggest that anything about the physical world can be said as an if-then fact. For example, say I tell you that there’s a traffic roundabout at the intersection of 34th & Vine. That’s the same as telling you that if you go to 34th & Vine, you’ll encounter a traffic roundabout.
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I suggest that a life-experience story, and the possibility-world that is its setting, consists of a hypothetical system of inter-referring inevitable if-then facts, about hypotheticals.
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Such a story and world doesn’t have or need any reality or existence other than in its own local inter-referring context. It doesn’t need to be real or existent in some larger context. It doesn’t need any medium in which to be real or existent.
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We’re used to declarative grammar, about what “is”. Declarative grammar is convenient, but maybe we start to unjustifiably believe in our grammar. I suggest that conditional grammar better describes our life and our world.
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Instead of one world of “is”, I suggest that it makes more sense to say that there are infinitely-many worlds of “if”.
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I say that any claim that our physical universe is more real or existent than any of the infinitely-many other possibility-worlds, would be pre-Copernican.
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Of course if you pursue and press an investigation of this physical world, you find physics.
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A physical law is a hypothetical relation among some hypothetical physical quantity-values.
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That physical law, and those quantity-values are the parts of the “if “ premise of various if-then facts.
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Any one of those quantity-values related by that physical law can be taken as the “then” conclusion of the if-then fact whose “if “ premise consists of the physical law, and the other quantity-values that it relates
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A mathematical theorem is an if-then fact whose “if “ premise includes, but isn’t limited to, a set of mathematical axioms (algebraic or geometrical).
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So is our physical world “real”? Well, it’s certainly locally real, real to us, its inhabitants. But I don’t call this physical world objectively or globally real, because it’s only locally-real (physical) in its own local inter-referring context, which is also the context or our lives.
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I mean, no one would say that the infinitely-many other possibility-worlds are real for us, the inhabitants of this particular possibility-world.
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You have your own impressions about what’s good or bad, and most people tend to have similar impressions about that.
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As for purpose, I don’t know that there has to be purpose. It’s been said that life is for play.
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Of course there is the practical matter of getting-by, and of course there are ethical considerations. Play/fun, getting-by, and right ethical living are three of the elements of life that are discussed in Hinduism (can be looked up by googling “Purusharthas”), with the idea that a life shouldn’t be short by any of those considerations.
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Mathematics, like logic, is already “there”, isn’t it? I mean, logic and mathematics must be the same for any alien civilization in some other part of our universe, or in some other entirely separate possibility-world.
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I suggest that logic, mathematics, and abstract if-then facts obtain inevitably, on their own, and, upon close physical examination and investigation, are the basis of our physical world…the setting for a your life-experience possibility-story.
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The physical world that I propose is more tenuous than the world that Materialists propose. The difference is that what I propose is based on inevitable logical facts. And, inevitably, there are complex systems of such facts, inter-referring. And, among the infinity of such systems, there’s inevitably one that has the same events and relations as our physical universe. And there’s no reason to believe that our physical world is other than or more than that.
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Materialism (sometimes called metaphysical Physicalism or Naturalism) posits this physical universe, and its matter, as a brute-fact. The metaphysics that I propose doesn’t need or use any assumptions or post any brute-fact.
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The version of our physical world that I propose is more tenuous and ethereal than that of the Materialist.
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It suggests openness, looseness and lightness.
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I claim that the metaphysics that I propose is inevitable and certain. …being based on a system of inevitable logical if-then facts.
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Of course I can’t prove that our universe isn’t superfluously more than the logical system that I propose, or that the objectively-existent “Stuff “ of Materialism doesn’t superfluously exist. But if the universe has objective, global existence, or if Materialist “Stuff” objectively exists, that’s a superfluous un-testable unfalsifiable p roposition and alleged brute-fact. …and irrelevant.
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Metaphysics is about knowable, describable verbal facts. Metaphysics can be known. But metaphysics doesn’t cover all of Reality.
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Knowledge doesn’t really describe or encompass experience. Experience is more real than the facts of knowledge.
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What you feel or experience can be just as valid as what you know, and more meaningful.
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…like my analogy of a book on how a car engine works, vs actually taking a drive in the countryside.
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There isn’t, and needn’t be, purpose. It’s just for play.
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Verbal questions about metaphysics have verbal answers, and I’ve attempted to give some of those here.
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But Reality can’t be known or described. It can be experienced, and of course some of Reality is available for experience all the time.
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Sometimes, just ignore the tendency to verbally describe or evaluate what is. Sometimes quiet the inner narrative—It just gets in the way of experience. What really is, including our everyday experience, isn’t describable or evaluatable. Our verbal tendency, our inner narrative, obscures and prevents experience.
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Sometimes our impressions are right, and our verbal or cultural judgment is what’s wrong. When a cultural judgment contradicts a feeling or impression, disregard the judgment.
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To quote a singing group called The Byrds, from their song “5D”:
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“I found that joy innocently is, just be quiet and feel it around you.”
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They also said, in that song:
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“I opened my heart to the whole universe, and found it was loving.”
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(Universe, there, is referring to all of Reality, all that is, not just to this physical universe.)
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Many have the feeling that there’s something to feel gratitude for, and that there’s a good intent behind the goodness of “what is”.
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There’s more to Reality than metaphysics or physics.
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Michael Ossipoff
Well, that's part of the problem. The way you've learned to talk about stuff isn't helpful at all.
It seems to me that you're going through the process of thinking about your own thought/belief. This sort of deliberate introspection can be rather daunting, to say the least. It is particularly confusing if you use words in a way that conflates things. However, you've taken a crucial step here by seeking alternative explanations, and that's not only good - it's imperative to being able to look at the world and yourself a bit differently.
The question "What is real?" isn't very helpful at all if you do not know what makes the question meaningful and/or any answer to it true. As others have pointed out and you've already noticed there's a suspicious relationship between what's true and what counts as perfect, good, bad, etc. There's an equally suspicious relationship between what one counts as "real" and what one counts as "true" and/or "truth". We define these terms, but not all definitions thereof are on equal footing.
Our 'perception' is not only relevant to us. How we talk about the world and/or ourselves has far-reaching consequences regarding how we act in the world. How we act in the world affects/effects others. How we affect/effect others is most certainly relevant to them. Our perception is not only relevant to us.
We do not 'create' our own truth from experience. We presuppose that what we think/believe about the world and/or ourselves is true. Thought/belief is insufficient for truth. We form thought/belief about the world and/or ourselves from experience, but we do not do this single-handedly. To quite the contrary, how we 'perceive' the world and our place within it is determined by how we come to terms with it and/or ourselves. I mean that literally.
We're taught how to talk about the world and/or ourselves. That teaching constitutes our first worldview. It seems that you're at a place where you're consciously questioning it.
I think that this is a bit confusing. Your definitions of normal, perfect, good, and bad are your ideals thereof. It's a good idea to use words in a manner that agrees with common usage, otherwise you're likely to be misunderstood. That is not to say that all common usage is on equal footing. Some use the term "truth" as a synonym for what one thinks/believes to be true, for instance...
All sorts of things can be proven. Drawing a sharp distinction between believing and knowing can be fruitful, but one cannot know that something or other is true without also believing it, so be careful. There's also more than one kind of knowing; knowing that(something or other is true) and knowing how(to do something or other). Sometimes the two overlap. There's also a difference between believing 'in' something or other and believing 'that' something or other.
Others here have made good suggestions to you as far as good ways to move forward in life. I would only suggest that you realize that life is meaningful because we attribute meaning to it. Whatever is most important to you is what and where you'll spend the most time. If you've found that your path has led you to unhappiness or discontent, then I suggest that you change your path and do something different. Help yourself out.
It feels like I've built a sphere around my brain made of denial :'(
I'm just going to have to accept the physical world around me and see out the rest of my years never knowing who what or why.
Well, I claim that the system of abstract logical facts corresponding to our universe (one of infinitely-many) is inevitable, and so it's its own explanation.
Because we're used to regarding out physical universe as "concretely" and objectively existent, and were always taught that, then it sounds unvelievable when it's claimed that our universe is just a complext system of inter-referring abstract if-thens.
But, as I was saying, among the infinity of such logical systems, there inevitably is one whose events and relations exactly match those of our universe. There's no reason to believe that our universe is other than that.
That provides a neat answer to the question "Why is there something instead of nothing?"
There isn't the "concrete", objectively existent, "something" that Materialism believes in.
Just infinitely many worlds of "if". ...complex systems of inter-referring abstract if-then facts.
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I've been saying that the only real/existent universe is one that has experiencers, But (as I was saying at another topic-thread), maybe that's animal-chauvinistic.
...animal-chauvinistic to say that only the universes with experiencers are relevant or meaningful (because they're relevant and real to us experiencers).
"Alright", said the Giraffe, "then let's just say the one with the longest neck gets all the jelly beans.".
This is just an issue about which universes we call real, existent, relevant or meaningful. Of course that's an arbitrary matter, about how we choose to call it. Maybe, for complete generality, philosophy should be objective enough to not define universes' reality, existence, relevance or meaningfulness in terms of us experiencers.
But, regarding our particular universe, which has us experiencers, then of course it seems most reasonable to describe it from our individual point-of-view, our life-experience possibility-story, because that's what it is, for us.
Among the infinity of possibility-worlds, it's inevitable and natural that there are infinitely many that have experiencers. We're inevitable and natural.
Obviously such universes, ours in particular, have a special relevance and reality-status for us.
Michael Ossipoff
I just want to add that, though philosophical objectivity and generality suggest against saying that uninhabited universes aren't real/existent--Nonetheless, when we're talking about this one, there's a meaningful sense in which it can be said that it exists (as a life-experience story) because of you:
You're in a life because, among the infinity of life-experience possibility-stories, there's one about you. ...one with you as is protagonist.
That explains why you're in a life.
And you the protagonist, the central component, of a life-experience possibility-story, are that story's essential component. So it can be said that you're what makes your life-experience possibility-story be a life-experience possibility-story.
You're in a life because there's a story about you, and you're the reason why that story is a life-experience story.
Life isn't a limited commodity or event that eventually runs out. Life is timelessly there, and unlimited.
Michael Ossipoff
Quoting n0 0ne
You've(humanity[and even animals]) been forced to play forever. It's not just society. It is arguable to say that society has made it worse, sure; but it's also probably true that were you born in the 'wild' your chances of living and experiencing anything at all would be dismal. Nor, as what many people are saying in this thread, would you have the language to understand or ever come across the problem of "who, how, and why put us here"
I agree that society sucks but at least question the idea to its completion, and agree that the world sucks. This doesn't have to be a restrictive truth. Its totally possible to recognize the world sucks and to still live a very free life. Of the reading I've done, I'd say the advice I read most is to question and to perfect yourself. It's possible to hate the world, but don't hate yourself too.
How can I be free if I'm bound by the civilized life? I've never hated myself. The fact things can be imperfect and perfect shouldn't be a possibility. Things should 'just exist' as they are. To me there is no good or bad, right or wrong decision. Contemplation is pointless. We don't know anything outside of the physical world. The issue is never feeling like you belong. You will never be happy to the point of contentment with something. You will always want or imagine something else. We don't belong at all. We're a hybrid of an ideal.
I don't see how that explains why you're in life.
Possible stories is that pertaining that there is something beyond this life where in which this life is just a story, If so what bearing would this story/life have apon that other existence. This question would be great to have answered so that I could logically steer this life's story/experiences to best advantage/meaning of that other existence.
If that other existence is not a 'truth' I would still find it wise to desire the meaning for my existence in this realm so that I could steer this life's story/experiences to better suit it meaning.
Without an answer I try live and experience life as enjoyably as I can but seem to constantly encounter a balance of good and bad. A balance I understand as necessary I don't think you could understand something as 'good' without also understanding what it counterpart 'bad'.
One would say that these experiences are all in the process of learning. The process of learning what? And for what end? Again without knowing this what good or bad experiences should I pursue in order to best attribute this learning?
Good. If you could not imagine a greater 'you' why keep living at all? To become worse over time? The key here is defining what makes you happy. Once you recognize what makes you happy, it's just a matter of doing it. So if being around others and building your community makes you happy, you do it. If refining your ideas into a book, maybe no one will read, makes you happy, then you do it. If I could not imagine a greater happiness than what I've already experienced; why keep living at all? I'd say the only reason we keep living is specifically because we still feel we might end up with a greater sense of purpose, happiness, whatnot than we have so far felt.
I’d said:
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You said:
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That story is a life. Youre in that story. So you’re in a life. Your life is that story.
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Among the infinity of life-experience possibility-stories, and the possibility-worlds that are their settings, there inevitably is one that has the same events and relations that we find here. There’s no reason to believe that this life and this world are other than that.
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…and if this world is, in some way, more than that, that’s only superfluously, unverifably and unfalsifiably true.
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Not somewhere else beyond this life. This life is a possibility-story. …right here.
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It isn’t a matter of two existences or lives. This life is a possibility-story.
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I don’t think there’s any purpose other than play. Of course there’s a need to get by, and there are ethical considerations—but the basic purpose is just a matter of what we like.
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If you agree that there likely are other lives after this one, then of course full and right living in this life is favorable for the next life.
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Of course a life has good and bad experiences. Things we like, but also some hardships, menaces, etc.
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I’d suggest that the reason why there’s a life-experience story about each of us is because each of us, as a hypothetical person, had some want, like, need, or inclination for life. I mean, arguably, only such a person would be someone with the subconscious attributes that make him someone in a life-experience story.
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So we’re here in a life because of want, need, inclination (but maybe undischarged consequences). Then we’re here for a reason—that reason. So sure, there’s bad experience too, but, because we’re here for the abovementioned reasons, we don’t have a choice, and we have to be here in spite of the bad experiences.
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But there’s the reassurance that if something unfavorable happens to us in a life, or if a life stars out disadvantageously, that’s just one life, among many. We can be assured that, on average, our lives will fill whatever needs, likes, wants we have. …will fulfill whatever remaining requirements are our reasons for being here. …with the understanding that the unfavorable aspects are local and temporary.
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And if we know that well, are used to it, then maybe it will give us reassurance in a subsequent life, there are unfavorable outcomes, or even a disadvantageous start.
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Learning to live fully and right. But not for any end, other than satisfying the needs and requirements that are the reason why we’re here.
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As mentioned above, we’re here because we’re someone with the wants, needs, inclinations for life. I don’t think it’s possible to give a reason for that. Saying that we were (remainingly) like that at the end of a previous life doesn’t explain why we had those inclinations to be in a life in the first place.
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But the fact that we’re here for that reason means that we won’t be done with life until we’ve completed it satisfactorily. …because, until we do, those inclinations will remain. Once started, it isn’t done till it’s done.
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Hinduism/Vedanta addresses that matter, under the heading of Purusharthas (…which can be googled). But it’s just a matter of living fully and rightly (By “rightly” I mean responsibly, efficiently, ethically and kindly).
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I don’t think learning itself is the goal. Satisfying of inclinations and undischarged-consequences seems more likely the purpose, need and requirement. But of course learning results in improved living, in service of that purpose.
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Michael Ossipoff
Thanks Michael,
'My' main struggle is deciding what is 'right' and what is 'better', certainly I not unlike others have intuition which steers me to what seems to be undeniably right, the issue is that at times (often whilst engulfed by emotion) my intuition strongly pushes me to oppose what yesterday I thought was right. This often has me questioning wether what I think is right is all part of me being institutionalized.
It's feels good to be happy, and it would be nice if we could always do the things that make us happy, but in my humble opinion life is not about being happy. It's about doing the right thing, even if it costs us our happiness. So life is about things like love, which sometimes requires sacrifice, and in turn doesn't necessarily make us happy. The things that are really important in life are much higher on the scale of values than happiness.
Nothing against you Frank, I just had to rant against happiness.
Just as easily as the 'right thing' could require us sacrifice, so too could it bring many more gifts. I agree with you and try to hint at it near the end of that response. Because raising kids is hell but now you have a mini-U and that has provided a lot of meaning for the world, thus fulfilling a really convincing purpose. Conversely, one could be under the impression the 'good' would be not to have children but does so anyways specifically because they want the happiness associated with that experience. I think for those of us who aren't simulations or mutants it's just a matter of selfishness as is the custom of single-bodied humans. Something you can't escape that want's to do good by you even if it does bad to it's environment (cause that's what it's always done, eat food). Sometimes we're the hand that aids our evils and the purveyor that feeds us our pleasures, or all the time, or you just try your best to do good in spite of what you cannot control. Moment by moment, a debate clashes in oneself whether to choose a long-standing achievement that provides fulfillment with a lot of work or to cash in the relatively low cost pleasure pump. One could make it one's long standing achievement to have as much pleasure as possible and ahhh hedonism; and when morality doesn't matter because it's a construct of the bourgeois above me and woe there is no God we come to nihilistic hedonism. Which is I'd go on to wager the ideology many successful (and perhaps meaningful) people today hold.
Quoting Sam26
Imo Virtue or doing good or purpose or whatnot is higher on the scale than happiness too. But it's your job to make your ideals reality which is the hard part.