I do not expect yr agreeance, nor will I attempt to convert you to my way of thought.

however, because I like...nay, love you, I will happily cite scientific documentation supporting my case (via pm).

as it is, I'm left trying to summarize a large body of work into layman's terms (using a crappy iPhone keyboard).

the words that you quoted (and disagree with) came from Brian Greene's mouth.

that said, that wasn't an automated response. :(

how so? Physical reality is subjective. How can you prove it exists? In which way is your perception so-called reality objective? It is not, it all chemicals firing in yr brain which TELL you what is what, but those chemicals are by no means conclusive proof. Reality is all perception and perception all occurs STRICTLY in the mind. This is biology. Further, the so-called physical world does not actually exist the way your mind sees it, that is the wonderful creation of your mind's response to the stimulus of the atoms of reality interacting with you. These atoms can exist any way they chose, and this is the science behind reality being subjective. Physics and mechanics tell us exactly what theology, mysticism and hallucinogenic plants have been discussing for years and years, that reality is merely subjective, and not to get caught up on the details

Wow, dude, I can, like, float through outer space.

that dog looks so happy

Perception doesn't occur strictly in the mind. Perception is a meaningless concept without its relation to an other. Consciousness is conscious of something.

As a theist, I would have expected you to have some interpretation of existence beyond one's mind, albeit mangled with blasphemous anthropomorphism.

Looks like a sarcastic smile to me.

is that true? because there is a disorder that people think they are dead and rotting and smelling bad.

one day, i had too much to drink. i dont know if it had anything to do with it, but in the night i could see myself and my friend and his friend sleeping from the ceiling but i had no eyes? i was nothing. but i could see it all in detail. even me, laying there. i struggled to do something and open my eyes but i couldnt because i wasnt there, i was on the ceiling. it was horrible.

that is silly. ALL percpetion is in the mind. As a theists, I believe that the divine is the source of all existence, and perception is something that happens after the face. the Divine exists, we simply try to interpret, and all of our so-called reality is just a lovely hallucination our minds try to invent to narrate a story to go along with our otherwise unknowable experiences as living and existing beings. Its not that we do not exist, its that reality does not objectively exist, it is subjective to our perception.

Yes it is. And it illustrates my point perfectly.

but its true, ill google it hold on.

That sounds worryingly close to Gnosticism. And you know what happened to them.

As long as there's a Dummies version I'll be happy to read.

I bought The Fabric of the Cosmos to put on my science shelf but I just broke the spine and left it sitting next to Can You Count To A Googol.

The Cotard delusion or Cotard's syndrome,[1] also known as nihilistic or negation delusion, is a rare neuropsychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that they are dead (either figuratively or literally), do not exist, are putrefying, or have lost their blood or internal organs. Rarely, it can include delusions of immortality.[2]

Right, subjective idealism. George Berkeley, etc.

What would you say to the claim that reality is unknowable and the known reality is not reality at all?

im just gonna pretend it is.

Me too. Have changed my posts accordingly.

[The patient's] symptoms occurred in the context of more general feelings of unreality and being dead. In January, 1990, after his discharge from hospital in Edinburgh, his mother took him to South Africa. He was convinced that he had been taken to hell (which was confirmed by the heat), and that he had died of septicaemia (which had been a risk early in his recovery), or perhaps from AIDS (he had read a story in The Scotsman about someone with AIDS who died from septicaemia), or from an overdose of a yellow fever injection. He thought he had "borrowed my mother's spirit to show me round hell", and that he was asleep in Scotland.

well, Brian Greene's Elegant Universe is pretty basic stuff.

if you don't feel like reading, the pbs site has the series.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html


I recommend "The Wild West of Physics" and "Newton's Emarrassing Secret".

good stuff, and mostly right.

if you feel like coming back and arguing my "Hawking radiation is a lie" theory, please let me know;)!

the moral of my story: current quantum theory REQUIRES that there be "no less than" 10 dimensions surrounding the current 4 that you can sense.


edit:clikcn buttnz

Erm, just because you have hallucinated does not mean you have lost touch with the generally accepted reality. The ability to distinguish what you believe to be real and unreal i would think is more reflective of yr entire mental state. Psychosis compared to episodes etc.
I've unfort endured some unpleasant times with tactile, aural, and visual hallucinations not brought on by substance abuse.. I've always been aware of them happening, but also that more than likely they are not what everyone else is experiencing or that indeed they are coming from inside myself rather than outside.
Hmmm.
I'm a very spiritual person and i do belive in an interconnectedness of all things, but i also believe our minds have had plenty of time to evolve a state of consciousness that is generally on par with everyone else. I do believe that others see things in much the same way i do.. Perhaps interpreted slightly differently in terms of emotion, but not sensory wise..