Imagination

[Lozzer]

I'm real, I exist. My brain and consciousness also exist. I have an imagination which also exists. My thoughts exist too. Are the things conducted by my imagination real? They certainly exist in my head, but if I'm to put my imagination to paper then it has physical properties does it not?

If I hear a multitude of mysterious noises and I perceive a face in the darkness too, and I project my imagination onto the observed then surely it really is a ghost and subsequently ghosts exists?

For the record, I don't believe in ghosts but if your imagination is real then the products of it are real too?

[Rum]

Your logic is faulty Lozz. Imagination may be real enough but what does that mean exactly? Neurons firing and some thoughts happening which invent or enhance some information out there in your external world. It doesn't make those thngs necessarily more real than me imagining there are fairies at the end of my garden means they are there. The imagining may be real. Its product may not be.

Are you having a troubled day? You seem to be!

[Lozzer]

Your logic is faulty Lozz. Imagination may be real enough but what does that mean exactly? Neurons firing and some thoughts happening which invent or enhance some information out there in your external world. It doesn't make those thngs necessarily more real than me imagining there are fairies at the end of my garden means they are there. The imagining may be real. Its product may not be.

Are you having a troubled day? You seem to be!

I need to pick up reading again, my head is full of coherent bullshit these days.

In a way, yes. Had an argument last night with a few friends regarding the existence of ghosts. I'm not very versed in the subject and I pulled the old 'how can consciousness exist without physical embodiment'. I was told to respect other peoples beliefs and It doesn't matter what I say because these things are real to them So it got me thinking.

I was then told to fuck off and read some Darwin. I was informed that I "shouldn't even try to act smart" and the adversary in the debate cheekily recommended Sigmund Freud to me as she left
Had she known anything about psychology like she purports to be (being an psychology student), she would have realised she was probably suffering from what Freud would call Hysteria

[Rum]

Well just because someone believes something I don't think it makes it 'real to them'. It makes it delusional to them. Consensus is what tends to make somethign real - and even that can be misleading ans not the best guide. Some things are objectively true in my view and some are not. Some are not confirmed either way or people disagree when objective evidence is not available. As to ghosts there is no evidence they exist that I have come across in all my years, so I am assuming that it is very unlikely that they exist.

As to Freud - your psychology student friend is full of crap. I have read *all* of Freud pretty well and I can assure you that much of it is as speculative as the fairly tale we call the Bible! Making judgements about people's personality or nature using Freud's approach is not much more useful and tarot cards. That may not be a majority view but it is a well informed one.

Anyway I hope your head settles down soon!

[Lozzer]

Indeed, cheers

[Brian Peacock]

derp!

[VonMushroom]

I'm real, I exist. My brain and consciousness also exist. I have an imagination which also exists. My thoughts exist too. Are the things conducted by my imagination real? They certainly exist in my head, but if I'm to put my imagination to paper then it has physical properties does it not?

If I hear a multitude of mysterious noises and I perceive a face in the darkness too, and I project my imagination onto the observed then surely it really is a ghost and subsequently ghosts exists?

For the record, I don't believe in ghosts but if your imagination is real then the products of it are real too?

Another interesting viable angle is to observe the situation as-if everything is information. We all know that energy is mass and vice versa but there is also a wide acceptance of the view that energy can be described from information theoretical viewpoint. I.e. one quant of energy is information although Heisenberg's cat thinks that the state can not be known without disturbing the mental stability of the quant.

Ok, so far so good: Maybe we can hypothesize now that the world can be viewed as information instead of solid objects and non-solids? I find this view interesting. Since all the information within my brain is well organised and it can interact with it's environment I feel there is no problem with imagination. My brain-computer simply combines elements of information to produce a new combination. That's just information. If I write the thing down on a piece of paper how does the setting change when all matter is actually information?

The great fallacy of the mind is to think that all things in the universe are in the scope of our limited mind. For example, all named things in the universe are constructs of our busy minds and thus like the tooth fairies and santa clauses. Isn't that the very definition of imagination?

[VonMushroom]

As to Freud - your psychology student friend is full of crap. I have read *all* of Freud pretty well and I can assure you that much of it is as speculative as the fairly tale we call the Bible! Making judgements about people's personality or nature using Freud's approach is not much more useful and tarot cards. That may not be a majority view but it is a well informed one.

Freud? Oh damn that guy did know how to have some good time with some speed and cocaine! Too bad the man was so centered around his willie...

[Lozzer]

Hmm interesting.

But hows this: how do we know things are the way they seem? We view the world through a filter, the filter being our mind. The human brain brains interpreters the existence around us, so surely our own view of reality might be one of many? And if there's many, how do we know ours is the most accurate or correct? Couldn't something exist which was beyond our mere human senses but really does exist?

After all, no brain is the same.

[Sisifo]

Hmm interesting.



After all, no brain is the same.

And I'm grateful for that

[VonMushroom]

Hmm interesting.

But hows this: how do we know things are the way they seem? We view the world through a filter, the filter being our mind. The human brain brains interpreters the existence around us, so surely our own view of reality might be one of many? And if there's many, how do we know ours is the most accurate or correct? Couldn't something exist which was beyond our mere human senses but really does exist?

After all, no brain is the same.

I think this is a very valid question. Since our ultimate measurement device for the 'reality' is the brain how do we know if there is other kind of knowledge about the 'reality' than what our minds allow us to understand? My only answer is to keep an open mind with regards to new ideas and theories and try to see that even the established ones are just what they are: theories, no matter how widely accepted they might be. Anything and everything should be debatable and under constant sceptic scrutiny with no exception. However, all new ideas and theories must enjoy the same level of scrutiny as the old ones. Only this critical examination and the "selection of most probable truth" ensures that we don't degenerate into babbling fools.

That being said, I find the idea interesting that things may not be what they seem to someone else. For example, measurements how fast different creatures experience the passing of time. The clever scientists have said that the nervous system and reflexes of crickets are almost hundred times faster than those of a human. This probably means that a cricket experiences each second to be a hundred fold longer than what we do. But since we're not crickets ourselves it's kinda difficult to see if this is the case really, or if the cricket just seems to be experiencing things faster than humans.

The funny thing about the theorem of the "brain as the ultimate measurement instrument" is that it's very difficult to disprove or prove.