Reality

So yeah I was flipping through a book I haven't read since I was in grade school, 1984 by George Orwell.  I found that I have a much different perspective on that book than I did when I was 12.
The part that really gets me thinking is in the interrogation room.  Where Winston is tortured repeatedly in an effort to cleanse him.  He is told that things are the way they are because the party says so, it wishes it.  Because the party controls all records, and even thoughts, reality is whatever they want it to be.  As it is put, sometimes 2 + 2 = 5.  The concept "doublethink" never really meant anything to me before, but now I think I get it.  If I were to deliberately tell a lie, such as "the earth is round" to relate it to this site, then, not only do I tell the lie, I fool my own consciousness into believing the lie, then from my perspective, it is not a lie, it is real.  If I had the power to make everybody else to believe the same thing, such as the power the party wielded, then it would be real for everybody.

Any argument stating that it is not real it is only in my imagination, is a fallacy since it assumes that there is a world where real things happen outside the human mind, and that everybody else sees exactly what you see happening in the outside world.

How does one prove that the world exists, and real events happen outside of your own mind?

So yeah I was flipping through a book I haven't read since I was in grade school, 1984 by George Orwell.  I found that I have a much different perspective on that book than I did when I was 12.
The part that really gets me thinking is in the interrogation room.  Where Winston is tortured repeatedly in an effort to cleanse him.  He is told that things are the way they are because the party says so, it wishes it.  Because the party controls all records, and even thoughts, reality is whatever they want it to be.  As it is put, sometimes 2 + 2 = 5.  The concept "doublethink" never really meant anything to me before, but now I think I get it.  If I were to deliberately tell a lie, such as "the earth is round" to relate it to this site, then, not only do I tell the lie, I fool my own consciousness into believing the lie, then from my perspective, it is not a lie, it is real.  If I had the power to make everybody else to believe the same thing, such as the power the party wielded, then it would be real for everybody.

Any argument stating that it is not real it is only in my imagination, is a fallacy since it assumes that there is a world where real things happen outside the human mind, and that everybody else sees exactly what you see happening in the outside world.

How does one prove that the world exists, and real events happen outside of your own mind?

Well, if one were me, he'd start with the allegory of the cave.  All the jackasses suspending rationality and believing the bullshit you can fit in the volume of the sun won't make the bullshit true.  Perception is most certainly NOT reality.  The God Delusion is a fantastic example.  Just because a bunch of dipshits believe it doesn't make a magical sky-dude suddenly begin existing.  It didn't get rid of the 24th rib in males, or make the planet flat, either.  It just doesn't work that way.  The brain, the eyes, the ears and nose, these things are incapable of perceiving exactly what is around us, but what is around us is exactly what it is whether we perceive it correctly, incorrectly, or not at all.

1984 isn't about reality, it's about control.  It was a wake-up call to the industrialized world, and it went unheeded by all but the real Big Brother.

Perception is most certainly NOT reality

That suggests that the world exists without perception, aside from the mind.  How does one prove that?  Everything that we learn is from our senses, a person who has no senses does not have the ability to learn, or even think.

1984 was about power over the mind, the concept brought forth was reality only exists in the mind, so if you control it completely, you can control reality.

'But how can you control matter?' he burst out. 'You don't even control the climate or the law of gravity. And there are disease, pain, death --'

O'Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. 'We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation -- anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature.'

'But you do not! You are not even masters of this planet. What about Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them yet.'

'Unimportant. We shall conquer them when it suits us. And if we did not, what difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence. Oceania is the world.'

'But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the earth was uninhabited.'

'Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.'

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Perception is most certainly NOT reality

That suggests that the world exists without perception, aside from the mind.  How does one prove that?  Everything that we learn is from our senses, a person who has no senses does not have the ability to learn, or even think.

1984 was about power over the mind, the concept brought forth was reality only exists in the mind, so if you control it completely, you can control reality.

Quote

'But how can you control matter?' he burst out. 'You don't even control the climate or the law of gravity. And there are disease, pain, death --'

O'Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. 'We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation -- anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature.'

'But you do not! You are not even masters of this planet. What about Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them yet.'

'Unimportant. We shall conquer them when it suits us. And if we did not, what difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence. Oceania is the world.'

'But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the earth was uninhabited.'

'Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.'

This one doesn't.  This one reads a few tens of thousands of pages of philosophy from the likes of Aristotle, Barkeley, Hume, Kant, Kierkegaard, Descartes, etc. and then realizes that you can think it around in circles as long as you want.  The reality is that no matter how much I believed the walls were melting during acid trips, on examination the following day, they were still solid, and clearly had not melted.  If you are taught your whole life that you can breathe underwater, no matter how much you believe it, when you try it, you

1984 was a political novel, not a philosophical one.  It was about revisionism and the fight to control the minds of the masses.  Read it as being more akin to Atlas Shrugged than Metamorphosis.

Nothing exists except through human consciousness.

Tell that to the blind man who just got shot in the head with a high-powered rifle.  He had no sensory experience of the shooting whatever, through any of his senses, but is most certainly dead.  His death is real to the dozens that knew him.

I know you think this is clever and deep, and maybe it was... in 400 BC when Plato was writing the allegory of the cave.  Since then, it's been a bit played out.  Go take an Epistemology class, I've already spent three semesters rehashing Empiricism v. Rationalism v. Empiricism.  It got boring after one semester.

Be original.  I made an Existentialist porn flick.  My buddies engaged in a Socratic dialog regarding the morals of abortion clinic bombings through Morse code and submitted it, on ticker tape, to our instructor (they received an A-, by the way).

Trying to twist a political manifesto into a philosophical treatise is just not interesting.

Trying to twist a political manifesto into a philosophical treatise is just not interesting.

Precisely what is wrong with the world.

It's been awhile sense I read 1984, but I think that the point of the book is about controlling people, not distorting reality.  When they say that 2+2=5 it's because it equals 5 if they want it to.  The purpose of doublethink was so people can compartmentalize things and still unwaveringly believe in other things.  Like how Bog Brother never grew old.  Obviously he couldn't stay young forever, but saying that he did grow old was not in line with the party's beliefs, therefore not true.  You had to think that Big Brother stayed young even though you knew it to be impossible. 


On a related note, doublethink is like faith, you believe things even though your know or can disprove them.  And Big Brother is like God, an every-watching all-knowing being that controls everything.  Also, no one has seen him or directly talks to him.  I pose to you that 1984 also reflects the tragedy of a government run by God. 

Horray, you've discovered solipsism. Read up on it, it's a pretty intersting philosophical puzzle. I think the best refutation of solipsism I've ever read is in Arthur Schopenhauer's infamous The World as Will and Representation. Essentially, he says that, although you can't necessarily disprove solipsism (what he refers to as theoretical egoism), however it is not much more than a pop philosophy tidbit, only proposed by people trying to look smart, or madmen. Here's the quote I found in some notes:

Theoretical egoism, of course, can never be refuted by proofs, yet in philosophy it has never been positively used otherwise than a skeptical sophism, i.e. for the sake of appearance. As a serious conviction, on the other hand, it could be found only in a madhouse; as such it would then need not so much a refutation as a cure. Therefore we?shall regard this skeptical argument of theoretical egoism, which here confronts us, as a small frontier fortress. Admittedly the fortress is impregnable, but the garrison can never sally forth from it, and therefore we can pass by it and leave it in our rear without danger.

It's all about perspective. Reality is as important or unimportant as you make it. If you believe that 2+2=5 then for all intents and purposes, it does. The actions of others need not have influence over your perception of reality.

However, on some level there is an absolute truth. As in general relativity it may appear different, and possibly even alter based on how we perceive it. But ultimately, we cannot detect the difference between this absolute truth and our own perceptions and beliefs. Therefore, for all practical intents and purposes, the two are one and the same.

So yeah I was flipping through a book I haven't read since I was in grade school, 1984 by George Orwell.  I found that I have a much different perspective on that book than I did when I was 12.
The part that really gets me thinking is in the interrogation room.  Where Winston is tortured repeatedly in an effort to cleanse him.  He is told that things are the way they are because the party says so, it wishes it.  Because the party controls all records, and even thoughts, reality is whatever they want it to be.  As it is put, sometimes 2 + 2 = 5.  The concept "doublethink" never really meant anything to me before, but now I think I get it.  If I were to deliberately tell a lie, such as "the earth is round" to relate it to this site, then, not only do I tell the lie, I fool my own consciousness into believing the lie, then from my perspective, it is not a lie, it is real.  If I had the power to make everybody else to believe the same thing, such as the power the party wielded, then it would be real for everybody.

Any argument stating that it is not real it is only in my imagination, is a fallacy since it assumes that there is a world where real things happen outside the human mind, and that everybody else sees exactly what you see happening in the outside world.

How does one prove that the world exists, and real events happen outside of your own mind?

That is really deep. Stop watching The Matrix hun. =^P

I just reread my post, apparently I called him Bog Brother.  I shall resist the urge to fix my typo for the sake of posterity.

That is really deep. Stop watching The Matrix hun. =^P

A bit different than what I was referring, in the matrix there still was a world that existed outside of their senses, it was the "real world".  I am talking about the universe only existing in your mind, there is no way to prove that events actually happen outside the mind.

I just wanted to discuss if there was a way of proving this, though as Benocrates correctly (and condescendingly) put it, there is no way.  I enjoyed reading some of the answers near the beginning though.

Nice to meet you Melinda.

Nice to meet you too.

as Benocrates correctly (and condescendingly) put it

 

I may be a brain in a jar, or something similar, but we have to assume this isn't true. Otherwise everything would kinda suck.

Why would everything suck?

Quote from: Guessed on June 25, 2009, 08:59:55 AM

Quote from: Eddy Baby on June 25, 2009, 08:49:34 AM

I may be a brain in a jar, or something similar, but we have to assume this isn't true. Otherwise everything would kinda suck.

Why would everything suck?

I'd be a bit miffed if I discovered that everything I have ever done or will do isn't actually happening and the people I meet don't actually exist, and so on.

But the feelings and experiences you had wouldn't, you'd have to live in blissful ignorance, mind.

"The external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist."

Nothing from Schopenhauer really refutes that. I'd be hard pressed to imagine anything that can.

"The external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist."

Nothing from Schopenhauer really refutes that. I'd be hard pressed to imagine anything that can.

very true. however it doesn't really change anything. if you kill someone you will still go to jail. whether that jail is in your mind verses in the real world it would still suck.

"The external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist."

Nothing from Schopenhauer really refutes that. I'd be hard pressed to imagine anything that can.

I don't think he was really trying to refute it; rather he was simply trying to demonstrate that it was irrelevant, which is fair enough. That said, solipsism is one of the most interesting aspects of philosophy, because every time you think you're done with it, you read about a consequence you've never thought of before, and it's really impressive.

So yeah, solipsism is an incredble revelation, but it ultimately doesn't lead anywhere. Still cool though.