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You Experience Virtual Reality Even If You’re Not Yourself Virtual Reality.

You normally think of virtual reality as computer programmed and generated but your brain does just a good a job of it – maybe even better (as least to date). As a comparison, any computer is dependent on an energy supply, healthy hardware and logical software. Your brain is dependent on a body, on healthy hardware, on an energy supply and of course on your internal programming. One of the things your brain does is dream and another is process external stimuli.

If what you dream (or think about) is virtual reality, why not what you experience in your awake life? Mental experiences of any kind are also virtual reality. Well they are. You may not exist in or as part of a virtual reality but you do exist and experience existence as virtual reality.

EVERYTHING you’ve ever experienced you’ve experienced between your ears. No brain; no you; no experiences. That apple that’s out there in really real reality doesn’t exist inside your skull as really real reality. You’d be in strife if an actual really real apple were lodged between your ears, but not a virtual reality apple. Ditto for everything else that you experience or have experienced, be it via sight, sound, taste, touch, smell or that which you just conjure up in your mind. If you think about an apple or dream about an apple, that’s still just a virtual reality apple, not a really real apple that’s planted between your ears.

Inputs are different when you dream versus when you’re awake such that your awake state seems more real and vivid that your dream state. When you’re awake you ‘dream’ via your senses. When you’re asleep you pretty much make up stuff via connecting the dots that are stored in your memory banks (with maybe some subliminal external sensory input). A shift from an actual virtual reality (say when dreaming) to a so-called ‘objective’ really real reality when awake tends to feel more real – except of course that your brain can and does on occasion lie to you when you’re awake so you can’t ever actually count on objective really real reality being objectively really real reality. For example, there’s the phantom limb phenomena. Or how the Sun and the Moon are apparently the same size and distance from you. You’re at the pub and a rather plain, drab fairly unattractive woman becomes a radiant beauty when you’ve had way too much to drink.

Then there’s relative motion we’ve all experienced. Say two cars A & B are stopped at a stoplight. You’re in one of the cars, say car A. Car B apparently starts to inch backwards slightly (maybe its nose was too far into the intersection), OR maybe your car was actually inching forward in anticipation of a traffic light change. Maybe both cars were inching forward but your car is inching forward faster.

So the question arises, is there a really real reality out there that 100% imprints or maps out as a one-to-one correlation its existence on your brain as virtual reality? Or, are you experiencing life, the Universe and everything as virtual reality because it actually is virtual reality in and of itself? If so, how could your brain tell the difference between processing an external really real reality and an external virtual reality?

johnprytz 7 Jan 19
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5 comments

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Physicists also question the reality of reality based on at least two issues. First, we cannot tell if the universe is a simulation or real. Second, based on Quantum Mechanics (QM), a particle is a wave of mass-energy so small its size cannot be measured with current instruments. QM is famously/infamously weird; observations of particles show future events can affect the past of a QM particle. Einstein said, "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one" -- brainyuote.com. If there was a big bang, the the universe was once packed into a space much smaller than an atom; yet we can see enough of the Universe to estimate hundreds of billions of galaxies similar to the Milky Way, each containing hundreds of billions of stars, planets, moons, planetoids, comets asteroids, rocks, dust, and gas, including us. Multiplying stars per galaxy times number of galaxies gives an approximation of more than 10,000 billion billion stars in the visible Universe. In addition, there is an unknown amount of matter-energy we cannot see beyond the Cosmological horizon.

Physicists do not know if a “really real reality” exists. It appears that reality exists, because we can see, feel, taste, touch, etc. things. That is because a little energy is transferred from the environment into us, for example we see photons, feel hot and cold, and sense pressure from touching something. However, a photon is invisible until it lands on sensors in our eye. Hot and cold describe faster or slower vibrations of molecules in a substance. Pressure sensors in our skin activate because electrons around atoms repel each other; this electrostatic field is so strong we can never truly touch anything. Thus, the reality we perceive is significantly different than the reality physicists understand, and that understanding is limited.

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If you haven't already read it, I think you would be fascinated by The Master And His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist.

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I think this is one of those circular questions with no end. One part of me says of course there is objective reality that does not depend on my subjective sensory gear in order to exist. It is what it is, and it does not need my help or permission. However, the moment I start to make any pronouncements on the subject, as I just did, my assessment is, of course, relying on my senses and internally driven interpretations, so that I cannot objectively "prove" any of it to another person, who has their own filters operating. What matters in the end is that, to me, the most important thing is "my truth!" lol
I know I am right, because I have thought it through. ?

@johnprytz yet the original question is whether reality itself is virtual. The fact we have to process that question through our brains' filters is in no way evidence of reality itself being virtual. So far I have heard no evidence to justify jumping to the conclusion that it is.

@johnprytz you have just nicely summarized why the entire question is a rhetorical exercise with little, if any, practical point. Basically, nothing counts as irrefutable evidence. Nothing.

At some point it behooves us to ask the question what can count as the most reliable evidence; not 100% unquestionable, but "most" trustworthy. Our brains are quite imperfect, prone to errors of both perception and interpretation. That gathered data seems most reliable that presents as consistent with the preponderence of other evidence. Theories, for example, are not exercises in fanciful wishful thinking, pulled out of our asses. No, they are thoughtful attempts at rational explanations for observed phenomena. It appears, on the face of things, to be more rational to conclude that our perceptions, even if not accurate, are at least based on sensory input that exists, that is not merely a virtual reality fabrication. Minus compelling evidence that our reality is merely virtual, the most logical and most pragmatic option is to assume it is real, even if our percetions and interpretations of it are imperfect.

In the end, if we are hallucinating, a lot of people around us will refute us and many others (but, I know, not all) will look uncomfortable and either avoid talking about our ideas or avoid us altogether. This is reminding me of the John Cusak movie, "Identity."

@johnprytz Except I don't see why your contention would be " the most likely." It sounds like you are saying it is most logical to assume that our perceptions are really just hallucinations. Why so? If everyone in our lives keeps telling us we are psychotic, we might want to consider that possibility, but if not, your reasoning does not compute for me. :/

@johnprytz I agree that our brains "can" hallucinate. I am just saying that it is not logocal to assume that hallucination is our most likely default setting, which is what you seem to be saying. Again, hallucination, or complete fabrication of perception, is a whole different state from mere variations in interpretation. Virtual reality is much more that you seeing green, for example, while I see teal, or any of us not hearing clearly what another intended to say. Virtual reality is a wholly fabricated program of sensory input. Possible, yes, but not the most likely, unless some mechanism has caused us to hallucinate. Again, not likely to be our default setting.

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If we were living in a virtual reality, our brains would be creating another virtual reality within our mind. Kind of redundant.

I think a lot of people misrepresent brain function in light of their beliefs and wishes. The brains main purpose isn't to create reality, but interpret it. Sure, it has to take things we sense and convert it into something that makes sense, but just because it can create doesn't mean it's creating everything.

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One big problem with mankind is that we do not understand our brain, often not knowing the difference between being asleep or being awake. This might just be the nature our our brain and also be a key as to how we have progressed and evolved as we have over time. In other words, our creativity most likely comes out of these interpretations. If the brain was totally inactive during sleep our race would not have progressed.

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