GENIUS FORUMS

ExpectantlyIronic

What isn't necessarily a part of reality? The actualization of an imagined scenario.

True, but that doesn’t make the imagined scenario any less real if the imagined scenario effected anything. Say, for example, I just imagined you drinking coke, and became thirsty. I decide to get some grape juice. I don’t know whether or not you ever drank coke but the imagined scenario has affected my reality, and thus is real (regardless of whether you objectively drank a coke, a beer, or not at all).

So we should say that there is a difference between imaginary Coke drinking and real Coke drinking.

OK, we can say that. What we can’t do is pretend this imaginary Coke drinking isn’t real or isn’t a part of reality.

Now imagine that well I'm engaged in what I think to be real Coke drinking, someone tells me that I am not drinking Coke. So I go to show them the Coke, and I find out that I wasn't drinking Coke at all. How could this be? Perhaps I woke up groggy from a dream of drinking Coke, and it was real enough to make me think I had a Coke nearby. In any case, I would say that I was not engaged in real Coke drinking at all, because the experience didn't act in enough ways like a real Coke drinking experience to qualify.

OK but say you’re in this situation, except person 2 never shows up. Were you engaged in coke drinking if you never find out you weren’t engaged in coke drinking and continue to live your life believing you were engaged in coke drinking?

It's not a matter of the perception being false (how can a perception be false?). It's the interpretation that is false. If someone sees what looks like a pink elephant and proclaims it to be a pink elephant, then they can very well be misinterpreting reality.

But they really see a pink elephant. That they see a pink elephant is a part of reality. And while it might be suspect if no one else reacts to said pink elephant, perhaps everyone is playing an elaborate April Fools prank. Or everyone has become accustomed to the pink elephant. Or everyone else is so convinced that pink elephants don’t exist that they ignore one even when it is right in front of them. Or the pink elephant is quite literally the elephant in the room that no one talks about. The fact is we can’t ever really know right or wrong, we can only talk about useful or not useful.

People who have hallucinations tend to be able to realize later that they were not seeing what they thought they were seeing, or experiencing what they thought they were experiencing. This doesn't mean that such hallucinations don't seem to be completely real when they happen, but--like dreams--can be seen for what they are by a later accumulation of evidence.

Still, the best question useful or not useful rather than real or not real. The concept, without the words behind it, has saved me quite a bit of trouble… “OK, I believe that there is a serial killer there, but since no one else is reacting as though there was, they’ll all just think I’m stupid, so I’ll shut up.” It almost always turns out to be the right action when I go back and check later.

On the other hand, if I'm alone and frightened, I'm willing to sit and talk to someone who no one else would acknowledge exists but I think exists at that moment if that has the ability to get me to put drugs in my mouth or stop panicking. It's useful.

You got your point across!

I'm interested in wether this scenario is a hallucination or just my imagination:

Simple example: I'm in my room and a few minutes later I find that I am pouring myself a glass of milk, downstairs in the kitchen. When I rewind I can remember the trip downstairs, but it is fragmented. Furthermore, on my way down stairs. I was began playing a mental tape of an interview that I had for a job offer. While this was happening I began to talk with the interviewer and I would hear "mentally' (that is to say we can all imagine voices right?) what was going on. I would also be able to manipulate the situation and see the situation from different perspectives. Throughout the whole experience I was on autopilot and wasn't very aware were I was going. Now, is that normal? I tend to partake in those scenarios daily.

Do I have a great imagination or is there more to it?

thanks,

This is a serious question, no one is perfect, so please be kind.

Well, I separated these subjects to try to separate the discussion EI and I were having from the one you and I were having, so I will reply on the subject of mental illness over there and the subject at hand on whether we can judge someone's reality to be real or false here...

Katy,

OK but say you’re in this situation, except person 2 never shows up. Were you engaged in coke drinking if you never find out you weren’t engaged in coke drinking and continue to live your life believing you were engaged in coke drinking?

In the situation I described, it was stated quite clearly that I was only dreaming about drinking Coke. So, apparently, I should say that I was only dreaming about drinking Coke. The setup for the question provides the answer for what is asked. I'm not sure that the first part of your question could be made to make sense without such a setup though. I mean no offense, but such a question is essentially vacuous. To the question of "is there a reality beyond the patterns of sensations that appear in our conscious" we should say that there is no way of answering, because the person asking the question isn't being sensible: there is no sense in which we can determine whether or not it is the case. Needless to say, when I was using the term "real", I was not using it in such a sense.

As to the second part of your question--"[would you] continue to live your life believing you were engaged in coke drinking?"--I would say that I probably would. I'm under no illusion that I can have utter certainty about all matters (or anything that isn't obvious or trivial).

But they really see a pink elephant. That they see a pink elephant is a part of reality.

They don't really see a pink elephant. They do, on the other hand, experience sensations that they associate with pink elephants. We do not refer to all and only those sensations as a pink elephant. We can say that they experience certain aspects of what we imagine the term "pink elephant" refers to when used in such a way, but that they don't experience every aspect that we imagine such a term to refers to. This is the way it is with even those experiences that aren't hallucinations. Nevertheless, a hallucinatory pink elephant and a non-hallucinatory pink elephant are different, and the term "hallucinatory pink elephant" refers to a subset of the set(pink elephant).

The fact is we can’t ever really know right or wrong, we can only talk about useful or not useful.

We can know what is true or false. It should be noted here that the term "know" isn't used to imply absolute certainty about something, because if such were the case we should say that we can't know what is useful or not useful either.

Still, the best question useful or not useful rather than real or not real.

I don't think you can say which question is better without circularity. We won't necessarily determine what is real by asking if something is useful, and we won't necessarily do the most pragmatic thing by asking if something is real.