Are we alive/real?
Think this belongs here, let me preface it with two things:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sex-and-the-illusion-of-p_b_334491
First link is about how we appear to be one way but "in reality" it's not.
Second one is the same, calling life an illusion because it's just arrangements of atoms or structures.
I want to know how accurate this view is. Calling everything just base parts seems off, like it missing something in the analysis by trying to cut away everything but the base level. I agree everything is made of the same stuff, sure, but calling life an illusion seems a bit much, if not absurd.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sex-and-the-illusion-of-p_b_334491
I see consciousness as an emergent phenomenon, as something that arises from another framework so to speak. Emergency seems to be a property of our universe. Quarks and gluons form atoms, atoms bunched together form other stuff like proteins, proteins form cells, cells form organs and organs form beings.
So, what is the fundamental difference between a piece of rock and a human being? The evolutionary complexity that allows for the emergent phenomenon we call consciousness to arise in us and not in the piece of rock. For me, the fact that humanity has been able achieve information processing in a silicon chip by organising the connections in a certain way is a good reminder that the only thing that separates me from a piece of rock is more complex way matter is arrange in my body.
I think I exist just as much as my sofa or my shoes. The fact that we are self-aware is nothing but an illusion, which is a good thing, because this means we dont die entirely as long as this universe exists. We just change our form. We decay because chaos and entropy(dissipation of energy) are integral parts of our universe. Its just beautiful that most atoms in our body were forged in stars. But lets not downplay hydrogen as it is an element almost as old as the universe itself.
But back to your question:
Are we actually alive/real?
To me, we are as real as everything around us that is not speaking back to us. We are as real as the universe that allows our existence as much as the existence of my coffee table, the star in the middle of our solar system and my neighbourss fat cat whose entire existence is characterised by sleeping in the middle of his garden, like a royal, furry piece of rock.
But are we alive? I think it is important to relative and analyse this from different frameworks and not only by making a contrast between dead and living things. In the physical framework we are as real as everything else and it doesnt really matter if we are alive or not. In the framework of conscious beings we are alive. It is an illusion if you look from the physical framework, but nonetheless it does matter inside the boundaries of life itself. Atoms affect other atoms, cells affect other cells, conscious beings affect other conscious beings.
All of these frameworks are bound by rules. We would not have made it this far without attending to our animal, evolutionary needs. I think this is important to notice because people tend to think that because we are self-aware, that we are more in control. While this is relatively true, we are definitely bound by certain behaviours as living things. A living being with disregard to its own life would not have made it through evolution. So our consciousness must too be biased to respect the illusion of life otherwise it wouldn't exist. Being conscious to the extent of a human is dangerous in this regard, because you are able to navigate through the different levels of complexity of reality whereas less conscious beings to the extent of other mammals are more instinctive therefore always readily respecting the rules that allowed their existence. It wasn't even their choice, they simply exist because they stick to a certain behaviour. So we have learned that life is an emergent illusion looking from the framework of physical things, but life does matter a lot inside the framework we perceive everyday, until the matter that forms us is no longer able to keep its complexity due to entropy and chaos thereby disabling the emergent phenomenon we call consciousness, aka death, blending us back with the other less-complex yet just as real stuff that dont speak back to us.
Ill perfect this answer later
First link is about how we appear to be one way but "in reality" it's not.
Second one is the same, calling life an illusion because it's just arrangements of atoms or structures.
I want to know how accurate this view is. Calling everything just base parts seems off, like it missing something in the analysis by trying to cut away everything but the base level. I agree everything is made of the same stuff, sure, but calling life an illusion seems a bit much, if not absurd.
Comments (58)
If you catch your self asking the above question.....you are alive.
If you respond to me post...then I am also alive (possibly).
This is what defines existence....interactions between elements and entities
Is that a fact?
Is this alleged illusion your hedge against death?
If self-awareness is an illusion, why isn't your claim that we exist (in some form) as long as the universe exists also an illusion?
Change form -- into what? Not only are the atoms which make up our bodies the products of dying stars, those atoms have been recycled through every organism that has existed since... let's say 3.7 billion years ago, give or take 15 minutes. Not only that, but some of those atoms also partiipated in being rocks for a while. Your atoms are goin to do the same thing -- leave you behind and become something else which will also be short lived.
In my universe, the lame don't walk, the blind don't see, and the dead stay dead. Entirely. That's what death means. Non-existence, period. But take heart. You sofa and shoes will join you in oblivion at their earliest possible convenience.
Quoting 180 Proof
:up: :sparkle:
I personally am leaning towards no, because if there's one thing I've learned is that existence is complicated.
Succinct summation!
How does that work if you're in a void?
Danke.
:up:
I don't know what your philosophical/intellectual background is. Sanskrit is not in mine and neither is Indian (Hindu?) thought. Fans of "New Age 'Wisdom'" seem prepared to believe a lot of flaky propositions. (The flakiness occurs during the casual borrowing of bits and pieces of other religious systems.).
Animal sensory ability--bacteria on up to us--perceives the actual physical world. We can dither about illusions but wolves and rabbits don't. Wolf/rabbit brains work pretty much the same way our do. When our existence is subjected to harsh conditions where survival is dicey, we don't worry about illusions either. We also grab the rabbit and eat it--raw, if necessary.
Once we have the leisure to roast domestic rabbits, we start spinning out interesting ideas about gods, illusion, Maya, the Trinity, Karma, and so on. Some of this thinking is not illusory, it's delusional. Our - perhaps - overly intellectual brains seem to need a certain amount of delusional thinking to put up with life. Otherwise, some people find reality terrifying.
Reality IS terrifying, I'm not terrified just right now, but drop me off in the middle of nowhere and I'd be scared shitless.
From what Ive read in the OP, life is here considered illusory on account of being emergent (in this case, from non-life). In here granting a materialists general perspective, first, on what logical grounds does an emergent property necessitate that it be illusory rather than real? The properties of water are emergent from the properties of two gases - hydrogen and oxygen - when the latters atoms are covalently bound together; ergo, the properties of water are illusory? Secondly, from a materialist perspective, what existent would not be in any way emergent from something else - other than, maybe, the quantum vacuum field and/or some free-floating natural laws and the like?
Seems to me that this same argument for life being illusory offered in the OP quote will, by its own reasoning, also conclude in affirming that everything else we commonly appraise as real is likewise illusory - for it is all in some way or other emergent. That a materialist can be fine with entertaining this while in the same breath deploring notions such as Maya is, to me, something of wonder.
I like the "ephemeral", the "coprophagic" not so much.
If you were offered the chance to live forever as long as you ate nothing but shit would you take it?
We certainly seem to need and cherish our bedtime stories.
You, alone in the void. That's the beginning of one of Einstein's thought experiments. Did he make a mistake?
Allah rahim.
:up:
Gee where would I look in my chemistry and physics texts for the description of that state?
I thought you of all people would be interested in exploring ideas outside of established science. Do you have anything to comment about the idea of life being a self-sustaining chemical reaction? Actually contribute Wayfarer.
That is not 'an idea outside established science'. It is what is described as physicalism, reductionism or materialism. Some scientists adhere to it, but others do not.
Quoting Philosophim
I've mentioned a source recently - a journal article in biology, as it happens - that disputes this contention. It claims that there is nothing in any known chemical process which can account for the ability of organisms to store and transmit biological information, to maintain homeostasis, and so forth. 'Ernst Mayr, one of the architects of the modern synthesis [advocates] the view that life is fundamentally different from inanimate matter. In The growth of biological thought, p. 124, he made this point in no uncertain terms: 'The discovery of the genetic code was a breakthrough of the first order. It showed why organisms are fundamentally different from any kind of nonliving material. There is nothing in the inanimate world that has a genetic program which stores information with a history of three thousand million years!
The idea that life is chemistry plus information implies that information is ontologically different from chemistry.'
Ernst Walter Mayr was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists.
So - why do you think that life can be described as a 'self-sustaining chemical reaction'? Do you have any grounds for that belief?
I so far don't understand how any of this is relevant to the OP.
The elephant in the room in this thread is vitalism (not specific variants which oddly enough sought to measure the immeasurable as though life were itself somehow a physical property, but simply as the general idea that life is fundamentally different from non-life). If, as is commonly believed today, vitalism is false such that there is no fundamental difference between life and non-life, and if all that we deem life is emergent in all respects from non-life, then - as per the OP quote - life can be deemed an illusion rather than real. One of those delusional bedtime stories we tell ourselves and our children: that we are alive.
Consequences of materialism 101.
Dont know about others, but this way of thinking gives me a good laugh. Still, for the typical materialist, its nowhere near as worrisome as the prospect of vitalism - wherein the reality of life becomes, for the materialist, something to be scared about.
'Vitalism' is a reference to Henri Bergson's 'élan vital' - conceived as a 'vital force or impetus'. It is generally said to have been completely discredited by genetic science.
But then, I think it's mistaken to believe that the élan vital exists in the sense that, say, enzymes exist, or magnetic fields exist. There's no such actual thing or force. But it might be interpreted metaphorically to signify a quality that living organisms possess. I think a way of conceiving it might be along the lines of the relationship between meaning and the symbolic form in which meaning is encoded. You wouldn't try to identify 'meaning' as some ingredient of the ink and paper on a page you were reading. Nevertheless the meaning is what makes the words 'come alive', so to speak; without it, you lliterally have a meaningless string of characters. Meaning is implicit in the text.
[quote=Julian Huxley]When I was just last in New York, I went for a walk, leaving Fifth Avenue and the Business section behind me, into the crowded streets near the Bowery. And while I was there, I had a sudden feeling of relief and confidence. There was Bergsons élan vitalthere was assimilation causing life to exert as much pressure, though embodied here in the shape of men, as it has ever done in the earliest year of evolution: there was the driving force of progress.[/quote]
Albert's thought experiments ARE NOT claims about facts of reality....the keyword is "thought experiments"
His work was not on QM and the Nobel awarded model of Quantum fluctuations came much later.
Absolute void is NOT possible (according to our current data) in our universe. Quantum foam is everywhere.
I agree.
Another prominent factor I find of interest is that of intentions (teloi). Life is overtly intentional, goal-oriented. Whereas non-life is either fully devoid of intentionality or - if interpreted through certain ancient philosophical perspectives - can potentially be deemed covertly intentional only in so far as it abides by the logos' (universal reasoning's) laws in progressing toward an Aristotelian final cause as prime mover. Although I grant this latter option is very offbeat. Still, either way, I do find that life is fundamentally different from non-life; that there is a "vital impetus" intrinsic to life that is missing in non-life.
At any rate, I deem this a better perspective than declaring life to be illusory. :wink:
Except for the fact that life exists and is made up of known chemical processes. If he's talking about any one chemical process, well of course not. Life is a complex interaction of chemical processes. I'll need to read the article, but that statement seems inadequate.
Quoting Wayfarer
This analysis seems better, but still doesn't counter my point. I didn't say that we couldn't classify life. I just noted the classification is a complex chemical interaction that is internally self-sustaining. If he wants to separate inanimate from animate as having a genetic program, that's fine by me. But that genetic program is still a complex chemical reaction that seeks to sustain itself.
We can classify things as animate or inanimate, but that doesn't mean they both aren't made out of matter, energy, and their reactions with each other. We are not apart from the physical world, we are a part of the physical world.
So what is my evidence? A common observation among all life that differs from the inorganic chemical reactions that I know of. Pour vinegar into baking soda and it runs out when the baking soda or vinegar has completely reacted. It does not seek to find more vinegar or baking soda. Take life at its most basic however and it seeks to replenish what it needs to continue its complex chemical interchange. So much so that it replicates itself in some way before it reaches its limit of self-renewal.
Can you think of any set of chemical reactions that tries to seek out sources of energy to sustain itself, even reproduces, that people would unquestioningly say isn't life?
I can also argue that the source of my experience arises from the movement of my index finger. Doesn't mean it's true, much less that such statements should be taken seriously.
The only way to say that we don't really or truly die until the universe end is to argue that, in some technical sense, completely foreign to our understanding of the word, "consciousness" persists either in pieces of matter, or in some combination of "Universe-stuff".
One can freely decide what terminology one wants to use, but then go on to mistake the technical definition with our understanding of the word. In short, this looks to me as playing with words.
What you're doing is using scientific theory to lay out what we mean by words like "existence." Wouldn't it be better to just look to how we actually use the words? Einstein's thought experiment depends on it being at least logically possible for a person (or one dimensional point if that helps) to exist in a void.
Logical and metaphysical possibility often informs the way we use words. This means that as long as there is no logical contradiction in the idea of a void, it's going to make sense to talk about it. You know what I mean by "void" whether you agree that there is such a thing or not.
The fact that we can meaningfully talk about a thing existing in a void (in spite of believing that there is no such thing) means that "existence" means more than an interaction between items. See what I mean?
Not to mention I asked and the Buddhists I talked to say he misunderstands what is meant by Maya in Buddhism, which doesn't surprise me.
But his "evidence" isn't really proof of his point either. It's more like he just interprets it to mean that this is an illusion. The part about us being mostly water is iffy. Sure we are mostly water but call it a bag of water is way too reductive. Like Ice is water frozen solid, the water in our bodies is a part of everything else in us that leads to things being solid.
It's hard to believe he's highly regarded when he makes wacky takes like this: https://www.health.harvard.edu/authors/srini-pillay-md
This is from the guy in the first link, the quote in my OP is from a Quora user but you have to have a plus subscription to read it, which i think is nonsense.
No because the definition I gave for existence is used in Science.
Science is our ultimate "ontological" tool. It has helped us many times to remove entities from our assumptions. (Miasma,Orgone energy, Phlogiston, Panacea etc etc).
Quoting frank
-What Einstein thought is irrelevant, what he managed to prove, that's what counts. You shouldn't use Einstein thoughts in a fallacy (false authority figure). Einsteins Philosophy is not special.
Quoting frank
I think we are drifting away from a meaningful conversation. I avoid vague language because it doesn't produce anything meaningful. When you say "void" you need to define what you mean. What void means to you?
Science showed us that with our current technology we can look in our universe and identify interactions that cause new processes to emerge. Something that doesn't exist is unable to cause anything in our world.
Not using these tools we just limiting our epistemology, rendering our conclusions uninformed and pseudo philosophical.
Curious: would you also include in this list of illusory/delusional bedtime stories the metaphysics of materialism/physicalism?
I ask because the OPs quote isnt about scientism - its conclusions are devoid of anything that is empirically demonstrable, which is what science tackles - but instead addresses perspectives directly derived from a materialistic/physicalist platform. Its argument, in a nutshell, is that because there is no significant distinction between life and non-life (due to all life being inferred fully emergent from non-life), and because all that is real is material/physical (which is non-living), then all life is illusory rather than real.
Ive already addressed some of the reasons for why this argument is lacking in a previous post.
The current point being, the conclusion that life is an illusion is not a product of scientism - but a product of the materialism/physicalism on which scientism is typically founded.
I was addressing not so much the OP's link but the OP's quote.
All the same, in reference to the OP's link, from where I stand, this assessment of yours sums up the situation nicely.
Loosely speaking, the OP is about what is real. I agreed with BC's point that humans are meaning making creatures who invent stories to help manage their environment. (Richard Rorty holds a similar view.) Some of those stories work better in some texts than others. And some of those stories, like the one in the OP, might be borne out of having too much spare time.
Right. Here's a more pithy question. What then is real rather than invented story?
But this question has the potential to lead one down the rabbit hole of philosophical enquiry. With plenty of potholes along the way.
Ok, I'll cease and desist then. :wink:
That's the underlying question of many an OP, regardless of the ostensible topic.
My own view is we don't get to the really real or the truthy truth, we just arrive at provisionally useful truths or realities about our environment, many of which seem to work and have practical consequences. I don't have commitments to any form of transcendental truth, or that science will one day explain everything.
BUt I guess I believed him because he graduated top honors and won awards like it mentions in the link:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/authors/srini-pillay-md
Didn't say it was. I was riffing off the seemingly endless question about what is real which is foundational to the OP.
I guess that makes sense. Personally though even though I know it's mistaken or nonsense I can't let it go because it feels like denying the truth.
Talk me through it.
But yea, when it comes to Eastern notions of Maya, I in this case far more respect your instincts than trust his awards.
Quoting Darkneos
Precisely.
If his goal is to say we are more than that he failed quite miserably at it. Though looking through his articles on psychologyToday Im a bit skeptical of him.
Not to mention nothing he cites in there would really prove his point either. Its weird now that I reflect on him. Didnt help each time I ask him for clarity I get nothing in terms of a solid answer
So whenever I try to move on from what people say that I dont agree with in my mind its like Im denying truth to be comfortable. I associate the pain something brings me with truth, which is stupid. But I cant stop it and its led to a lot of suffering in my life because believing something because its beneficial, helpful, or soothing to be is running from truth, lying to yourself, being stupid, insert terrible thing about you.
And I guess by extension I attribute being happy or at peace with lying to yourself (or insert bad thing). So Im stressed 24/7 believing things that cause me pain because to let them go is to lose, or be willfully ignorant, loser, etc.
Thats what I mean.
Its the only reason I would hold on to something that hurts me, because letting go is weakness.
I am no psychologist, counselor, self-help wizard, or anything to the like. Wanted to however comment:
Although not everyone, many both hereabouts and in the world at large, myself as no exception are to large extents self-righteously arrogant, unknowingly ignorant, and ignorantly callous. Which is to in part say that most could hardly give a damn about those in need if they dont have some material or social capital to gain from it to not even get into cases where there's a potential loss of either such capital for doing what one can to help. Its also to say that most people argue not to better discover that which is true but to further fortify their own ego, which in part consists of ready-constructed presumptions about oneself and the world upon which ones selfhood depends. Such that anyone who significantly differs from oneself is by default deemed wrong and, to varying extents, unfit. This dislike for others emerging irrespective of the others moral character and existential innocence.
Neither philosophers nor those who spend time philosophizing are, as cohorts, exempt from this competition of ego.
Life can be rough, this in more than just a few ways. Especially for those who dont partake of or who cannot even find any means of relating to the dog-eat-dog aspects of the world. It's not the whole of humanity, but it is a significant portion of it.
I get some of what you mean by associating the experience of pain with acquisition of new truths. Though not always, there often for me as well is a sting to the ego involved in a new existential discovery. A bursting of a bubble kind of thing, wherein one acknowledges that what one has so far upheld has been wrong all along. This occasional association between pain and truth, however, does not mandate that all new existential discoveries be uncomfortable to oneself. Nor that pain is somehow equivalent to strength. Heck, some intuitions and inspirations that lead one to see things anew with greater clarity can be downright pleasant intellectually, to say the least. And these pleasant occasions can provide a great deal of strength.
All of that briefly touched upon, I think at least part of you is on the right path in learning to think for yourself. This as evidenced by your questioning certain authority figures whose conclusions make little if any sense to you, such as what youve done in this thread. Theres something to be said about not following the dictums of authority figures blindly; in understanding that no human is infallible, not even those who are specialists and who most look up to. It's in no way about universal doubt, but about bearing in mind that ego most often prevails or is at least in part always entwined this irrespective of philosophical position. Reasoning things out for yourself to the best of your ability is certainly an important part of this. While Im at this "question authority and think for yourself" motto, engaging in random acts of kindness can be a noble endeavor as well.
As I said, I know of no panacea and Im not pretending to. Its a struggle for everyone at some time or another. Some treat life as a joke; others take it seriously. But everyone suffers during portions of it. One simply has to find the optimal means for oneself to face the storms when they come and battle with them or, better said, through them. Hopefully findings ways to hold onto integrity to an ethical heart in the process.
The answers you seek to your most important existential questions will, imo, likely not come from others, but from within yourself. Even if there is no success, there will still be dignity for yourself you will find in taking on the strife: in the noble battle with whatever obstacles you have to face.
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Quoting Darkneos
Again, not as any type of professional but as a fellow imperfect human being dwelling within an imperfect humanity, I wouldnt address complete strangers with such questions. Too many sharks in the seas to make such open questions profitable to you most of the time at least. People at large typically arent as compassionate as they profess to be. Still, this isnt to say that good souls dont occur in the world.
My own best, though imperfect, answer, is provided in what I've already typed. There is no stopping life's strife; there's only doing one's best to deal with it. And the personal pride that ought to accompany this.
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Hopefully at least some of this post will resonate with you. If not, kindly disregard it. Best of luck to you either way.
p.s. I in all likelihood will not have anything further to add on this matter. Again, I'm no professional on the subject.
Its given me some to ponder on. Im getting a sense of how my mind works and how I seem to judge things. A lot of the metrics I use to judge truth are bullshit and part of me knows it but like you said ego plays a big role in it. Through suffering I can tell myself that I see the world as it truly is, the cold and painful reality that people will ignore and lie to themselves otherwise. But thats a trap.
The other trap I have is that I follow something if I dont have an alternative explanation, which is just bad. Just because I dont have an answer to something doesnt mean theyre right.
Im starting to see how much work goes into thinking for yourself but also realizing that doing so means conflicting with others. Its unavoidable and I guess that means I have to grow out of being a people pleaser.
I think part of me already knows what I think and that Im capable of it too. Its just a lack of self esteem or fear of failure (one and the same) that keeps me locked into stuff that hurts.
Letting go of the pain feels like losing and giving up, which isnt logic. Pain and struggle dont always mean youre right, and in my case Im often in the wrong. I can ask the same question on different platforms, get the same answer each time (that Im wrong) and then insist that theyre the deluded ones because they choose comforting lies over truth. Though now I see thats stupid. Even more idiotic is believing something just because it hurts, theres no logic to that. At least you can make a case for believing something if its comforting or soothing from a utility perspective.
Though I think my ego is so wrapped up in being the suffering genius, even though that trope is only in books. That to let go is to be normal and stupid like the unwashed masses (even though Im in the wrong and other people can read what I read without suffering).
I guess writing it all out I see that I rely entirely on emotions or vibes and not reason or logic. Even though Im capable of thinking for myself I dont in order to avoid upsetting people or run the risk of being wrong. You know somethings wrong when you believe someone solely based off the perception that they seem like they know what theyre talking about (story of my life and it always it me in the ass).