What is real?

[TINNY]

To quote from The Matrix movie:

Morpheus : What is real? How do you define "real"? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, taste and see, then "real" is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

What are your comments?

[Tormod]

We did discuss something like this in this old thread:
http://www.hypography.com/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=23&threadid=506&enterthread= y


The definition as stated by Morpheus is technically correct - the only way for us to ascertain that something is "real" is to use our senses, which boils down to electrical impulses sent to and interpreted by the brain.

When several of us agree that we see the same thing, we can assume that it is "real", ie, it exists outside our selves and is not just something we imagine.

Dreams are something which completely happen in our brains. What is inside the dream (what we dream) is not real, yet the "dream" per se is very real (as in "the activity that happens in the brain"). Dreams can also be affected by outside events - for example, if you hear noises or voices or lie in a strange position then this can have an effect on your dream. Yet the events happening in your dreams are not "real" but imagined.

[lindagarrette]

Why do we dream? I've read or heard our brain needs reorganization, like defragmenting a hard drive. Dreams only contain what we have already experienced and as Tormod mentioned, what is going on with us physically, at the time. We always know the difference between dreams and reality when we are awake and even sometimes during the dream and sometimes we can even direct them.

Once I let myself fall off a tall building to find out what it woul feel like. But most of the time I dream I'm lost somewhere, trying to find my way back. Some people I know say they can interpret dreams, that they have some meaning. Hogwash.

We need to understand more how the brain works --how we learn, how our thoughts affect our emotions and how our emotions affect our thoughts. I believe I've about exhausted the web resources on this topic but any leads, the more technical, the better, would be appreciated.

Linda

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: Tormod
We did discuss something like this in this old thread:

So should we move back to the old one to grow it or build on this new one?

For now...

The definition as stated by Morpheus is technically correct - the only way for us to ascertain that something is "real" is to use our senses, which boils down to electrical impulses sent to and interpreted by the brain.

And I disagree completely.

When several of us agree that we see the same thing, we can assume that it is "real", ie, it exists outside our selves and is not just something we imagine.

Mass halucinations, optical illusions, magicians, ... Stars "flicker", some "stars" have retrograde motion.

Human personal perception has been shown to be a very poor way of factually examining the world around us. Even when re-inforced by any number of other observers. We even now have found that the simple act of observing will change the observed event.

We can not trust our memory to correctly recall events. (I already posted that didn't I?)

Yet that is the only thing we have to allow us to comprehend the world around us. Even if we use it merely to evaluating data derived from controlled scientific experimentation.

[Tormod]

Note my use of quotes, as in "real" the first time I used the word. My point was that when we agree upon an interpretation, we call it real. That does not mean that our intepretation of reality is *correct*.

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: lindagarrette
Why do we dream?

Just because our bodies need time to rejuvinate does not mean our brains stop functioning.

I've read or heard our brain needs reorganization, like defragmenting a hard drive.

I think this is just one of many possible explanations.

Dreams only contain what we have already experienced and as Tormod mentioned, what is going on with us physically, at the time. We always know the difference between dreams and reality when we are awake and even sometimes during the dream and sometimes we can even direct them.

No we do not always know the difference. I suffered from bad sleep apnea. To the point of narcolepsy. I would not know that I was no longer awake. I would transition into a lucid dream state while my mind only felt it as following my physical reality (hypnagogic state). If I started observing improbable or impossible things, I would become aware of not being awake. Similar things happen with sleep paralysis (hypnopompic state).

In REM sleep (true dream state) our brains are chemically active, neurons are firing. But our muscles are locked and our senses are basically ignored. When we wake, oour brain tries to do it's standard goal of pattern recognition. It invents a movie which most cloely relates to the areas of the brain active in the dream. But that movie may not have any direct association with any possible cognitive functionings of the brain at the time. It is a later construction.

While those dreams we are told we can control are not REM sleep "dreams". They are "lucid dreams" which are usually when we are close to waking up and our brains are starting to become aware of our senses.

We need to understand more how the brain works

Yes, this is the bottom line, We really do not know much about it outside of physiological electrochemical processes.

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: Tormod
Note my use of quotes, as in "real" the first time I used the word. My point was that when we agree upon an interpretation, we call it real. That does not mean that our intepretation of reality is *correct*.

What you included with "real" was

Originally posted by: Tormod
When several of us agree that we see the same thing, we can assume that it is "real", ie, it exists outside our selves and is not just something we imagine.

Yet it is very possible for us to think we personally expereinced something that does NOT exist "outside our sleves". It is even possible for groups of people to claim such group experiences and yet the expereince not have any actual physical manifestion, exist "outside our sleves".

It may not have anything to do with "our intepretation of reality". The event may not have had ANY physical reality what so ever. It may have been completely constructed with-in our brains.

[Tormod]

Originally posted by: Freethinker
It may not have anything to do with "our intepretation of reality". The event may not have had ANY physical reality what so ever. It may have been completely constructed with-in our brains.

Okay. How can you and I both experience the same thing, interpret it, and realize it was constructed with-in our brains? ESP?

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: Tormod

Okay. How can you and I both experience the same thing, interpret it, and realize it was constructed with-in our brains? ESP?

First note that I specified

The event may not have had ANY physical reality what so ever.

But your question is based on the premise of an actual event experienced by both people.

How can you and I both experience the same thing

But regardless. Remember the "Recovered Memory" thing in the US a few years back? False memories were planted into kids minds as if they really happened. Yet they had not happened. SOme became so convincing that parents admitting doing the things that were invented. The parents actually also became convinced of the flase memories. Both the claimed victim and the claimed perpetrator INVENTED an event that was " completely constructed with-in (their) brains".

Then there are times where a group experienced an event, yet they invented some other event as having happened. This was often the case with the mass hallucinations of claimed visitations by Mary floating in the sky by masses of people.

[Tormod]

Yes. The false memory syndrome is indeed an interesting example here. That one requires some thought.

But if I'm not mistaken a lot of these "false memories" are about things which have happened to someone. Often dreadful things like incest, violence, etc. So they are very dreamlike in nature and could perhaps be mistaken dreams on overdrive? And when we tell each other about them enough times, we believe we know the "truth", too.