What is "real", what is "not real", and what is "more real"?

I'm guessing you yourself have some well thought out reasoning behind your perspective. ;)

LOL, you know I almost always do. :) My thoughts, half of it professional, half of it philosophical - but all of it constraining me from becoming a full blown nihilist or fundamental theist.

Science only hints at monism, it does not prove it in any way. Our dispute with nihilists and materialists pertains to the amount of risk horizon we bear in our grasp/inference about our universe. I contend that the risk horizon on such inference is extraordinarily high (the red bar with the caution symbol inside it, in the middle below) - we don't even know what we do not even know. This is a state of what I call Type II Horizon Risk. In a technology roll out, I would be advocating - 'hold on', we might be putting stakeholders at extreme risk.

We exist in a state of High Domain Epistemological Risk about the nature of being inside our realm.

domain epistemological risk med.png

So this introduces four principles which constrain me from becoming a theist or a nihilist, I philosophically call them (From Ignosticism)

I. Principle of Indistinguishability (vertical)​
/philosophy : science : boundary conditions : limits for claims/ : any sufficiently advanced act of benevolence is indistinguishable from either malevolence or chance.
II. Neti’s Razor (horizontal)​
/philosophy : existentialism : boundary condition/ : one cannot produce evidence from a finite deterministic domain, sufficient to derive a conclusion that nothing aside from that domain therefore exists.
III. I Am that I Am (horizontal)​
/philosophy : existentialism : boundary condition/ : that which possesses the unique ability to be able to define itself, renders all other entities disqualified in such expertise. There is no such thing as an expert in god (even inside plurality).
IV. Non-Existence Definition (vertical)​
/philosophy : science : skepticism : elements of attributes/definition/ : six questions form the basis of a definition: What, Where, When, How, Why, Who. The answers to this set of six questions still form an expert definition of attributes, even if the answer to all six is ’empty set’.

Based upon these four constraints, for me, becoming a fundamentalist theist or a nihilist is something I cannot ethically do. Both the fundamentalist and the nihilist are making unsubstantiated claims about the full nature of the universe. As for me, I was not offered the information to make such a conclusion.

The boundary of our universe and all its functions asymptopes back in upon itself, impenetrably so. If there is a purposeful focus here (and that is an if) - it must be on something else.

*shrug*??
 
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I suggest that your answer to the third ought to be, "On the basis that it is sufficiently justified". I would frame this in terms of sufficient "reasons" rather than sufficient "information". I think that talking in terms of "information" in answering this third question could be mistaken, because we can have little information about the subject of a claim, but should accept the claim as true anyway if we have good reason(s) to.

Hello Laird, thank you for understanding me.
I need to digest your well organized and profound idea further, I work 8:30 to 23:30 these days and tomorrow is Saturday but I still need to do overtime work.

But I want to say something about this paragraph from you, quoted above, before I get the complete understanding and thinking on your idea.

As you mentioned, sometimes we don't have sufficient directly pertinent information about something, but we still have good reasons to believe something is true.
Let me take an example, one of my friend told me one day, that she has found a new brand of coffee merchandise on the online shopping website upon which both of us frequently visit. She recommended it for me to have a taste and gave me an address to buy and I immediately ordered a large pack of that brand of coffee. This means, I believed her without a doubt on what she said and I believed I will probably like that brand's taste. Did she provide me any information about that brand of coffee? Which famous syndicate that brand belongs to? What type of coffee bean raw material that coffee merchandise is made of? Arabica or? What coffee flavors that brand produces? Cappuccino? Vanilla? Hazelnut? Caramel Macchiato? Is it too expensive? No, none of the above information, she just said that brand is nouveau and good and worth trying.

So, did I believe her with almost no amount of information? No, I believed her, I ordered the coffee thinking it will probably not be a waste of money even before I knew its price, it's true I believed her and it's true I knew nothing directly about the coffee.

But I believed her for the reasons that I always know:
I know her, we are mutually familiar to each other.
She is as fanatic coffee lover as me, she has drunk and understands the taste of many kinds of coffee.
She has a good taste, like a coffee virtuoso, she is very picky on coffee's taste and not easily deems a taste is considered to be good.
She is a very calmly thinking and prudent person, not a blunt minded, hot minded, or reckless scatter brain who inclines to make quick but irresponsible claims now and then.
She is one of my friends and keeps a very nice relationship with me, she just shares good merchandise with me very often without any malicious or weird purposes.
She is not selling that brand of coffee or doing a coffee delegate salesman part time job or has some friends promoting coffee sales or something.
She has no mental illness recently.
Many many other....

So, although the reason I believed that coffee is worth buying is not from the information directly pertinent to the coffee merchandise itself, but many many underlying or peripheral information indeed affects my belief and judgement.

The example I contrived in a very limited time (need to sleep soon and get up early tomorrow) is not well, but in short, what I wish to express is:
Sometimes we thought we could believe a thing with decent reasons without much amount of information, but the fact often is that there is some unnoticed and subtle indirectly related information which is effecting in a background. Thinking it deep and we will find there is actually much larger amount of information which affects very decision, thought.... we take.

My writing is bad, sorry, bitter laughing.
 
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I understand what you are saying here and I like it. I myself have been trying to explore similar ideas. I hadn't thought in terms of INFORMATION AMOUNT as you describe towards the end of this post. It is a strong point, I feel.

Nice to have these talk with you, Dan_LastName. Seeing you and many others understand what I mean, is my most happy moment in recent several years in a drab working and dull life in depression mood.
Thank you for the many referential information and further reading you provide, I need time to digest since my English language is still in development and need improving. I'm trying to understand some sentences better. You are great.
 
So, although the reason I believed that coffee is worth buying is not from the information directly pertinent to the coffee merchandise itself, but many many underlying or peripheral information indeed affects my belief and judgement.

Right, and that's the distinction I was trying to make when I referred to having little information about the subject of a claim, but accepting the claim as true anyway if we have good reason(s) to: the information underlying those reasons wouldn't pertain directly to the subject of a claim.

You've also used an example of a Jesus-like figure in an NDE. The subject of the claim is the Jesus-like figure, and there is all sorts of information about that subject that in theory you could have access to, but a lot of it is irrelevant to deciding the truth of the claim that he really is Jesus, and you might decide that he is Jesus based on highly relevant but indirect information even though you have little direct information about the NDE figure.

For example, and analogous to your coffee example: a dead relative whom you trust highly shows him/herself to you in the NDE, sufficiently proves to you that s/he is who s/he says s/he is by telling you something that only the two of you know, and then says to you, "This guy is the real deal - I've been hanging out with him here in the afterlife for several years now and he has proved to me in many ways which I don't have time to discuss with you right now that he is Jesus".

Now, you would have very little information about that NDE figure himself, but good reason, based on indirect information, to accept the claim that he is Jesus.

I have had the impression that instead, you place too much emphasis on (often irrelevant) information about the subject of the claim. For example, in your earlier thread on this subject, you wrote:

If someone claims that he has found a real unicorn, he must provide tremendously huge amount of information, otherwise he is lying. For example he must provide information of where he found a unicorn, what are the resemblance and the difference of unicorn and a horse, is there any aura around the unicorn, what the unicorn eats, what sound it makes when it neighs, what temperament it has, whether it is aggressive or mild, what is the color of its skin, hair, sclera, horn, hooves, could it communicate with you, if so, how, how old is it, how tall is it, did you ask it whether you could ride it, where did it come from, what its homeland looks like, whether it has fellow of its same species, how they mate and reproduce, and many other questions. If the one who claims he knows unicorn's existence as a real creature can't provide any of those information described foregoing, then we and himself should reconsider whether what he saw is more suitable to a reduced explanation, like an illusion, etcetera.

But we don't really need answers to all of those questions, do we? To decide whether he found a real unicorn, we only need answers to the key questions: is it alive and does it have the body of a horse with a horn which isn't simply glued on?

Basically, I'm trying to shift your focus from "we need infinite information about the subject of a truth claim otherwise we must dismiss it as a lie" to "we need only relevant information about a claim - and not necessarily directly pertaining to its subject - to accept it as true".

[Edited to add:] Probably what you are trying to say is that the infinite information should be available in principle for a real unicorn - but this then would be more of an ontological question ("What does it mean to be real?", to which you seem to be answering, at least in part, "It means being describable in principle by infinite information") than an epistemological one ("How do we know whether something is real?", to which the answer is not "By having infinite information about that thing").

Also:

I work 8:30 to 23:30 these days and tomorrow is Saturday but I still need to do overtime work.

Those are some crazy hours, man. I hope you get a break soon.
 
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Nice to have these talk with you, Dan_LastName. Seeing you and many others understand what I mean, is my most happy moment in recent several years in a drab working and dull life in depression mood.
Thank you for the many referential information and further reading you provide, I need time to digest since my English language is still in development and need improving. I'm trying to understand some sentences better. You are great.
Thank you for writing, tarantulanebula. I am sorry to hear you have to work so much and are in a depressed mood. I know how that feels and it is difficult. I appreciate your writing because it makes me feel less alone, like somebody understands the curtain of my mind. This feeling brings relief and joy to my drab life.

Each of us use our own eyes, visual and other sensory systems, and our brain or consciousness' thinking ability to observe and understand this world, so everything we got is through a subjective curtain. None of us can find a way to "touch the real reality".
Tarantulanebula, this is very poetic and beautiful in a way. I like your idea of the curtain. I think you are great, too.

My writing was not good in my last post. I will try to write shorter and better:

It may be useful to think that "the curtain" developed as a tool for prediction, problem solving, and fulfilling human needs for survival. If this is the case, then it would mean that everything we experience like our experience of our bodies and objects in the world, our sensations, perceptions, emotions, feelings, thoughts, words, dreams, mystical eperiences, NDEs, etc -- could be usefully viewed "in terms of their practical uses and successes rather than in terms of representative accuracy." (Source: Wikipedia entry on Pragmatism)

Another way to say it is that there could be something outside of the functioning of our mind/experience. But we may not be capable of "representing" or "processing" what is beyond the practical functionality of our minds. (Nobody knew about x-rays 5,000 years ago; their minds didn't have that functionality yet. What might we not know about today that people may have the fuctionality to process 5000 years into the future?)

It may be useful to think that the human mind historically developed as a tool for problem solving and fulfilling human needs. It may be the case that mind/experience developed to provide what we need to live/reproduce and nothing more.

I am not making an argument that "THIS IS THE WAY IT IS." This is not a purely materialist idea nor is it a purely idealist idea. This idea tries to be purely agnostic on that question. This is not about exactly describing the nature of reality, this is about adjusting my mind/experience in order to see if it leads to some slightly different experience in a "pleasing" or "useful" way.

It may be useful to think that mind/experience developed to help us get SOME of what we need to live. If we got ALL of what we needed to live, perhaps we'd live forever and we'd know everything and we'd never have pain. But alas, for many people, mind/experience seems to break down as they approach a "natural" end of their life (which is one particular "edge" of a person's experience), just as some experiences for some humans collectively seems to break down in some of the furthest explorations of science, spiritual practice, philosophical inquiry, etc.

Perhaps our mind/experience tool is particularly dysfunctional when it come to defining how it is dysfunctional. It seems that for some people, when they try to explore the “edges” of mind/experience, the mind/experience seems to "change" in ways that make it hard to figure out or integrate.

For all ideas that are counter to this idea, and for this idea as well, one could say that the experience of the idea may be born purely out of powerful problem-solving and need-fulfillment, and probably doesn't say much about what is beyond our imperfect problem-solving, need-fulfillment tool. (Incrementalism may be the key to growing experience, as Robert Ellis suggests.)
 
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Hello Laird, thank you for understanding me.
I need to digest your well organized and profound idea further, I work 8:30 to 23:30 these days and tomorrow is Saturday but I still need to do overtime work.

But I want to say something about this paragraph from you, quoted above, before I get the complete understanding and thinking on your idea.

As you mentioned, sometimes we don't have sufficient directly pertinent information about something, but we still have good reasons to believe something is true.
Let me take an example, one of my friend told me one day, that she has found a new brand of coffee merchandise on the online shopping website upon which both of us frequently visit. She recommended it for me to have a taste and gave me an address to buy and I immediately ordered a large pack of that brand of coffee. This means, I believed her without a doubt on what she said and I believed I will probably like that brand's taste. Did she provide me any information about that brand of coffee? Which famous syndicate that brand belongs to? What type of coffee bean raw material that coffee merchandise is made of? Arabica or? What coffee flavors that brand produces? Cappuccino? Vanilla? Hazelnut? Caramel Macchiato? Is it too expensive? No, none of the above information, she just said that brand is nouveau and good and worth trying.

So, did I believe her with almost no amount of information? No, I believed her, I ordered the coffee thinking it will probably not be a waste of money even before I knew its price, it's true I believed her and it's true I knew nothing directly about the coffee.

But I believed her for the reasons that I always know:
I know her, we are mutually familiar to each other.
She is as fanatic coffee lover as me, she has drunk and understands the taste of many kinds of coffee.
She has a good taste, like a coffee virtuoso, she is very picky on coffee's taste and not easily deems a taste is considered to be good.
She is a very calmly thinking and prudent person, not a blunt minded, hot minded, or reckless scatter brain who inclines to make quick but irresponsible claims now and then.
She is one of my friends and keeps a very nice relationship with me, she just shares good merchandise with me very often without any malicious or weird purposes.
She is not selling that brand of coffee or doing a coffee delegate salesman part time job or has some friends promoting coffee sales or something.
She has no mental illness recently.
Many many other....

So, although the reason I believed that coffee is worth buying is not from the information directly pertinent to the coffee merchandise itself, but many many underlying or peripheral information indeed affects my belief and judgement.

The example I contrived in a very limited time (need to sleep soon and get up early tomorrow) is not well, but in short, what I wish to express is:
Sometimes we thought we could believe a thing with decent reasons without much amount of information, but the fact often is that there is some unnoticed and subtle indirectly related information which is effecting in a background. Thinking it deep and we will find there is actually much larger amount of information which affects very decision, thought.... we take.

My writing is bad, sorry, bitter laughing.
Right, and that's the distinction I was trying to make when I referred to having little information about the subject of a claim, but accepting the claim as true anyway if we have good reason(s) to: the information underlying those reasons wouldn't pertain directly to the subject of a claim.

You've also used an example of a Jesus-like figure in an NDE. The subject of the claim is the Jesus-like figure, and there is all sorts of information about that subject that in theory you could have access to, but a lot of it is irrelevant to deciding the truth of the claim that he really is Jesus, and you might decide that he is Jesus based on highly relevant but indirect information even though you have little direct information about the NDE figure.

For example, and analogous to your coffee example: a dead relative whom you trust highly shows him/herself to you in the NDE, sufficiently proves to you that s/he is who s/he says s/he is by telling you something that only the two of you know, and then says to you, "This guy is the real deal - I've been hanging out with him here in the afterlife for several years now and he has proved to me in many ways which I don't have time to discuss with you right now that he is Jesus".

Now, you would have very little information about that NDE figure himself, but good reason, based on indirect information, to accept the claim that he is Jesus.

I have had the impression that instead, you place too much emphasis on (often irrelevant) information about the subject of the claim. For example, in your earlier thread on this subject, you wrote:



But we don't really need answers to all of those questions, do we? To decide whether he found a real unicorn, we only need answers to the key questions: is it alive and does it have the body of a horse with a horn which isn't simply glued on?

Basically, I'm trying to shift your focus from "we need infinite information about the subject of a truth claim otherwise we must dismiss it as a lie" to "we need only relevant information about a claim - and not necessarily directly pertaining to its subject - to accept it as true".

[Edited to add:] Probably what you are trying to say is that the infinite information should be available in principle for a real unicorn - but this then would be more of an ontological question ("What does it mean to be real?", to which you seem to be answering, at least in part, "It means being describable in principle by infinite information") than an epistemological one ("How do we know whether something is real?", to which the answer is not "By having infinite information about that thing").

Also:



Those are some crazy hours, man. I hope you get a break soon.

Regarding "information":

It may be useful to consider that the concept of "information" may have more to do with problem-solving and/or need-fulfilling, and may not be directly related to some "ultimate reality".

Also, it may be useful to consider "usefulness" itself as a criteria for how "new information" gets integrated (or doesn't get integrated) into a person's existing mind/experience.

For me, because I feel like I got burned/betrayed by my childhood experiences with Christianity, it doesn't feel useful for me to take a leap of faith regarding "low information" spiritual forces. For other folks who have had different experiences than me, it may be the opposite---it may be USEFUL for them to make that leap of faith and integrate some "low information" spiritual force into their worldview.

In other words, it may not be just the volume of information or the quality of the information that is in play. The "USEFULNESS" of the information could be a critical factor to consider.
 
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[Edited to add:] Probably what you are trying to say is that the infinite information should be available in principle for a real unicorn - but this then would be more of an ontological question ("What does it mean to be real?", to which you seem to be answering, at least in part, "It means being describable in principle by infinite information") than an epistemological one ("How do we know whether something is real?", to which the answer is not "By having infinite information about that thing").

I shouldn't have used the word "infinite information", because infinite is an absolute concept and requiring infinite prudence and caution to say.
I want to make a distinction between "something really exists" and "a lying by insisting that something purely out of imagination exists":
1, everything which really exists in our physical reality world, might have finite (but large) amount of information, but we couldn't see its end, it at least seems to us that it has a cannot-see-the-end amount of information, it seems there will always be further information to explore in the foresee-able future.
2, a fraud is different, we usually see its end very soon and could no longer find additional information. Its background information is hollow and empty. Some well organized, deliberately conceived fraud or fictitious work can have a very large and delusive amount of information, but its amount of information is still much smaller than our real reality and is often being empty or unreasonable in some of the conjunction nodes on the whole logical cobweb, this is very different from our real reality, which always has every tiny information to fill every connecting node to let everything have a logical explanation and explainable connections.

Also:

Those are some crazy hours, man. I hope you get a break soon.

Thank you for your comfort and solace.
Reading and trying to understand the profound ideas written by you and many others here is difficult to me, but my spirit can get a nice excursion and a temporary distraction from the troubles in my life and work, so it's a good spiritual rest when I'm reading in this forum. :)
 
My writing was not good in my last post. I will try to write shorter and better:

Your writing is very good, profound, thought provoking, with many originated new ideas which I haven't seen anywhere else, or some of your ideas I had once thought about similarly but you expressed them in a more heart striking way. Thank you for that you explained these nice ideas in a very patient, caring way.

All the problems is at my side, after all English is not my mother language. Before I have fully chewed and understood, I incline to refrain from replying with my too immature understanding and reply.

It may be useful to think that "the curtain" developed as a tool for prediction, problem solving, and fulfilling human needs for survival. If this is the case, then it would mean that everything we experience like our experience of our bodies and objects in the world, our sensations, perceptions, emotions, feelings, thoughts, words, dreams, mystical eperiences, NDEs, etc -- could be usefully viewed "in terms of their practical uses and successes rather than in terms of representative accuracy." (Source: Wikipedia entry on Pragmatism)

I had once thought about this idea relevant to "USEFULNESS".
As to useful to creature's survival, I had once thought this:
shouldn't we say, some of the virus, bacteria, worms and insects are more suitable to survive than complex creatures like human beings in many aspects?
A species of bacteria can keep being bacteria with millions of millions years, still suitable to survive, more suitable than human beings.

So I thought about, creature's evolution to be more and more complex, is a process and a plan which has another purpose, other than "purely for being more suitable to survive".

And this another purpose, has some business to do with "MORE AMOUNT OF INFORMATION", because "more complex" means "more amount of information".

And "more amount of information" means "MORE REAL".

So I thought about, human beings are evolving towards a "direction" not only for "more suitable to survive", but also for "approaching the real reality". Although I feel this idea is neither good nor mature, I feel this idea implies that, the world view when one individual creature observes the world outside of its own consciousness and introvert view about itself - self recognition, is very immature and "not real" when this creature is simple, and with evolution towards more complex creatures and more recognition about the nature of the world and the nature of the source and every nonce formation of each creature itself (individual recognition) and relationships with other creatures (species group recognition), creature is approaching the "ultimate reality" (there might not be a finite ultimate reality but an infinite process of approaching or even is creating the ultimate reality). So we are becoming more and more real by experiencing more and more amount of information.

Ah ha ha my mastery of English skill can't help me express such a meaning decently. :(:eek: Bitter laughing.

Dear Dan_LastName, I haven't finished reading all the referential links and further reading threads you posted earlier, I will keep following what all you say in this forum and the linked materials.
 
Your writing is very good, profound, thought provoking, with many originated new ideas which I haven't seen anywhere else, or some of your ideas I had once thought about similarly but you expressed them in a more heart striking way.

Thank you, tarantula! I am smiling now.

I had once thought about this idea relevant to "USEFULNESS".
As to useful to creature's survival, I had once thought this:
shouldn't we say, some of the virus, bacteria, worms and insects are more suitable to survive than complex creatures like human beings in many aspects?
A species of bacteria can keep being bacteria with millions of millions years, still suitable to survive, more suitable than human beings.

So I thought about, creature's evolution to be more and more complex, is a process and a plan which has another purpose, other than "purely for being more suitable to survive".

And this another purpose, has some business to do with "MORE AMOUNT OF INFORMATION", because "more complex" means "more amount of information".

Yes, this is a good point. It has been a long time since I studied evolutionary theory. I think the evolutionary theorists would claim that there is a known mechanism for complexity to develops in biology---Evolutionary mutations allow individuals to take advantage of different resources that are available in the environment. So if a simple bacteria can metabolize one particular resource, another kind of bacteria may evolve to metabolize a different available resource, and then another organism may evolve that can metabolize the bacteria, and so forth. It may be the case that organisms will tend to evolve to take advantage of available resources; or, in other words, to take advantage of available "niches".

So I thought about, creature's evolution to be more and more complex, is a process and a plan which has another purpose, other than "purely for being more suitable to survive".
I believe this perspective is useful for many people, in the sense that it feels satisfying, pleasurable, meaningful, etc.

It may be useful to consider that ideas like "more complex" and "purpose" may be more related to problem solving, prediction, and need fulfillment, and may not be directly related to some "ultimate reality".

And this another purpose, has some business to do with "MORE AMOUNT OF INFORMATION", because "more complex" means "more amount of information".

Robert Ellis talks about "incremental objectivity". He means that, while nobody can have an all encompassing view of all universal reality (if such a thing exists), we seem to be able to take small steps toward understanding aspects of experience and reality. Perhaps, if he were using your concepts, he would say that we seem to incrementally integrate more and more information.

We all have our own ideas of what small steps we should be taking.

It is difficult to judge what the "right" steps are. Part of the difficulty I believe is that it is easy to feel "satisfaction" or "pleasure" with some ideas. Satisfaction and pleasure are useful in their own ways. But it may be useful to consider that satisfactions and pleasures can block us from other ideas that may be "better in the long run."

For me, the small steps I want to take now, involves considering the usefulness of different judgments and ideas. For example:

I don't know if the world will end in the next moment. But it is useful for me to think that the world will continue.

I don't know if anyone except me truly exists, but it is useful for me to believe that other people do exist.

I don't know if time "exists" as I experience it, but it is useful for me to believe that time "exists" like I experience it.

I don't know if I have free will, but it is useful for me to believe that I do have free will.

I don't know if I'm dreaming right now, but it is useful for me to believe that I'm not dreaming.

I don't know if the world is a simulation, or if I'm existing in some other entity's dream, but is useful for me to believe that the world is NOT a simulation.

I don't know if there's a god or some other higher consciousness, but for me, it feels most useful to be agnostic on that question.

I don't know if there is a higher purpose, but for me, it feels most useful to be agnostic on that question

I don't know if there is a higher order or a broader reality beyond what we currently "know", and I'm not sure what the most useful stance is here.

I don't know if we incrementally understand more and more of some "ultimate reality", and I'm not sure what the most useful stance is here.

These are my small steps. Other folks find it useful to speculate about higher purpose, etc, but for me, I fear that is too great a leap, and possibly a leap into error. For me, the useful small step seems to be exploring the "curtain of mind experience" itself, and playing around with the different ideas about the curtain of mind/experience to see where that takes us. (Ideas like pragmatism, embodied cognition, usefulness, resisting the correspondence theory of truth, resisting certain kinds of "linguistic representationalism" etc)

To tell you the truth, part of me wants to stay in the ideas I wrote about in my previous post (#25), but your reply has forced me out of that little "warm cocoon of ideas" to confront the idea of the barrier between mind/experience and that which may be beyond mind/experience. It is difficult to judge how much to speculate beyond mind/experience. I also fear I am losing the thread of my ideas, and I am out of time today. Looking forward to your future comments.


Ah ha ha my mastery of English skill can't help me express such a meaning decently. :(:eek: Bitter laughing.
I struggle to write these ideas in English as well. I could not imagine trying to write these ideas in a second language. You are doing a great job. You have a wonderful voice and way of expressing yourself. Keep up the good work!

And "more amount of information" means "MORE REAL".

So I thought about, human beings are evolving towards a "direction" not only for "more suitable to survive", but also for "approaching the real reality". Although I feel this idea is neither good nor mature, I feel this idea implies that, the world view when one individual creature observes the world outside of its own consciousness and introvert view about itself - self recognition, is very immature and "not real" when this creature is simple, and with evolution towards more complex creatures and more recognition about the nature of the world and the nature of the source and every nonce formation of each creature itself (individual recognition) and relationships with other creatures (species group recognition), creature is approaching the "ultimate reality" (there might not be a finite ultimate reality but an infinite process of approaching or even is creating the ultimate reality). So we are becoming more and more real by experiencing more and more amount of information.
This is very interesting. I find your ideas unique and compelling. I am dying to know what types of books/sources you like to look at in regards to these topics. I am a collector of ideas. :)

I don't often think in terms of "more real" or "less real" and I don't normally think in terms of information. I am interested to know how you developed your interest in these ideas?
 
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I shouldn't have used the word "infinite information", because infinite is an absolute concept and requiring infinite prudence and caution to say.

Fair enough, and I shouldn't have used it either, because I suspected that that would be your position.

I want to make a distinction between "something really exists" and "a lying by insisting that something purely out of imagination exists":
1, everything which really exists in our physical reality world, might have finite (but large) amount of information, but we couldn't see its end, it at least seems to us that it has a cannot-see-the-end amount of information, it seems there will always be further information to explore in the foresee-able future.
2, a fraud is different, we usually see its end very soon and could no longer find additional information. Its background information is hollow and empty. Some well organized, deliberately conceived fraud or fictitious work can have a very large and delusive amount of information, but its amount of information is still much smaller than our real reality and is often being empty or unreasonable in some of the conjunction nodes on the whole logical cobweb, this is very different from our real reality, which always has every tiny information to fill every connecting node to let everything have a logical explanation and explainable connections.

That all seems reasonable. So, your claim is both ontological (what it means to be real is to be associated with a large amount of information) and epistemological (we can assess something as real if we determine that it is associated with a large amount of consistent information).

Aside from my defining "real" somewhat differently than you do, the main problem I see with the epistemological part of your claim is that sometimes it's not possible for us to access enough information to be able to make a judgement, not necessarily because the information does not exist, but because we don't have the opportunity to access it (or didn't think to when we did) - which doesn't mean that we should conclude fraud/lie/deception/illusion, but rather remain agnostic, or, as I wrote earlier, accept the thing as (at least potentially) real if we have good, and not necessarily direct, reasons to.

Going back to NDEs: the experiencer typically is there for only a short time with limited opportunity to collect the sort of information that you would like to use to assess the NDE's reality, and has no opportunity to go back on demand to gather more information. Our lack of a large amount of information does not mean that we should assess claims about NDEs or figures in them as false or lies or fantasy, but rather withhold judgement, and/or look at whether we have any other good reasons to accept the claim. For example, did the Jesus figure perform miracles (perhaps he healed a terminally ill cancer-suffering NDEr); did he know things that ordinary mortals don't/shouldn't know (perhaps about God or the future); did he exude unconditional love and did he express the type of wisdom found in the Gospels, etc? None of this would be definitive, but it would be suggestive, and wouldn't require large amounts of information, just the right information.

Thank you for your comfort and solace.
Reading and trying to understand the profound ideas written by you and many others here is difficult to me, but my spirit can get a nice excursion and a temporary distraction from the troubles in my life and work, so it's a good spiritual rest when I'm reading in this forum. :)

I don't think I'm saying anything profound, just trying to be clear. But I'm glad you find this forum a pleasant escape from your troubles. By the way, I've noticed a big improvement in your English since you were last active on the forum, especially in your vocabulary: these days, you choose more fitting and appropriate words, and you construct your sentences more like a native speaker would. That's an impressive achievement. I can't imagine learning Chinese; the amount of effort it would take is very daunting, but you've done the reverse. Nice going, man.
 
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To tell you the truth, part of me wants to stay in the ideas I wrote about in my previous post (#25), but your reply has forced me out of that little "warm cocoon of ideas" to confront the idea of the barrier between mind/experience and that which may be beyond mind/experience. It is difficult to judge how much to speculate beyond mind/experience. I also fear I am losing the thread of my ideas, and I am out of time today. Looking forward to your future comments.

I understand when you are out of time one day but still have something more to say, this is what I often feel.
I get back to residence very late every night and after having shower there is not much time left for me to read and write on the Internet before my deadline to sleep if I want not to be late for tomorrow's work. However I often stay up to 3 o'clock in the deep night.
But don't worry for me, I know my limitation. And take care and pay attention to your schedule, rest and health, no hurry even if I want to hear your opinions. No matter how long it takes to think and write, I will visit this forum often to check new posts and ideas. Seeking the answers to these questions is definitely my whole life's thing to do.

I have many things to say, but it is very late now so I need to make it quick and when I have more time, perhaps in Sunday, I will explain more detailed. I have to work Monday to Saturday and only rest in Sunday almost every week. My company is cruel Ah ha ha.

So so so let me to make it quick. I will utter my ideas in a self-ask-self-answer way, thus assuming you might not agree with me and do not affect your own path of thinking.

I have many things to say so I don't know where to start. OK, let me start from the "angst about can find no way to lead to ultimate reality" and "the fear or at least not comfortable feeling about the possibility that everything is an illusion".

I ask: why you feel angst about "unable to access ultimate reality" and "the possible perspective that the whole world is an illusion"?
I answer: thinking about that if I had a dream in which I met a girl I liked very much, she responded me with flaunting her femininity with friendly sweet and lovely shy, and I felt I had fell in love and suddenly I woke up to find it was a dream, meaning that there is no more, no continuing information of that romantic relationship, no extensive development on that beautiful feeling, and I now feel alone. This is only one example of many. Although it feels relieved to wake up from a nightmare, it feels heart broken to wake up from a disillusioned beautiful dream. There are many cherished things in our mundane life, hobbies, aesthetics, friends, families, lovers, beloved ones, cultures, fashions, subtle feelings, and if one day we wake up and find all were illusions and all are finally gone to oblivion, no further continuing stories (information), we would feel desperate and alone. No much more things can be more terrible than this situation.
I ask: so, you fear because an illusion world would finally show you the dead end (cul-de-sac) of information, meaning there would be no further information to be created or to be explored. Is this all you fear? I mean, if this world can be an illusion even if it has infinite amount of information, would you still fear?
I answer: I would still fear, I want a real world, I want the people surrounding me and also the people in the skeptiko forum are all real persons. If they are not real persons, even if they will emit infinite amount of information and I can interact them with infinite different ways forever, I would still fear.
I ask: so your fear about "not real" is not purely caused by "fear about no more information", right? In other words, "fear about no more information" is only one but of course a very important one reason that why you fear "not real", besides this one reason, there is some other reasons, so what are they?

Hey let me explain some other things, the "terror dale effect", people can feel a doll seems terrible because it shows somehow a person figure, but there is no consciousness inside its figure, this can make us feel danger, loath and rise our vigilance, because a thing disguising as if it has consciousness but has no consciousness is a dangerous symbol, we fear ghost, weird freakish entities for the similar reason. If the whole world is ultimately an illusion, then the whole world is a "terror dale effect". We do not want this perspective because it makes us feel extreme alone.

Ah ha ha mosquitos are biting me crazily I could think and write well, I need to go to sleep. Next time. Wish you all good luck. :):D
 
I ask: why you feel angst about "unable to access ultimate reality" and "the possible perspective that the whole world is an illusion"?
I answer: thinking about that if I had a dream in which I met a girl I liked very much, she responded me with flaunting her femininity with friendly sweet and lovely shy, and I felt I had fell in love and suddenly I woke up to find it was a dream, meaning that there is no more, no continuing information of that romantic relationship, no extensive development on that beautiful feeling, and I now feel alone. This is only one example of many. Although it feels relieved to wake up from a nightmare, it feels heart broken to wake up from a disillusioned beautiful dream. There are many cherished things in our mundane life, hobbies, aesthetics, friends, families, lovers, beloved ones, cultures, fashions, subtle feelings, and if one day we wake up and find all were illusions and all are finally gone to oblivion, no further continuing stories (information), we would feel desperate and alone. No much more things can be more terrible than this situation.
I ask: so, you fear because an illusion world would finally show you the dead end (cul-de-sac) of information, meaning there would be no further information to be created or to be explored. Is this all you fear? I mean, if this world can be an illusion even if it has infinite amount of information, would you still fear?
I answer: I would still fear, I want a real world, I want the people surrounding me and also the people in the skeptiko forum are all real persons. If they are not real persons, even if they will emit infinite amount of information and I can interact them with infinite different ways forever, I would still fear.
I ask: so your fear about "not real" is not purely caused by "fear about no more information", right? In other words, "fear about no more information" is only one but of course a very important one reason that why you fear "not real", besides this one reason, there is some other reasons, so what are they?

Hey let me explain some other things, the "terror dale effect", people can feel a doll seems terrible because it shows somehow a person figure, but there is no consciousness inside its figure, this can make us feel danger, loath and rise our vigilance, because a thing disguising as if it has consciousness but has no consciousness is a dangerous symbol, we fear ghost, weird freakish entities for the similar reason. If the whole world is ultimately an illusion, then the whole world is a "terror dale effect". We do not want this perspective because it makes us feel extreme alone.

Ah ha ha mosquitos are biting me crazily I could think and write well, I need to go to sleep. Next time. Wish you all good luck. :):D

Hi Tarantula,

I didn't know that you had these feelings of angst. I have felt angst, fear and loneliness, too, and I know it is difficult and miserable to suffer like that.

Now that I know how you feel, I am afraid that my previous comments may have only made things worse for you. I am sorry if that is the case.

In reply to your post, I can only say that I feel like this world is real, no matter what may or may not be beyond. I feel that our lives are meaningful and that we matter. I have not always felt this way, and I think it is common for people to go through times in life when things feel bleak.

I do not like to give unsolicited advice, so I will not do so now. But if you feel like you want advice, would you consider letting us know? I and other folks could perhaps give you suggestions if you need them on how to deal with your struggles. Or, if you just want to express your feelings more, we will be here for you. :)
 
I ask: why you feel angst about "unable to access ultimate reality" and "the possible perspective that the whole world is an illusion"?
I answer: thinking about that if I had a dream in which I met a girl I liked very much, she responded me with flaunting her femininity with friendly sweet and lovely shy, and I felt I had fell in love and suddenly I woke up to find it was a dream, meaning that there is no more, no continuing information of that romantic relationship, no extensive development on that beautiful feeling, and I now feel alone. This is only one example of many. Although it feels relieved to wake up from a nightmare, it feels heart broken to wake up from a disillusioned beautiful dream. There are many cherished things in our mundane life, hobbies, aesthetics, friends, families, lovers, beloved ones, cultures, fashions, subtle feelings, and if one day we wake up and find all were illusions and all are finally gone to oblivion, no further continuing stories (information), we would feel desperate and alone. No much more things can be more terrible than this situation.
I ask: so, you fear because an illusion world would finally show you the dead end (cul-de-sac) of information, meaning there would be no further information to be created or to be explored. Is this all you fear? I mean, if this world can be an illusion even if it has infinite amount of information, would you still fear?
I am not sure if you had the dream about the girl, or only use it as an example, but I have had exactly that dream on a couple of occasions! It did leave a lingering sadness for a short while. However, I think perhaps you should read one of Jurgen Ziewe's books. He claims to have travelled extensively in other realms, and reports that they are all 'real' in some sense. I mean, you know that ine a crude sense, you and I and everything is made of fundamental particles whizzing about. Does that make things feel less real to you? To me, this whole argument is a bit naive - everything is real, but everything can also be seen as false if viewed from a different perspective.

David
 
Hi Tarantula,

I didn't know that you had these feelings of angst. I have felt angst, fear and loneliness, too, and I know it is difficult and miserable to suffer like that.

Now that I know how you feel, I am afraid that my previous comments may have only made things worse for you. I am sorry if that is the case.

In reply to your post, I can only say that I feel like this world is real, no matter what may or may not be beyond. I feel that our lives are meaningful and that we matter. I have not always felt this way, and I think it is common for people to go through times in life when things feel bleak.

I do not like to give unsolicited advice, so I will not do so now. But if you feel like you want advice, would you consider letting us know? I and other folks could perhaps give you suggestions if you need them on how to deal with your struggles. Or, if you just want to express your feelings more, we will be here for you. :)

Thank you.
What you said is specifically what I need, it strikes my heart very deeply and strongly. Thank you.

What you suggest and provide are the most important things in my life. Hard to explain in several sentences.

I want, eager to talk and listen, the only problem is that my work has some problem and is very busy, that's a long story. I'm a Java programmer, now doing a project that's a supply chain order management subsystem web application. After this project is done, I have a great possibility to need to change another company, not my own choice, two thirds of this project's developers, testers, business analysts have already left. Hard to explain in several sentences. I focused on Java codes with Spring Framework and MyBatis (a framework for database connectivity) for the last several months but I haven't touched webpage front-end codes for quite long time, so if I need to change another company within several months now I should be quite worried about reviewing and improving webpage front-end codes.

The above is just my explaining why I didn't visit skeptiko-forum often in one or more years before. Bitter smiling.

Dear Dan_LastName your words are very needed and warm. I do have tons of words to say, about the source of our existence and determination force high beyond, and the answers to fate, suffering and wonderful life experiences, illusions and realities, the essence of our "self", ultimate, near death experiences, reincarnation, extraterrestrial lives, dark conspiracies, etc, etc, etc, etc.

I haven't finished writing my ideas. I'm not sure whether it is proper to post what I have written or wait for more thinking and afflatus.

I will visit here often, and try to express what I want to say step by step.

I decided to post my unfinished ideas below, it is very badly written, if anyone could find it funny in a stupid way, then feel free to have a read, not serious though ha ha. I need to improve my English writing to make my ideas better expressed.

Below is what I wrote this weekend:

Sadly this Saturday I was asked to do overtime work again, and Sunday went to do some social affairs.

Posting before I myself having sorted my own thoughts, seems impolite, like what I posted earlier, badly written sentences in a hurry tiny time. I'm sorry on that. My English skill is not sufficient for me to express these ideas ideally. However I will try to say them.

Before this discussion, I insisted on that "reality that we can touch is all information", these days, I reconsidered this statement, and now I still insist on, "reality that we can touch is all information".

I don't know whether there would be "something that is all of or part of reality and is not categorized into anything we call information", and now I can't see there would be a way for me to know. I'm not saying "something that is not information but belongs to reality" doesn't exist. I'm not saying that, in any future humans won't be able to know whether there can be "something that is not information but belongs to reality". It is possible that "there is something that is not information but belongs to reality", and it is also possible that the future humans or other consciousness can touch those "not-information-reality". But I can't touch or imagine "not-information-reality".

The above sentences are very verbose and hard to read, I don't know how to say them better. In short, our consciousness can and only can touch "information" when we try to know reality.

Let me use a scenery analogy(simile, metaphor) to further express my idea:

Imagine that our consciousness is inside of a space confined by a hull, like inside of a house, and there is a glass window to see outside. When one's consciousness was created from nothingness to start being existent, its memory is initially empty, a situation like when we were born, one sees that glass window as opaque.

All the information there is and there will be and there could have been and there could be, is like lights projected on the outer surface of that glass window, but the inner surface, being opaque at one consciousness' commence of being existent, doesn't yet reflect and refract the reality into that house - representing one's "self" and heart.

Along with this consciousness' growth, it experiences and learns, like wiping that glass window cleaner and cleaner, more and more transparent, the inner surface of which becomes more and more corresponding to some zones of the outer surface. This is the process we get to know more and more about the reality, by wiping that glass window, aligning the pattern(information) of the inner surface to that of the outer surface, and seeing the information shined on the outer surface through our accumulated observation and understanding memories represented by the inner surface.

All the reality we can touch, is the information projected by the lights on the outer surface of that glass window. For the outer surface of that glass window and the lights gilded onto it, are they the whole and all what the reality is? I don't know, there is no way to know, or currently I can't imagine there could be a way to know, because the outer surface is the most out stretched demarcation that my "self" and my consciousness can reach, in all imaginable possibilities.

The world outside the outer surface of that glass window may not exist at all, but fairly speaking it also possibly exists and has something inside of it, whatever, those are not "information", and "not-information-thingy" is not anything a consciousness and spirit can touch. Therefore, speaking to a consciousness and spirit, the outer surface of that glass window is the only and is the totally all the reality there is to explore.

No matter how hard and how long the one dwelling in that house wipes the glass window, the inner surface of the glass window is remotely far from as clean as the outer surface. The zones which have been wiped generally clean if roughly glanced at the inner surface of the glass window, are actually not clean in tinier sporadic details if maximized the view trillion times. There are also almost boundlessly large expansive zones which haven't been wiped at all. So, the clean part of the inner surface of the glass window is always a subset of all there is on the outer surface. The clean part of the inner surface can be relatively large or small, but is nonetheless daunted comparing to the extreme vast size of the outer surface. This is to symbolize the fact that the reality that we have grasped and recognized - represented by the inner surface of the glass window, contains far too less amount of information than all the information of reality has - represented by the outer surface of the glass window.
 
I am not sure if you had the dream about the girl, or only use it as an example, but I have had exactly that dream on a couple of occasions! It did leave a lingering sadness for a short while. However, I think perhaps you should read one of Jurgen Ziewe's books. He claims to have travelled extensively in other realms, and reports that they are all 'real' in some sense. I mean, you know that ine a crude sense, you and I and everything is made of fundamental particles whizzing about. Does that make things feel less real to you? To me, this whole argument is a bit naive - everything is real, but everything can also be seen as false if viewed from a different perspective.

David

Reading what you said makes me feel more real, dear David.
I exist one day, I shouldn't ever forget what you kindly counseled me, one or more years ago, when I madly posted my own disturbing affairs on various places in this forum, about my affairs with a married woman who was my ex-colleague and my feelings during that time (I moved to another company since then).
I remember you kindly moderated and maintained the topic pertinence rules of this forum, gave me advice and shared your wise views and ideas about many factor regarding life, thoughts, relationships, etc. Later experiences of mine turned out that you are right in many aspects.
I feel very grateful and soothing to talk with you here. Only my life and work being stress limited my mood and time to write a decent paragraph in here.
Visiting here and chatting with you makes me, and will make me feel this world is very real. Thank you David.
 
I do have tons of words to say, about the source of our existence and determination force high beyond, and the answers to fate, suffering and wonderful life experiences, illusions and realities, the essence of our "self", ultimate, near death experiences, reincarnation, extraterrestrial lives, dark conspiracies, etc, etc, etc, etc.
This is very poetic. Could be a tag line to describe Skeptiko!

I don't know whether there would be "something that is all of or part of reality and is not categorized into anything we call information", and now I can't see there would be a way for me to know. I'm not saying "something that is not information but belongs to reality" doesn't exist. I'm not saying that, in any future humans won't be able to know whether there can be "something that is not information but belongs to reality". It is possible that "there is something that is not information but belongs to reality", and it is also possible that the future humans or other consciousness can touch those "not-information-reality". But I can't touch or imagine "not-information-reality".

The above sentences are very verbose and hard to read, I don't know how to say them better. In short, our consciousness can and only can touch "information" when we try to know reality.

Hi Tarantula N,
Thank you for posting your further thoughts here. I'm glad you didn't wait for more afflatus! I understand what you are saying--I have tried to express similar ideas on this forum. I agree that it is very difficult to put these ideas into words. I used to say things like "that which may be beyond experience", but using that phrase seems to be an attempt to bring that INTO EXPERIENCE, so it would no longer be BEYOND experience.

I think we confront a paradox when we try to define the boundaries of our experience or the limits of our "information". In order to define a boundary, we need to be able to say something about both sides of the boundary. If we can only say something about "our side" of the boundary, then the boundary itself is impossible to completely define.

For me, I have been thinking more about the philosophy of pragmatism.

"Pragmatists do not believe that there is a way things really are. So they want to replace the distinctions between appearance and reality with distinctions between less useful and more useful."--Richard Rorty in Philosophy and Social Hope

Pragmatists usually reject "the correspondence theory of truth". In this kind of thinking, the big ideas we share on this forum don't "correspond" with some ultimate Truth---instead, our writing about the big mysteries of life is some kind of more or less useful task.

"Dewey urges that the quest for certainty be replaced with the demand for imagination--that philosophy should stop trying to provide reassurance ... That one should stop worrying about whether one's beliefs are well grounded and start worrying about whether one has been imaginative enough to think up interesting alternatives to one's present beliefs."--Rorty

I am still playing around with this idea of usefulness. It feels useful for me to consider that perhaps consciousness/experience evolved, in the sense that it replicates and persists exists (in ways we don't understand). It feels useful to consider that the "contents" of experience (everything we experience) may exist to serve the continuation of experience. I don't make the argument that THIS IS THE WAY IT IS. Rather, I offer it as an idea that may be useful.

One final note about your post, Tarantula N. I tend to think that we all have "free miracles" or "axioms" that we build our models on. These free miracles are necessary and interesting, but they also suggest the limits of the model. For me, I am trying to relax my need to create some complete Theory-of-Everything that is 100% logical and accurate. Part of me wants to work harder and figure out all of the mysteries of the universe; a different part of me understands that figuring it all out intellectually is impossible. I go back and forth between these extremes, mixed in with my many other frames of mind when I'm not thinking of these issues at all.

I am trying to acknowledge the incompleteness and provisionality of my ideas. I think it is okay to have incomplete or even wrong ideas and still lead a good and meaningful life. Would you agree?
 
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This weekend my company gives us long waited two days vacation.

Continuing from my idea of separating a consciousness' correlated realms into 4 parts when it observes reality, and the scenery analogy of a house with a glass window representation:

The first part is a consciousness' "self", represented by the inner space of the house in the scenery analogy.
The second part is this consciousness' observation and understanding to the objective reality, represented by the inner surface of a glass window of the house.
The third part is all the information that reality has, represented by the outer surface of this glass window of the house.
Here, for the third part, I don't know:
1, whether reality is all "information", and "information" is all that reality is being.
2, if there is something other than "information" that is or belongs to reality.
Currently I myself can only imagine that "my consciousness touches information", if there is some "part" of reality that is "not-information", I can't imagine that how could my consciousness touch them. In other words, whatever, my consciousness can only observe, recognize, understand reality by touching the "information relevant to reality truth", nothing else. So, if there really is something that is a composition of reality but is "not-information", I can't imagine that:
3, whether consciousness can touch it("not-information" thingy) in a way I currently don't know or will be able to touch it("not-information" thingy) in some future by some means unbeknownst to me right now.
Then, here comes the fourth part of the realms:
The fourth part is whatever that composes reality but is "not-information", represented by the entire space outside of the house.
If reality is all of "information", then the fourth part doesn't exist per se, meaning, all the reality is "information" represented by the outer surface of that glass window.

Next I want to talk about my idea of the structure of the outer surface of the glass window, which represents all the information that reality contains and emits.

A consciousness observes and recognizes the reality's information(the outer surface of the glass window), like by wiping the inner surface of the glass window cleaner and cleaner and managing aligning its pattern matching and overlapping with that of the outer surface. When a person is born, his "inner surface of the glass window" is initially opaque and has no pattern.

As a person grows from infant time and learns many information, he wipes the inner surface of that glass window, to make the opaque dust wiped off and let the inner surface reveal some transparent patterns, which may initially have many misalignment with patterns of the outer surface and leave many gaps still covered with dust.

When we are trying to understand the reality, we are only wiping off the dust in some nodes on the patterns, leaving many gaps we haven't understood yet, which serve as some underlying mechanisms to explain what we see the reality as it is like what we see. The nodes we've understood have some unknown connections with some other nodes we've understood, but the connections still remain mysterious to us, hiding far more information than we've discovered.

The patterns of the shining outer surface of that glass window, containing all the information regarding reality, have all the information from past time, present time, and the future time, but the future of our timeline hasn't been determined yet. The patterns of the shining outer surface of that glass window nonetheless contain all the information regarding reality, they contain the information about all the possible branches of the parallel universes ramified from every specific point time in all the timelines. Let us consider, the reality consists of many many(I don't know whether there are infinite) static frames of a 3-dimensional space, which has all the information of the status of every single particle in the 3-dimensional space itself. All the static frames are arranged in some order in the hyper dimension, which might also be the dimension that "time" dwells. Then, the Creator of the reality creates time and "time elapse". The Creator creates a very special "time elapse" which is a unidirectional linear "time flowing" traveling from a "3-dimensional space frame" through many many "3-dimensional space frames", I will call this special "time flowing" as "red running line" in the rest of my writing.

This "red running line" is very important and crucial to what is our "self", our "self" relies on this "red running line" to exist, and when this "red running line" has been launched by the Creator and keeps flowing through numerous "3-dimensional space frames", our "self" always exists on the tiptop front edge of this "red running line", a pioneer front edge we call as the "now". So any static historical status of "us" in a static point time in our history, for example, the childhood of someone, is not, and doesn't represent "our self", instead, they are all shadowy historical information left by "our self"'s moving on the tiptop front edge of this "red running line", which is running through many many "3-dimensional space frames" like a hunter is running hastily in a jungle. Our self exists specifically on the tiptop front edge of this "red running line", which is what we call "now" as we observe our mutually shared specific "timeline's flowing" - another word to say this "red running line".

At any specific time of now, the past of this "red running line" has been fixed, although the information - other past time "3-dimensional space frames" this "red running line" didn't pass through still exists there, they are not visitable or checkable by the "red running line" within which we(our self) are currently all existing; the future hasn't been determined yet, it depends on which route our mutually shared "red running line" will pass when it is going to bump with every point time in the future, and this route will be influenced partially by our every little decision on every tiny thing. No matter which way our future will take, the other unexperienced "3-dimensional space frames" will still be there, with all their information and all the information of all the ramified future(parallel universe) of each of them, it is just this "red running line" that we are riding together will not go to visit and experience them, say, we are on the same boat.

We are in the same "red running line" so we are able to communicate and interact with each other, when this same "red running line" we are sharing passes through numerous "3-dimensional space frames", it collides with many many spacial structural information - our complex biological body, I don't know whether this is to divide us into different "individual selves(self-s)".

Each of us(our self) always exists at "now", always be moving with the "red running line", and when the "red running line" stops colliding with a specific complex spacial structural information - a complex biological body, the related consciousness' sense of self ceases being existent, and when the "red running line" itself stops flowing within the dimension of time, all of us and the boat we are riding together ceases being existent. But the information within all the "3-dimensional space frames" still exist there, just we won't experience, handle cox(choose which way to follow along), or reminisce them, and our "red running line" ceases running.

The Creator might have launched other "red running line"s that is not this one we are taking onto together, supposedly, other "red running line"s will have past different "3-dimensional space frames" in their past, is passing different "3-dimensional space frames" at their now, and will pass different "3-dimensional space frames" in their future.

All such information regarding every "3-dimensional space frames" that could ever be passed by some "red running line"s, is being passed by some "red running line"s, and will possibly be passed by some "red running line"s, or is just there with no "red running line" to have ever past, is passing, or will pass, forms all the information that reality contains. By the way, it is super tremendous super hyper super serious super severely a grand mercy that if the Great Creator of the Reality doesn't let any "red running line" pass some specific, terrible, dark, weird "3-dimensional space frames", yet, even if so, I suggest that those terrible information is still there, being part of the reality.

I do not have much time left this weekend, let me hurrily express some other thoughts of mine quickly for now, and I will explain them more detailed in the future. As I suggested foregoing, the outer surface of that glass window contains every possible information regarding every possible past, now and future, every "3-dimensional space frame", no matter whether it is accessible by our "red running line", thus the outer surface represents all the information regarding reality. We just wipe clean our inner surface of that glass window making it align and reveal more and more information from the outer surface, although it is impossible to align and reveal all the information from the outer surface, and it is quite lacking compared to the outer surface which represents all the information regarding every corner of the reality(including what actually happens or just only conceivable by some/all the red running lines arranged and launched by the Creator of reality). A pure imagination, a lie, is like wiping a glass not in that window, there is no further information underlying the glass within somewhere in that house. If you wipe a glass somewhere not in that window, it will be empty and hollow and void back of that glass - no that chin dropping astronomically large amount of information existent at all, you just wipe that glass and that would be a waste of time at some degree, no further information to explore.

So how I recognize people in this world I meet and people in this forum I talk with as real person, not an illusion, an artifical program written by some powerful extraterrestial forces? I get to analyze the information we communicate and exchange with each other, when I smell sufficient large amount of information, or diverse possibilities that are in no way to be predicted, it's like I'm wiping the glass of the inner surface of that window, revealing more and more detailed information from the outer surface which represents the all chin dropping great reality which contains information about all "3-dimensional space frames" that all possibly launched "red running line"s have ever past, are passing, or will pass in future, or conceivably have ever past, are passing, or will pass in future, rather than lacking amount of information thus letting me feel that I'm wiping a glass somewhere inside that house that is not in that window which leads to reality. Sure, it is not a 100% strict proof that I'm facing a reality, real persons, rather than fake ones, but the rich information amount is the only criteria and all the straw I could ever rely on and grasp onto.
 
This is very poetic. Could be a tag line to describe Skeptiko!



Hi Tarantula N,
Thank you for posting your further thoughts here. I'm glad you didn't wait for more afflatus! I understand what you are saying--I have tried to express similar ideas on this forum. I agree that it is very difficult to put these ideas into words. I used to say things like "that which may be beyond experience", but using that phrase seems to be an attempt to bring that INTO EXPERIENCE, so it would no longer be BEYOND experience.

I think we confront a paradox when we try to define the boundaries of our experience or the limits of our "information". In order to define a boundary, we need to be able to say something about both sides of the boundary. If we can only say something about "our side" of the boundary, then the boundary itself is impossible to completely define.

For me, I have been thinking more about the philosophy of pragmatism.

"Pragmatists do not believe that there is a way things really are. So they want to replace the distinctions between appearance and reality with distinctions between less useful and more useful."--Richard Rorty in Philosophy and Social Hope

Pragmatists usually reject "the correspondence theory of truth". In this kind of thinking, the big ideas we share on this forum don't "correspond" with some ultimate Truth---instead, our writing about the big mysteries of life is some kind of more or less useful task.

"Dewey urges that the quest for certainty be replaced with the demand for imagination--that philosophy should stop trying to provide reassurance ... That one should stop worrying about whether one's beliefs are well grounded and start worrying about whether one has been imaginative enough to think up interesting alternatives to one's present beliefs."--Rorty

I am still playing around with this idea of usefulness. It feels useful for me to consider that perhaps consciousness/experience evolved, in the sense that it replicates and persists exists (in ways we don't understand). It feels useful to consider that the "contents" of experience (everything we experience) may exist to serve the continuation of experience. I don't make the argument that THIS IS THE WAY IT IS. Rather, I offer it as an idea that may be useful.

One final note about your post, Tarantula N. I tend to think that we all have "free miracles" or "axioms" that we build our models on. These free miracles are necessary and interesting, but they also suggest the limits of the model. For me, I am trying to relax my need to create some complete Theory-of-Everything that is 100% logical and accurate. Part of me wants to work harder and figure out all of the mysteries of the universe; a different part of me understands that figuring it all out intellectually is impossible. I go back and forth between these extremes, mixed in with my many other frames of mind when I'm not thinking of these issues at all.

I am trying to acknowledge the incompleteness and provisionality of my ideas. I think it is okay to have incomplete or even wrong ideas and still lead a good and meaningful life. Would you agree?

Hello dear Dan_LastName, I agree :):):):)

Before reading your post, I had no hope that I could ever get to be able to successfully make any tiny part of my sentences understood by someone.
Seeing you resonate with me makes me feel this world is not only real but is very wonderful.

I don't mean you resonate with me by agreeing my thoughts, I mean, you resonate with me by getting the exact meaning I want badly to express and wish someone to understand what does they mean, forgiving the trouble my badly written English sentences gave you when reading.

Such rich information and unpredicted serendipity I experience in my life, when communicate with you, is sufficiently to soothe me that this world seems very real, abundant and wonderful.

Getting and proving every truth of the reality seems a justice by default but is actually too luxurious and cherry picking.
So I say to myself: let me take a concession temporarily, although this is far from sufficient to get to the reality and the truth that secures and calms me that I won't be fooled by illusions or finally see all are illusions and don't really exist at all, receiving such vivid and rich unpredicted serendipitous information of interesting ideas from your witty ideas and English sentences(in which I learn a lot), is actually like dragging me from a quagmire that I deeply doubt the genuineness of this world.

Dear Dan_LastName seeing what you and many other members say in this forum is my savior. Thank you.

I don't get to touch or prove the truth of the reality, but you let me know I'm not alone and we all notice this problem, face the quagmire, and we will be exploring it together. Have a cuddle with you.

Oh, need to say, some of the sentences in this thread I'm still digesting I don't feel my understanding has been ideal. Will do next time. Take care.
:):):):)
 
"Pragmatists do not believe that there is a way things really are. So they want to replace the distinctions between appearance and reality with distinctions between less useful and more useful."--Richard Rorty in Philosophy and Social Hope

Pragmatists usually reject "the correspondence theory of truth". In this kind of thinking, the big ideas we share on this forum don't "correspond" with some ultimate Truth---instead, our writing about the big mysteries of life is some kind of more or less useful task.

Yeah, the pragmatism currently I need badly is to read what you all say in this forum thus drag and save me from depression to doubt this world is a fake one, to be honest the people surrounding me don't care about these problems we are thinking here.
Modified to following, because of semantic fault:
Yeah, the pragmatism currently I need badly is to read what you all say in this forum thus drag and save me from depression of doubting this world is a fake one, to be honest the people surrounding me don't care about these problems we are thinking here.

These ideas are new to me, but nonetheless resonate with something that what I had thought, they disperse my depression to some degree.

No matter whatever, we face the same recognition problems together, none of us is alone, this is wonderful.:):):):)

I am trying to acknowledge the incompleteness and provisionality of my ideas. I think it is okay to have incomplete or even wrong ideas and still lead a good and meaningful life. Would you agree?

It is wonderful we all face the incompleteness and provisionality together, I'm very lucky and privilege granted to not need to be alone on the way.
 
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One final note about your post, Tarantula N. I tend to think that we all have "free miracles" or "axioms" that we build our models on. These free miracles are necessary and interesting, but they also suggest the limits of the model. For me, I am trying to relax my need to create some complete Theory-of-Everything that is 100% logical and accurate. Part of me wants to work harder and figure out all of the mysteries of the universe; a different part of me understands that figuring it all out intellectually is impossible. I go back and forth between these extremes, mixed in with my many other frames of mind when I'm not thinking of these issues at all.

I am trying to acknowledge the incompleteness and provisionality of my ideas. I think it is okay to have incomplete or even wrong ideas and still lead a good and meaningful life. Would you agree?

Before going to bed and expecting another week of tedious work. I want to say that I sincerely totally agree with you! We are in the same way on this journey. You make me feel not alone.

From the beginning of my childhood I didn't get into worrying about I couldn't grasp the truth of reality or the secure feeling for the genuineness of this world.

But later, I started to get into the worrying and depressing, why? That's a long story but definitely the information amount is part of the contribution to its cause. I can't get the life that I want and the life I am subtly yearning since when I was a little kid. Hard to explain.

In a sense, if reincarnation is the truth, then I can immediately see a viable hope for that my depression, my deviation path from the life that I want, could have an explanation, for example, perhaps my previous life was going too felicity or soul compatible, making me feel hard to fit into this life which is in many ways contradicting, conflicting with my soul yearning. But, in fact, I disbelieve reincarnation to 90%, or I don't like the reincarnation in its way it is often mentioned - like reincarnation erases our previous lives memories. For the most part, I don't believe reincarnation at all.

Many people in this world lead to a very tragic life, I'm not the most hapless one, but this doesn't make me feel courageous to face the challenge with enthusiasm, I just don't fit into this body and all the problems, headache, lack of energy, not lethal but annoying unhealthy here and there, many many factors, mental issues, relationships, many many incompatibilities and my not ideal career development, etc. etc.

I don't hate my life, it has many good parts, but I dislike it all in all, I couldn't rise enthusiasm to do things. And many good parts are not because of or for my own, but for some people I encounter along my way in this life.

So, all these contribute to that "although this world doesn't lack amount of information, I lack information that I want, and the information what I want is within someone else's life".

Saying(crying) this out makes me feel a bit better.

I receive many many information every day, from people, from news, from job tasks, from interest reading, but scarce amount of information of the life that I am yearning for that I want eagerly, the lack of "wanted information" contributes to that I feel drab and boring about this life and helplessly trapped into quagmire of depression. Does this make me feel the world is not real? Perhaps but I'm not very sure.

So, to find some proof that this world is real, for my self salvation, I actually don't specifically demand a 100% strict proof that what we are observing and experiencing are all certainly real. Instead, I just want more information - specifically the information I want - if impossible - at least some information to explain why I feel this way. I want more amount of information to explain my question: how our fate our life is arranged, why we are arranged in this manner, by who, what will be going on, etc, etc, I want more information, the more the better, the more information, the more soothing to quench my worrying and depressing partially caused by that "I can't get the information I want".

Living in a life with all the information not that I want, is like living in a life with almost no information, and "no amount of information" is why I feel this world seems like not very real.

This also partially explain you and some other people had once asked me, how I started to find my interest in cognition science and why I earnestly generated those thoughts - because I can't find the information about the life that I want, so I am searching, seeking for, fumbling about and resorting for the information about explanations of why I'm here, for what purposes or tasks, how could I do better and how could I circumvent making things worse? I want more information - the information which has some business to address my suffering or the explanation, the meaningfulness of my suffering. Like whether I'm in a task for something and I'm not supposed to flub or cause a mayhem, fiasco, screw up, mess up whatever it is.

All in all my life is really awful in many aspects and the stupid things I did in my history are looping in my brain, loop and loop and loop around my brain. Bitter smile. :D:D:D:D
 
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