Are We Real? Please read before laughing :P

[MiniDawg 0]

Philosophy class would be grande! I would love to take that class!As for how we were created.. I dont really understand how simple atoms, from my knowledge have no nucleus (or brain), to grouping together to eventually create a self-thinking life form. That's what stumps me.As for the whole real topic... When I dont think about it, I think we are real. and when I do think about it- i start to question things like the universe and its creation.And for the start of the universe post- it is quite possible that there are many universes.. but even at that, what's outside those? and the black hole started the universe, what started the black holes? This is pretty much an impossible question to answer, but its brain food. Fun to think about :XD:

[Ninkul 0]

Phil is great lol, rather pointless though career wise :XD:In my opinion...Technically everything is real, theres no such thing as something being fake since... you're here imagining, i mean even if what i'm reading here is just simply here because my brain thinks it is here or wants it to be here or find something spectacular thats not in the conscious part of my brain, its real nonetheless?Lets say everything here is virtual in a computer, it still exists its not "fake".I mean you could come up with any sort of theory and nobody could prove or disprove it really in any way. I'll make one up right now.Everyone's brains are connected subconsciously much like a computer network and jointly together we've created a physical world from this. Saying this we have a part of our brain that "lives" but isn't controlled by us. So it gathers information from what we know and builds on it.Now, who can disprove/prove it? :)Edit:Its just fun to think about

Edited August 15, 2007 by Ninkul (see edit history)

[MiniDawg 0]

This is true! Even if we are "fake", what makes us real must be real. So you make a very interesting point on that level. And as somebody said earlier, we are just part of one world in a huge universe. Billions of planets and galaxies, stars of all sorts. One person makes absolutely no difference in the universe, but can make a small change in society today here. So it seems most people believe we ARE indeed real, and if not we are on another level. So really, there is no such thing a fake reality - only a masked reality. Ninkul, you are correct though. Every brain is connected in some unknown way, and it's one of those mysteries of life I think. I honestly don't believe my life, or this world is real. Maybe it's because of my point of view on the world, and my opinion on everything. But I am here right now, guess I'm stuck here lol. So I still make the best of it assuming this is a test, or a game, or just something to do. Here is another question I was thinking of earlier today...What is the point of life? (Not to be Emo, I mean to reproduce, survive, create family, love, etc.)Let's hear the public's opinion! :XD:BTW, thanks for the amazing posts on this topic, I really didnt expect something this crazy to turn out good!

[Codemaster Snake 0]

Are we Real? : Think About it!

[adriantc 0]

Well I don't think there is any way anybody can proove that we are or we aren't real... We could very well be in the Metrix right now and the world we live in a mere illusion. I guess once will know our brains and the way they work better we can all fake any sensation we want.
What we see, hear, smell, fell every day are only small electrical impulses coming from our eyes, hands... Once we will advance enought and understand this impulses and how they work it will be very easy to duplicate them and connect our brain directly to a machine.
The question is not if it will happen, but when it will happen? My guess is well within 100-150 years... That is of course menkind survives 100 or 150 years more 'thanks' to other bigger problems we have...

Besides as someone said even if our existence is in some sort of Matrix, we are still real bodies.... or not?!? I may have mentioned this in one of my other posts, but I saw a movie once called "The 13th floor" (or something like that). The idea of the movie is that people create a virtual world inside a computer and their plug in into that world. But at the end of the movie they discover their own world was only a computer generated world... A virtual world, in a virtual world, ...

We are actually part of something so big we don't even matter. It's called the Universe. Any action we do on this planet is rather insigificant in the grand scheme of things. We are a floating particle, orbiting a star in the wing of a galaxy which has millions, even billions of stars, which is part of possibly billions of galaxies inhabiting an ever-expanding universe that might collapse on itself (so the Universe will always be, but nothing in it is always the same each expansion).

I should correct you with that... now we are insigificant! But in a million years (if, and that is a big if, we survive) we might have a technology to change anything we want... It has been prooven countless times that nothing is impossible when it comes to technology if you give it enought time to progress. Besides for now destroying an asteroid could have an impact on the way the Universe evolves. The Universe is so vast that there is a chance that even by doing something rather small it will have a huge impact in the grand picture.

[Tetraca 0]

that nothing is impossible when it comes to technology if you give it enought time to progress.

Despite it being amazing, it is still bound by the laws of physics. Because of the laws of physics, we won't be visiting any celestial body outside of our universe any time soon...even with the Albecori drive (or whatever it's called) which can theoretically bend the laws of physics. Chances are we won't make any significant inpact on anything but ourselves and the 8 some planets that orbit us...well...there are the Voyagers, but they're not going to do us any good when they can't even send back pictures at the state they will be in by 2020. Complete creation and destruction of matter is impossible within this void, and certainly a thought expiriment that would deserve the attention of some person in the world.

Besides for now destroying an asteroid could have an impact on the way the Universe evolves.

Well...not really.1. We don't really have the capability to destroy most asteroids that you would consider asteroids (asteroids can be pebbles in size). For some of them, especially some of the monsters that might come to us in a few thousand or so years, not even Tsar Bomba could obliterate them, and I don't think we'll come up with anything worse without another Cold War.
2. If we were to obliterate an asteroid, the remnants would probably not have the escape velocity to escape from the sun's gravitational pull. Thus, anything we obliterate will only effect us locally at this time. Unless this object hits Titan, and this is probably very unlikely due to it's position and what celestial bodies it orbits, there wouldn't be any new major developments - the gas giants just suck in whatever gets put into their atmospheres and ends up probably getting obliterated by tons of pressure in the middle. Stuff like this has been going on since before people walked the earth. We could only effect something majorly if we were to launch an asteroid outside this local system into the coordinates for a possible life bearing planet, whether in this galaxy or not.

If one planet was obliterated even though there was life on it there would be no major effect in the grand scheme of things. The universe will still expand. If 100 large non-life bearing planets were obliterated it would still not matter. Matter cannot be destroyed. What you destroy is simply decomposed into smaller elements. I'm no physics genious by far, but since this means that the matter of the Universe stays the same, it shouldn't even have an effect on if our Universe collapses or not so that new forms of life can dwell in existence after our time has come. I would certainly not like the idea of a cold universe which would mean that there wasn't enough mass to begin with, and it would mean that we were the first and last generation of life forms in this place.
Edited August 16, 2007 by Tetraca (see edit history)

[MiniDawg 0]

:XD:!What is this Albecori drive? and can it really bend the law of physics, or is this something from a movie?Also, pluto isnt a "real planet" anymore apparently. But what you said Tetraca, and having no effect on other things if a planet was destroyed. This is not true. If our moon was to move away, or blow up or disapear or something, it was cause lots of problems for us. The sea is reliant on the moon. Or if mars was to blow up (or disapear, etc) it would efect us directly. The magnetic waves created by each planet effect how things living on earth (That area gets into something deeper).You cannot completely destroy energy or matter, it just changes - youre right about that. But it usually effects something else, even if its so small it makes nearly no difference. But if matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, where did it come from? Everything is made up of matter, and uses energy. We get energy by eating.. it narrows down to plants, which they get from the son. But the initial energy source, where'd that come from?

[Will.Allison 0]

It's a very interesting thought. I think about this a lot as well. We are so insignificant compared to the universe and if there is anything beyond that. Everything can you think of can be backed up but we will never know(at least in our lifetime) what the truth is. It could be tha everything is in our head, but we would need a very very complex mind for that. Which we might actually have.And if organisms evolved from chemicals as tetra said, where did the chemicals come from? Where did the creator of the chemicals come from? and so on....Another thing is paradoxes. SAy there's a kid named Jimmy. Jimmy has a time machine and he realizes he hates his parents very much. So, he goes back in time before he was born and kills his parents. So he no longer exists and so he could never be born to go back in time and kill his parents. Confusing, huh?Some people say that when a paradox happens, it creates an alternate universe in where the paradox actually happens and the other universe stays the same. But all paradoxes involve time. What exactly is time? We cant change it in anyway, we can't see it, yet we know it exists. Does it exists everywhere?These are all very interesting questions that can only lead to going insane. But yet still so much fun to discuss.Edit: another thought just popped into my head. How do you define reality? By what you can see and touch? How do you know that that is real? I don't think our minds or capable of coming up with he anwsers to these questions.

Edited August 16, 2007 by Will.Allison (see edit history)